Winter Berry Beauty
Posted: November 11, 2022 Filed under: berry beauty, Music Background, Penny Black | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks 10 Comments
A few weeks back I inked this stamp in autumn colours which reflected what I was seeing outside my window. I promised to do a more wintry version and here it is. Once again I worked on hot pressed watercolour paper with masking fluid splatters over it. I kept the panel in the stamp positioner so I could work on the red berries and green leaves separately avoiding too much bleeding of green into red and vice versa.
I used fired brick, barn door and aged mahogany to get variety in the berries. I inked, stamped then blended with a damp paintbrush. The leaves are a mix of forest moss and peeled paint. When I had finished stamping and painting the leaves and berries I noticed how much ‘masking fluid’ splatter was not covered in ink. If I don’t paint or stamp over it there is less of the falling snow effect on the finished panel. Rather than paint around the berries I used blending brushes to add shabby shutters distress ink on the left and broken china on the right. I also stamped a bit of music background in peeled paint.
The sentiment is from the PB Christmas feeling set and the finished card is a little larger than my usual at 6.25″ x 4.5″. I did a count of completed Christmas cards the other day and found I am further ahead than I thought. How are you progressing. What is your goal? Just curious…I’m aiming for around 100 and the Australia bound ones need to get in the mail soonish!
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Snowy Panorama
Posted: November 7, 2022 Filed under: panorama, Penny Black, Stamped Landscapes | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks 7 Comments
As I post yet another winter scene I can tell you there is still no sign of winter round here. We’ve been having mild fall days. It is weird for it to be so warm with the trees almost bare! To create today’s card I used Penny Black’s ‘panorama’ stamp. I stamped the horizon line first in broken china distress ink. This is a step I often do if I want to paint the sky with the wet on wet technique. By stamping the edge where the snow meets the trees I was able to paint water on the whole panel from the horizon up then add in broken china and uncharted mariner to get a varied blue sky. I did get blue ink on the white tree trunks but I had already decided I would touch them up with white paint at the end of the process.
While the sky was still drying (in the stamp postioner) I inked the distant trees with forest moss and pine needles and stamped. The ink soaked into the damp paper creating the soft focus effect you see above. I dried the panel then switched to an archival ink to stamp the three foreground trees. I also stamped them in black soot distress ink and the lines in the snow with uncharted mariner. I blended a bit with a paint brush but also spritzed lightly to get the inks to feather out a little.
You can probably tell I started with splattered masking fluid on the watercolour panel. I tend to do a few panels at a time so they are ready later when I want to stamp a winter scene. If you don’t want to bother with masking fluid you can always splatter with white paint when you have finished your scene.
Thank you to all who left me a kind message on my Rivulet card post. Many of your guesses were close; like me you picked a brown and a blue. The two inks were uncharted mariner and ground espresso; I love the range of hues I got when those two mixed.
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Rivulet
Posted: November 3, 2022 Filed under: Penny Black, rivulet, Stamped Landscapes | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks 23 Comments
I love it when I find a stamp that looks like somewhere I’ve been. I couldn’t tell you exactly where this is but I have experienced scenery like this. I’ve said it before but winter here in the dark cold north is very beautiful. This gorgeous PB stamp is called ‘rivulet‘ and I used only two inks! I am going to let you guess the inks. I’ll update the links below in a few days but I’d really like to see your guesses. (hint: they are distress inks)
I worked on a piece of hot pressed watercolour paper splattered with masking fluid. I used the splatter brush I have used in the past. It gives a fine splatter. If I want bigger spots masked I will use an old paint brush. I worked in a stamp positioner, stamping first in one ink colour, then partially inking the stamp with the second colour before stamping again. I used a fine tip paint brush to blend the ink to fill the tree trunks and rivulet. I smooshed the inks on my glass mat so I could pick up extra ink if needed to fill some areas.
The panel is larger than my usual 4.25″x 5.5″ but I didn’t want to trim it so I left a little extra space at the bottom of a larger card base for the sentiment from PB set ‘jolly snippets. I have already made a second card with this stamp, changing ink colours to suggest a different time of day. Don’t forget to leave your ink colour guesses for this card in the comments below!
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Treasured Pine
Posted: November 1, 2022 Filed under: grafix, Penny Black, treasured pine | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, grafix, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress stains, Staedtler watercolour brush pens 6 Comments
You are excused for thinking you have scene this card before. When I get a new pine branch stamp I often set it against a blue sky. I have a pine tree in my front yard and I think it is at its best under a blue sky after a fresh fall of snow. Most of the year said pine tree is just making a mess in our yard and driveway. This lovely stamp is from Penny Black and is called ‘treasured pine’.
I worked on hot pressed watercolour that had been splattered with masking fluid earlier. I smooshed both speckled egg and uncharted mariner distress inks on a glass mat, spritzed with water then swiped my watercolour panel through the ink several times. I also spritzed water on the panel to spread the ink further.
Once the background was dry I worked in a stamp positioner to stamp first the pinecone in a couple of brown inks then the pine needles in a couple of greens. I blended the ink on the pinecones with a brush to intensify the coverage and after the inks dried added white to the snow covered areas with a posca paint pen. I added a sentiment from the PB ‘feeling of Christmas’ set. To see a couple more pine themed designs click here and here
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Winter Barn
Posted: October 28, 2022 Filed under: Papertrey Inks, winter barn | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black stamps, Ranger archival inks, Ranger Distress inks 11 Comments
We’ve been having such warm pleasant weather lately this scene seems like a very distant prospect. The tide is turning though; it was rather chilly out today, not snow-covered-barn chilly but, could-have-worn-a-jacket chilly. This stamp is called winter barn and it’s new from Penny Black. I worked on hot pressed watercolour paper in a stamp positioner and started by stamping the whole scene in soft stone ink, a pale grey which gives me the whole scene in a pale tone which won’t interfere with the colours I add over the top. I used barn door distress ink (of course) for the barn, black soot archival and distress ink for the trees, ground espresso distress for the fence and uncharted mariner for all the sky and shadows in the driveway.
