Classes here and there

If you live in the Ottawa or Toronto area this post is for you. I’d like to draw your attention to my upcoming classes page. I teach art and card making classes each month in Ottawa, a few times a year in Toronto and occasionally in other places. All my classes are listed on my Upcoming classes page but I thought I would mention them here on the blog and highlight one you won’t find listed on my class page.

On April 7 I will be in Toronto teaching a Coloured Pencil Technique class

and my Watercolour Wings class.

In Ottawa on April 12, 13, 14(already full) & 16 and in Toronto on May 26th I am excited to be teaching my Galaxy Art class.

In Ottawa on May 10, 11, 12 & 14 and in Toronto on May 26 I will be celebrating spring with my Floral Focus class.

You will find all the details on my Upcoming Classes page. You can sign up for most classes through the links on the class page but to attend the ones held at Crop A While in Ottawa you will need to contact the store directly. Crop A While scrapbooking store is hosting a “Hello Spring Super Crop” on April 28 where I will be teaching a mini class (one card). To register for the crop and my mini class you will need to contact Crop A While. If you have any questions please use the contact me link.

Bodacious brusho

Posted: April 2, 2018 | Author: Heather | Filed under: bodacious, Brusho, CAS | Tags: Brusho, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps | 8 Comments

This week I have a couple of painted die cut cards to share. To create this one I first sprinkled leaf green, sunburst yellow and rose red brusho over a piece of hot pressed watercolour paper and spritzed with water to activate the paint. The colours did blend together a little but I was able to keep some distinct red, yellow and green areas. Once dry I used the ‘bodacious’ die from Penny Black to cut several flowers. I also cut white flowers with the same die. When creating my layout I glued down a few white diecut flowers first then coloured ones over the top. I trimmed stems and buds so I could arrange the flowers at different heights and facing different directions.

I embossed a sentiment from the ‘smile today’ set in platinum, trimmed the white background panel and attached it to a white card base.

Supplies

Stamps: smile today!

Die: bodacious

Paper: hot pressed watercolour, neenah solar white, white linen texture paper

Paint: leaf green, sunburst yellow, rose red brusho

Also: platinum embossing powder

Poppy blessing

Posted: March 21, 2018 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Parade of flowers | Tags: Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer Watercolour pencils, Penny Black stamps, WOW embossing powders | 4 Comments

This is the second card I’ve posted featuring the ‘parade of flowers’ stamp from Penny Black. To create this one I used just a section of the stamped image and worked with the emboss resist method. I stamped in versamark and embossed in clear powder on hot pressed watercolour paper.

The painting is all done with watercolour pencils. I use a waterbrush or wet paintbrush to pick up colour from the pencils. I used 2-3 pinks to fill the flowers, a green for the stems, a brown for the seed pod and black for the poppy centre. I painted the background with a grey watercolour pencil, added a sentiment in versafine smokey gray ink, a pink mat and a little twist of twine.

Happy Spring!

Supplies

Stamps: parade of flowers, choose happy

Inks: versamark, versafine smokey gray

Pencils: Faber-Castell Albrecht Dürer watercolour pencils

Paper: hot pressed watercolour paper, pink cardstock

Also: clear embossing powder, twine

Floral Arrangement

Posted: March 15, 2018 | Author: Heather | Filed under: floral arrangement | Tags: distress oxide inks, liquid metals, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps | 11 Comments

I have a burst of colour and some sprinklings of sparkle to share today. I am enjoying the entries in the ‘Sparkle With Us‘ challenge but I would love to see more. There are still five days left to add your sparkly project to the gallery, just click over to see all the details.

I used some new and some older distress oxide inks to create my colourful background. My paper is hot pressed watercolour and my technique was pressing the oxide pad on a craft mat, spritzing with water then swiping my paper through the ink. I did this numerous times but always dried the panel between swipes, that way I was able to build up layers and pockets of colour. After I had added my last layer of oxide ink I put some diluted liquid metal (metallic sky) on my craft mat and swiped the panel through that; the result was some blue shimmer over the blue painted area.

To create my spray of flowers I used the Penny Black ‘floral arrangement’ die to cut three flower sprays from ‘parchment’ patterned vellum, one of the designs in the grafix assorted vellum pad. I snipped the die cut flowers to create a layered arrangement of small flowers and leaves. The die does cut a larger flower, but I didn’t use it on this card. I put all my die cuts in a box and splattered gold paint from the gansai tambi starry colors set over them. After they dried I attached the leaves and flowers on my panel and I added a drop of glue to some of the flowers and sprinkled gold micro beads onto the glue. I co-ordinated the sentiment with the beads by embossing it in gold. All the supplies are listed below.

Do you think I might be able to label this one mixed media?

