Wooden Cabin

I am really enjoying painting the new Scenic Foundations stamps from Art Impressions!  They are quick and easy to paint, as the layout and perspective are figured out for you.  You don't need to see which size of house works, or how to balance your scene - you can just pick your colours and get down to business.  Here is my card with 5747 - SF Wooden Cabin:

I inked up the entire stamp with Tombow #969/565 and stamped onto my Canson XL Watercolour Paper.  After pulling out the colour with a damp brush, I painted my cabin in a mixture that I created myself!  I wanted it to be a worn/faded reddish colour, but don't own a marker that works - so I mixed #856 and 969 on my palette, to create the look that I wanted.  I painted a darker version on the front of the house that is shadowed, and lighter on the side.  I decided on a yellow boat and front door, knowing that the rest of my scene would be mainly green & brown, so painted layers of #993 on both of them.

I started with #126, which is a lighter, yellow/green, painting the grassy areas in the foreground, then added #177 as the grass farther away.  I coloured up the two trees from 5372 - WC Mini Foliage Set in #177, and masked off the hillside so they would appear farther away before I stamped them.  The foliage stamp from the set was used to create the leaves on the tall tree.  #992 was painted on the roof, porch and down the path, as it's a faded brown colour, and #969 was used to darken up the tree, stump, and wharf.  I wanted more rocks down the path, so coloured part of one of the image from 5414 - WC Small Rocks Set.  Shades of #N65 and 992 were painted on the rocks and the chimney in a mottled fashion, adding shading with #565 and layers of all the colours.

The water was painted with #493, and 565 toward the edges, and #565 was used for the sky, and to add shadows to the windows, boat and under the wharf.  Using the twigs from 5196 - WC Desert Set, I stamped a couple of shrubs behind the rocks and stump using #969, and added leaves directly with my marker.  The long grass was also drawn in.  I used my brown Twintone marker to add the lines back into the bark of the tree.

Be sure to check out the Ai blog on Saturday for the Watercolour Weekend post to see what Diane and Tricia have created.

New Scenic Foundations

For the upcoming Watercolour Weekend on the Art Impressions blog, I'm sharing one of the new Scenic Foundations sets that was released this week.  Here is 5745 Stone Bridge:

I coloured the entire image (it's all one stamp!) in Tombow #969/565 and stamped onto my Canson XL Watercolour paper.  Since the image is rectangular, but not defined by an outside line, I used a pencil to sketch in the outer rectangle shape so that I knew where to confine my painting.  After pulling out the colour with a damp brush, I began painting the house, layering # 992/977 on the roof, bench and pathway, adding extra layers of colour on the shadier areas.  I decided that my house would be white, so added layers of 565 to create the shaded sides, keeping the brighter sides pure white, and I used it to paint in the windows, and add shadows under the roof lines.  I used tones of warm and cool grays N65 and N57 to paint the chimney and stone bridge in a bit of a mottled fashion, keeping the darker tones to the lower side of each stone, which would be more shadowed.  565 was added in for extra shading, and used to paint the under side of the bridge.  

With the small dot flowers and greenery sprig from 5009 - WC Mini Flower Set, I added the garden around the house, using 565/993/177, and used 993 to paint the bench.  The house needed a pop of colour, so layers of #856 gave me a red door, which becomes the focal point of the scene.  I used #177 to paint the faraway hill, and #126 the closer grass, and used both colours along with the foliage stamp from 5372 - WC Mini Foliage to create the leaves on the tree.  A light wash of #493 was painted in the sky, leaving white areas that became clouds, and a darker wash created the stream.  I erased the lines defining my rectangle, matted my scene on some green cardstock and adhered it to the pretty plaid from the 5606 - Harvest Journal PP.  I cut out two of the Spring die from 5719 - FB Fence and Journal Set in a lighter green cardstock, and adhered it to the bottom of my scene.

Be sure to check out the Ai blog on Saturday to see what Diane & Tricia have to share!