Moonlit Rendezvous

Isn’t this an amazing tree stamp? As I have said before you can never have too many tree stamps and happily the stamp designers at Penny Black seem to agree.

I chose to let this stamp be the star of the card and just made a pretty sky for the background. This was not a tricky card to make but I had to think about the order of operations. First I die-cut a circle from frisket film and firmly attached it to a piece of hot pressed watercolour paper. Frisket film is a clear plastic film with adhesive on one side and is used for masking areas on art work that you want to remain unpainted. After the circle mask was in place I splattered a little masking fluid around the top part of the panel. I wasn’t really wanting it to look like snow on this card, more like stars.

To paint the sunset/moonrise I worked from light to dark always overlapping and blending each colour with the last. I began with mustard seed distress stain, then worn lipstick, festive berries, seedless preserves and finally a little bit of chipped sapphire right at the top.

Once the painting was dry I removed the circle mask and masking fluid before stamping the tree. I used my MISTI to stamp because the stamp has very fine detail and the watercolour paper, even though it is hot pressed still has some texture. With the MISTI I was able to stamp and overstamp until I had a solid black tree. I trimmed the panel so the land at the base of the tree touched the edge of the panel and appeared to join up with my black mat. With the tree centred like it is I decided not to add a sentiment. I can’t wait to create other scenes with these beautiful trees.

Supplies

Stamps: Rendezvous (PB)
Ink: Versafine onyx black ink, (Tsukineko) mustard seed, worn lipstick, festive berries, seedless preserves, chipped sapphire distress stain (Ranger)
Paper: hot pressed Canson Moulin du Roy watercolour paper, Neenah Epic black cardstock
Also: Grafix extra tack frisket film, Daler Rowney masking fluid