Supplies

Stamp: smile today

Die: floral arrangement

Inks: tattered rose, candied apple, blueprint sketch, fossilized amber distress oxide, versamark

Paper: hot pressed watercolour paper, parchment patterned vellum, neenah solar white

Paint: gansai tambi starry colors, metallic sky liquid metal

Also: On point glue, gold micro beads, gold embossing powder

Exquisite

Posted: March 9, 2018 | Author: Heather | Filed under: birds and banners, exquisite, Script | Tags: Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress stains | 7 Comments

My final springy card for this week features this lovely big flower in two of my favourite distress stains, chipped sapphire and seedless preserves. I stamped this one on cold pressed watercolour paper so once again having the panel in a stamp positioner helped me get a good impression. I inked first with chipped sapphire over parts of the flower, stamped, wiped off the stamp and inked sections again but this time with seedless preserves. I ended up with some blue flowers, some pink and some a purple mix.

I blended the petals of all the flowers with a damp brush and let them all dry. I was going to leave all the centres white but it didn’t look right so I ended up painting them all darker with undiluted stain. To create a soft textured background I dropped a few drops of water around the flower then partially stamped the script stamp in the same ink stains. I dabbed out some ink with a paper towel and added some splatter as well. To frame the whole panel I ran the seedless preserves dauber around the edges then softened the colour with a damp brush.

To complete the card I stamped a sentiment on a fancy little die cut banner and popped it up over the stem of the flower.

Supplies

Stamps: exquisite, script, banner sentiment (Penny Black)

Die: birds & banners

Inks: chipped sapphire & seedless preserves distress stains, majestic blue versafine ink

Paper: cold & hot pressed watercolour paper

Aviary

Posted: March 8, 2018 | Author: Heather | Filed under: aviary, Coloured pencil | Tags: Faber-Castell Polychromos Colour Pencil, Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolour paints, Penny Black stamps, Tsukineko Versafine inks | 7 Comments

I have been using my coloured pencils more often recently. For this card I used them to add finishing touches and details after I had painted the majority of the design with watercolours. I used my gansai tambi paints for the watercolour then polychromos pencils for the details. I even wrote down the numbers just in case you were interested but really you don’t need my choices you could just use your own favourites.

One thing I did which worked in my favour was limit my colour palette. I mixed colours I had already used rather than continually adding new ones. This helps with the cohesiveness of the finished panel. I started by stamping the ‘aviary’ stamp on hot pressed watercolour paper in versafine smokey grey. I painted the area surrounding the birdhouse first with blue and green paint. I kept it mainly blue and used a ‘wet into wet’ method, painting around edges first with water then adding paint. A medium sized brush that comes to a good point can help with this as there is a lot of space to cover but also some tricky areas to navigate. Also if your brush is too small or doesn’t hold liquid well you will be forever picking up more water or paint.

Once the background was dry I painted the flower pots in brown and added shadows with the blue I used on the sky. After that I painted the birdhouse, once again with the brown and blue then added black for some darker shadows and definition. I decided to limit the flowers to pink and purple painting the taller plant on the left with a diluted purple paint and the magnolia on the right with touches of dark pink blended out with water. I left the centre flowers to do with coloured pencil. I used the same green from the background to paint the leaves and a combination of colours already used to paint the birds.

I couldn’t decide on a colour for the foreground the pots are sitting on so I used the dirty paint water. It turned out to be a teeny bit on the purple side but mainly on the dirty side so it didn’t clash with anything else. I added shadows with black. With all the basic painting done I switched to coloured pencils to add fine details. I picked pencils that matched the paint colours and went over some outlines or added tiny details inside leaves and flowers.

Thanks for dropping by today.

Supplies

Stamps: Aviary

Inks:

Paints: Kuretake gansai tambi 20, 36, 57, 46, 63

Pencils: Faber Castell polychromos 108, 158, 188, 274, 136, 142, 141, 231, 101

Parade of flowers

Posted: March 7, 2018 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Parade of flowers | Tags: Dr Ph Martin Hydrus watercolor paints, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks, Tsukineko Versafine inks | 5 Comments

The flowers continue to bloom across my blog this week and it’s making me pretty keen for spring to arrive. Today’s poppies are as realistic and detailed as you are likely to see from me! A little different from my distress stain loose and watery florals. I used a stamp positioner to stamp ‘parade of flowers’ in antique linen distress ink on cold pressed watercolour paper; because of the texture of the cold pressed paper I stamped a few times to guarantee a complete image.

All the painting was done with Dr Ph Martins Hydrus watercolours. When undiluted the colours are very vibrant so I put only a drop of each colour in a palette then added water. To keep the colour scheme muted and cohesive I limited my paint choices. The petals are painted with ‘deep red rose’ and the leaves and stems a mix of phthalo green, deep red rose and Venetian brown. The centres of the flowers are gamboge, with dark details added in ultramarine and Venetian brown.

I worked on one petal at a time painting first with water then dropping in some deep red rose paint. I blended the colour to the edges then added more paint if necessary to create shadow or deeper colour near centre of flower. While each petal dried I worked on a non-adjacent one. When all the petals were dry I added some more red here and there to create a bit more depth and when that dried I used a very fine tipped brush to paint veins on some of the petals. I wanted to stamp the sentiment on a matching panel so I painted diluted deep red rose paint on a scrap of hot pressed watercolor paper the die cut three tags using die from ‘gift card pocket’ set. With the stamp postioner I was able to stamp ‘With Love’ sentiment from ‘special wishes’ set on tags one at a time so when together they would over lap each other.

