Ai Monthly Challenge

Did you know that Art Impressions has started a monthly challenge on the Ai blog?  They're going to be a little different each month, but January's is a colour challenge!  It's a lovely pastel-ly feeling colour palette (scroll down to see the inspiration photo), so I pulled out four of my Tombow markers and created a quick scene.

Using #N57, I coloured up one of the cats from 4873 - WC Cats Set, and stamped it onto my Canson XL Watercolour Paper.  I masked the kitty, and stamped the plant stand from 5568 - Rocker & Plant Stand Set, also coloured in N57.  I pulled out all the colour with a damp brush, then created my bouquets - using the circle of flowers from 4868 - WC Flower Set 2 in #673, the dot flowers from 5009 - WC Mini Flower Set in #761, and the small foliage in #312.  I wanted a little height in the top bouquet, so added the grasses from 5126 - WC Foliage Set 4 in #312.  I painted in the kitty & stand by picking up N57 from my palette, and used #491 for the pots.  A wash of #493 was painted in the background, and I used #565 to add shading in and around all of my images.

I die cut the scene with my Oval Hemstitched die from Spellbinders, and adhered it to my base with some 3D foam tape, and matted it with a pale grey.  A pink organdy bow finished it off.  Hope you'll have time to play along, there are always great prizes to be won!

Ai Rocker

For this Saturday's Watercolour Weekend on the Art Impressions blog, I wanted to create a scene with warm, pretty colours, so I pulled out the 5568 - Rocker & Plant Stand Set from the Winter release:

I coloured the image in Tombows #969/565, and stamped it onto my Canson XL Watercolor Paper.  After pulling out the colour with a damp brush, I selected my colour palette.  For my yellow rocker, I used #993, using layers to build up the warm yellow tones, adding in #947 to some of the darker areas.  The bird's belly and the lower pot were painted with #407, using it to paint a darker stripe around the pot as well.  The other pot and the squirrel from 5599 - Mini Mice & Squirrel Set were painted with layers of #947, making the edges of the pot deeper in tone, as well as the under side of the squirrel.  The pots were filled with the two trailing foliage stamps from 5126 - WC Foliage Set 4 in #126, by just colouring part of the stamps, and varying the angles they were stamped around the pots.  Using the Daisy bunch from 4052 - Flower Set, in #993 and #803, and the tiny heart circle from 4868 - WC Flower Set 2 in #533 and #925, I filled the pots with flowers.  #565 was used to paint the bird's wings, and as shadows around the pots and on the chair.

I wanted to ground the rocker, so I created a line behind it, and drew in the suggestion of the siding on a house, to indicate that the rocker is sitting on a porch.  The floor was washed with N57.  To finish my scene, I used two of the branches from 4964 - WC Branches Set in #969 added to each pot, and used my Twintone marker to add a few dots around them.  Be sure to check out the Ai blog this weekend to see what Diane & Tricia have created.