I stamped the barn with just the red ink first then as I blended added brown shadows both by re-stamping and with a paint brush. I stamped the tree in archival ink and amalgam ink (both waterproof) so I could paint the sky over the stamping. I did paint carefully around the snow laden branches to leave some areas white. I stamped the fence in ground espresso but used black soot when blending the ink to give shadows to the fence posts. I blended some areas of the driveway but left some sections unblended which seemed to work well to suggest the ruts in the snow after it’s been driven on.
When I was happy with the scene I splattered on some white paint to look like snow.
Just a quick question for those of you with barns or experience with barns, do they often have chimneys? I would have thought the hay might be a fire risk…
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Autumn Berry Beauty
Posted: October 24, 2022 Filed under: berry beauty, Penny Black | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks 12 Comments
As I mentioned in my last post, the colours are beautiful around here at the moment. At certain times of day there seems to be warm golden light coming through a few of our windows. When I look closer it is sunlight hitting orange and yellow leaves and reflecting into the room. It’s a little bit magical. Even though this new Penny Black ‘berry beauty’ stamp was probably designed with winter in mind I decided to put it to work on an autumn card first. I was hoping to create a little golden magic.
If you look closely you can see some white spots; I worked on a panel splattered with masking fluid. I kept the stamp in a postioner and inked the leaves and berries with fossilized amber distress ink, the stems and parts of each leaf with a pine needles distress marker and sections of the berries with spiced marmalade ink. I did the leaves first, spritzing the stamp lightly before stamping and blending the yellow and green with a paintbrush after stamping. I worked on the berries in the same way picking up extra orange ink to darken some berries to create depth and shadow.
To create the golden glowy background I blended some fossilized amber ink into the spaces with a blending brush then painted over it with water to blend it further. Once the background was dry I splattered some spiced marmalade ink and removed the masking fluid to reveal the white dots and splots. The sentiment from PB ‘always thankful’ set is stamped in rustic wilderness archival ink.
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Holly Flourish 2 for 1
Posted: October 19, 2022 Filed under: Dies, Finetec paints, gel press, holly flourish, Penny Black | Tags: Finetec artist mica watercolour paint, gel press, Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolour paints, Penny Black creative dies 7 Comments
This isn’t the first 2 for 1 card combo I have posted. A few weeks back I did a similar thing with a striped watercolour background. Today’s cards are cut from gel printing clean up sheets. When gel printing I have a heavy weight art paper to the right of my gel plate where I roll off excess paint from the brayer. I cut this yellow, red and blue panel from one of those sheets.
The pretty Penny Black die is called ‘holly flourish’ and, as you can see fills a card front nicely. I have used the cut out below and splattered both negative and positive panels with gold paint. The cardstock is Neenah solar white and I added a gold cord detail to the card above.
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Garland Wreath
Posted: October 17, 2022 Filed under: Dies, joy of giving, nature's garlands, Penny Black, stocking stuffers | Tags: Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps 3 Comments
Today’s card combines stamps from Penny Black’s ‘nature’s garlands’ stamp set and die cut foliage from the PB ‘stocking stuffers’ and ‘joy of giving’ sets. I stamped the foliage stamps on white cardstock, pine in green and wispy branch in blue.
I die cut the foliage from pale blue, pale peach and burgandy cardstock and glued them over the circle of stamped foliage. The sentiment is from the PB ‘jolly snippets’ set and is popped up over the messy centre.
I feature other designs like this one in my Wreaths – Stamped & Painted online class.
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Loose winter watercolour
Posted: October 11, 2022 Filed under: Penny Black, scarlet | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks 6 Comments
A few weeks back I posted a very neat and carefully painted card with this pretty ‘scarlet’ stamp from Penny Black. For that one I stamped in a pale ink so I could do some no-line watercolour. For this card I worked in a much looser style. Some have called in my wishy-washy style.
I enjoy working in this style because I can end up with some very organic and serendipitous blends. Sometimes I end up with muddy unappealing blends also but on a big enough design those sections can be cropped away.
To create this panel I splattere masking fluid on hot pressed watercolour paper. Once the masking fluid was dry I worked in a stamp positioner while applying distress inks to sections of the stamp. I did the red petals first, blended the stamping with a brush and water then once the petals were dry moved onto the leaves and berries. There is a little ink blending from the red into the green but not so much as to create brown areas.
I painted around the petals, leaves and berries with Payne’s grey watercolour paint then when it was almost dry stamped the pine needles in weathered wood distress ink. The sentiment in stamped in hickory smoke archival ink.
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Beautiful Birch – three blues
Posted: October 3, 2022 Filed under: beautiful birch, Penny Black | Tags: Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks 8 Comments
This bluer than blue sky looks different in person than on my computer screen. I am sure it will look different wherever you view it too. Let me tell you though that I used three pretty blue distress inks to paint around the Penny Black ‘beautiful birch’ stamp.
I stamped the tree stamp in archival black ink so it wouldn’t bleed once I started painting diluted blue inks all around it. I splattered masking fluid on the watercolour paper to represent snow and added a circle mask cut from masking tape. You add the mask after you have stamped the tree.
I did all the blue painting with the inks listed below and let the panel dry before adding shading and shadow on the tree trunks with weathered wood, hickory smoke and black soot distress inks. I decided against a sentiment because I didn’t want to cover the blues but I can always add one later or just inside the card.
Hope your skies are blue today!
Supplies
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Heather Telford 