Bright night

Would you believe some new tree stamps join my collection? You can never have too many! These two artistic silhouettes are not two halves of the same tree as you might first think but two separate stamps by Penny Black which come in a set of three, Snowy Village, including a little village stamp that would look cute in the distance between the two trees. My scene leans a little more to the whimsical side of things with a multicoloured starlit landscape.

I started by splattering masking fluid over a piece of hot pressed watercolour paper. When it was dry I used a stamp positioning tool to stamp the two large trees on either side of the panel. The stamp positioner made it possible to stamp several times with versafine onyx black ink so I had completely black images. Once the ink dried I began painting with a range of Ken Oliver’s colorburst powders. I tapped a tiny bit out of a bunch of bottles into a palette then added a drop of water when I was ready to use that colour. I began by painting a section of water in the middle of the panel which stayed fairly light as I added colour above and below. I used mainly blues and pinks above the horizon with a spot of yellow here and there. Below the horizon I added more green and painted some hard edges to suggest gullies and rises. I let the panel dry a bit but not completely before I stamped a strip of distant trees in memento northern pine ink. The strip of trees is from another new PB set, Peaceful winter. As the panel was still damp the background trees softened and bled into the surrounding area.

To finish the scene I splattered water then soaked it up again with a paper towel to get some ghostly dots then splattered a bit of black over the base area. It was tricky deciding whether to mat or not but I ended up popping it up over a white card base.

My inspiration for this bright scene was a painting I saw on Pinterest; you can see the artist’s work here.

Supplies

Stamps:  Snowy Village, Peaceful winter (made by Penny Black)
Inks: versafine onyx black, memento northern pine (made by Tsukineko)
Paint: Colorburst ultramarine blue, indigo, cerulean blue, tangerine, terre verte, pthalo green, chartreuse, burnt sienna, fuchsia
Papers: Neenah solar white 110lb, Fabriano hot pressed watercolour paper, white textured cardstock
Also: Pebeo drawing gum