Potted Pretties in Pencil

Posted: May 24, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Coloured pencil, how sweet, Penny Black, potted pretties | Tags: , | 5 Comments

This is the new ‘potted pretties’ stamp from Penny Black; it is pretty isn’t it? Although I love the soft blends of loose watercolour I also find pencil colouring very satisfying too, especially on kraft cardstock.

I use Faber Castell Polychromos pencils and chose a dark and a light pink along with white for the petals, two greens for the leaves and a tan with white for the pot. Once I had almost finished I added some more shadow to the centre of some flowers and the shadows of the leaves with a dark burgandy pencil – a trick I learned from Kathy Racoosin, colouring wizard.

If no-line watercolour is more your thing then I am colouring the same image in that style too. I’ll post it on the blog soon.

Don’t forget to check out my new online course if you haven’t already. The discount TEAMBLOG10 is still valid for a 10% discount at checkout. Thank you to those of you who have joined already. I am excited to hear from or see some prints once you’ve had a chance to dive in!

And another event you might be interested in if you are local is the Community Paper Crafting Garage Sale on June 10.

(Compensated affiliate links from Foiled Fox)

Hollyhock Heaven Indeed!

Posted: May 11, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: hollyhock heaven, how sweet, Penny Black | Tags: , , | 9 Comments

This is the stamp I didn’t know I’d been waiting for until I saw it in the new Penny Black release! Hollyhocks are such beautiful flowers. I don’t have any in my garden so obviously I need some on my cards!

As usual I worked in the stamp positioner with hot pressed watercolour paper. I first inked the centres of the open flowers with a dark red zig clean color brush marker, spritzed with water and stamped. Next I inked the stems and leaves at the top of the image with a green zig marker and stamped. I used saltwater taffy distress ink to ink all the flowers wiping ink off where I could see there were leaves. This is a bit of a tricky step but a bit of green in the wrong place can usually be diluted and dabbed off with paper towel. I blended all the petals with a paintbrush pulling the dark red ink into the paler pink. When stamping the lower leaves with mowed lawn distress ink the fence ended up green so I went over that with some hickory smoke ink and a paintbrush. When I was sure the flower petals were dry I added yellow to the centres just like my reference photo. To finish I splattered some green and taffy ink, added a little greeting from the PB ‘how sweet!’ set and tied some twine to fit in with the little fence.

Isn’t this stamp a stunner? I can’t wait to try other colours and pair it with other florals.

Now back to my gel printing class; it’s not going to publish itself!

(Compensated affiliate links from Foiled Fox & Scrap n Stamp)

Blooming Blue Again

Posted: July 6, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: blooming, Dies, how sweet, Penny Black, Tagged | Tags: , , , | 11 Comments

I’m still having fun with PB ‘blooming’ stamp. Once again I used blue inks but this time the combo was chipped sapphire and blueprint sketch. When blended I got blues and purples but not the pinks that seedless preserves provided. If you read my last post you might remember I unintentionally ended up with brown centres. This time I made sure I inked with fossilized amber and wild honey to create yellow centres.

I worked in the stamp positioner to make this panel and did all the green and blue inking and stamping first. I left the centres un-inked so I could add them after the petals were stamped, blended and dry. I don’t mind some blending but I didn’t want the blue and yellow to get too close and blendy because that would mean green centres. Once the yellow centres dried I used a black gel pen to add stamen.

I wanted to gussy this one up a little but still keep the clean look so I used a small piece of organza ribbon across the base of the panel then stamped on a banner die cut and tied it on with twine.

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Fresh Bouquet

Posted: April 27, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: fresh bouquet, how sweet, Karin brushmarkers, Penny Black | Tags: , , | 4 Comments

My Karin markers have been a bit neglected lately so I brought them out to work with the cute cup of flowers stamp from the PB ‘fresh bouquet’ set. I worked in a stamp positioner on hot pressed watercolour paper. First I inked the flower centres with the gold marker, next the blue petals with cyan, leaves with grass and berries with rosewood.

I used a paintbrush and water to pull ink from the stamping to fill the petals and leaves working loosely but taking care not to blend much from one ink to the next. Blue and yellow make green as you know and I didn’t want the petals or centres turning green.

Adding a sentiment was a bit tricky. The cup of flowers stamp comes with a large and lovely sentiment but it would have covered too many flowers. I need birthday cards at present so I stamped the little ‘happy birthday’ from the PB ‘how sweet’ set in paradise versafine clair ink and then wondered where to place it. It is rare that I will place a sentiment right in the middle of a card but it just seemed to work this time.

I have some beautiful tea cups, some from my mother, my nanna and my grandma. I rarely use them because I like a large mug of tea. Perhaps I could occasionally put a few flowers in one, once I have more than two tiny flowers in my garden.

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Irises

Posted: March 21, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Brusho, how sweet, iris elegance, Penny Black | Tags: , , , | 8 Comments

The new ‘iris elegance’ stamp from Penny Black is a delight to work with. The design is large so there is plenty of space in the petals for pretty watercolour blends. I inked the stamp with distress inks then blended the stamped ink with water to fill the flowers using some co-ordinating colours of brusho for extra depth and variation. I have been flipping back and forth between hot and cold pressed watercolour paper lately; this one is hot pressed.

I have purple irises that come up in my garden each year but they don’t have the yellow centres I’ve featured on these ones. Yellow tends to be a pigment that pushes other pigments away which worked well on the petals. I painted the purples and then while the paint was still wet added yellow paint which spread and pushed the purple without making too much brown.

I don’t always add background but I did this time by painting water around the flowers then adding some Payne’s grey paint and a little diluted purple. Once again I chose the sweet little birthday stamp from the new ‘how sweet’ stamp set. Speaking of backgrounds, thank you so much to everyone who left me a message saying nothing more was needed on the recent poppy card. I am so encouraged by you, my kind and generous readers!

The warm weather and rain of the last few days has melted quite a lot of snow and now I see some green tips emerging. I have also spied a cardinal and a blue jay on the feeder. Spring is definitely in the air.

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Distinctive

Posted: March 18, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: distinctive, how sweet, Penny Black | Tags: , | 8 Comments

I consider lupins one of my garden successes. It may be a stretch for me to take credit because they were here when we moved in and they are not gone yet so I feel like my part in the success has been just not killing them all! They start blooming not too long after the bulbs and I have them in white, purple, pink, purple/white and dark purple. Last year I took care to chop off all the dead heads and I still had some blooming in August! Some of the plants became aphid hotels so please let me know if you have a fix for that which doesn’t involve me picking them all off by hand!

The new lupin stamp from Penny Black is called ‘distinctive’ and it has two flower heads on one stem. I used shaded lilac, chipped sapphire and seedless preserves to ink the stamp so I could create lupins that are a close match to the ones that appear in my garden. The leaves and stems were inked with mowed lawn, forest moss and peeled paint distress inks. You can see in the close up that I have a mix of blended and unblended sections on the card. I used the misti, spritzed the stamp after inking and also did a bit of blending with a paintbrush after stamping. I think the mix of textures add to the appeal and adding some water helps the ink spread on the hot pressed watercolour paper.

The birthday sentiment is from the new PB set, ‘how sweet’. There are three little sentiments in the set along with a floral stamp. Oh, and of course there is splatter, but you probably noticed that already!

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