I wrapped twine around top of painted panel, attached the three sentiment tags over the top and attached the panel to a natural coloured card base.

Don’t forget to pop over to the ‘Sparkle with Us’ challenge hosted by The Foiled Fox and me. There is already some sparkly inspiration linked up but we’d love to see more.

Supplies

Stamps: parade of flowers, special wishes

Die: gift card pocket

Paper: rough 100% cotton watercolour paper, hot pressed watercolour paper

Ink: antique linen distress ink, imperial purple versafine ink

Paints: deep red rose, gamboge, pthalo green, Venetian brown, ultramarine Dr Ph Martins Hydrus watercolors (soon to be available at The Foiled Fox)

Also: antique hemp twine

tulip bouquet

Posted: March 6, 2018 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Brusho, tulip bouquet | Tags: Brusho, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks | 3 Comments

Here are some more blooms to spur on the spring feelings. I worked on an abstract brusho background, one of the panels I mentioned back in an earlier post created with some sprinkled and spritzed brusho. I took my colour cues from the brusho and stamped the stems and leaves in forest moss distress ink and petals in spiced marmalade.

Next I sprinkled very small amounts of gamboge brusho in the tulips and activated it with a damp brush. I did one petal at a time to stop them all just blending into the same shade. I made sure some areas stayed dark and others were more diluted and light. I did the same thing for the stems and leaves but used turquoise and olive green brusho.

The panel is cold pressed watercolour paper so there is some texture to it. Have you tried stamping over a brusho background? I enjoyed the way the brusho dictated the colour scheme for me but didn’t take over the whole panel.

Supplies:

Stamps: tulip bouquet, smile today!

Paper: cold pressed watercolour paper, neenah natural white

Inks: spiced marmalade distress ink, forest moss distress ink, olympia green versafine ink

Paints: gamboge, turquoise, olive green brusho

Tools: Stamping platform

Blossom branch video tutorial

Posted: March 5, 2018 | Author: Heather | Filed under: blossom branch | Tags: Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks, Tsukineko Versafine inks | 14 Comments

I am happy to be sharing all manner of sweet spring goodness here and on the Penny Black blog this week. Starting the week is this gorgeous blossom branch stamp and a video tutorial. Blossom branch is a brushstroke stamp so I was after a hand painted look on my finished project. In my previous video I used distress stains applied to the stamp. For this project I worked with distress inks and markers, once again a water-soluble medium but in a format that can be applied with more accuracy than distress stains. The result is more detail on the final image.

I worked in a stamp positioning tool so I could add one or two colours at a time, three shades of green for the leaves and several pinks for the petals. You can see my process in the video. At one point the camera cut out without me realising so you don’t see all the blending of petal. I used the same process for all the flowers though, so you can get the idea from all that was filmed. I included a tip for a quick matching envelope too.

Hope you have fun with this technique. See you tomorrow.

Join my online card class COLOUR CLUES to create floral beauties!

Supplies

Stamps: blossom branch, choose happy

Inks: versafine vintage sepia, shabby shutters, crushed olive, peeled paint marker,

worn lipstick, abandoned coral, barn door marker, gathered twigs marker

Paper: hot pressed watercolour paper

Also: MISTI, gold signo gel pen

Airy thank you

Posted: March 2, 2018 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Airy, Brusho, Foiling | 5 Comments

More sparkle for you today. I’m hoping to inspire you to ‘Sparkle With Us’, and what I mean by that is join in the challenge I’m hosting with The Foiled Fox; you can read about it on yesterday’s post. If you like to add a little sparkle here and there on your projects this challenge is for you. If your projects are seriously sparkly then this is also the challenge for you. I chose foil to add the sparkle on this project and I used peel n stick toner sheets to make some ‘ready to foil’ die cut elements. The Foiled Fox shared these sheets with me and they made adding foiled details so easy!

I started by making an abstract background panel with brusho. (Have I mentioned how much I love brusho?) This panel features sea green and olive green brusho but you can see turquoise and orange showed up also. I spritzed a large panel of cold pressed watercolour paper then sprinkled the brusho over it and let it spread. I did a bit of tilting and spritzing and left the panel to dry. As it was a large panel I ended up cutting it into four smaller panels to be used on separate projects. I used two new dies, ‘airy’ and ‘so many thanks’ to cut a couple of leafy branches and a sentiment from the peel n stick toner sheet then ran them through the minc with gold foil. You can make your own toner sheets with a laser printer but they are not sticky on the back so I felt spoiled using these convenient adhesive ones. I peeled off the backing and stuck them on my brusho panel. It is tricky to photograph foiled projects but I think you can see the shine!

Hope you can ‘Sparkle With Us‘ this month.

Supplies:

Dies: airy, so many thanks

Paper: cold pressed watercolour paper, thermoweb deco foil peel n stick toner sheets

Paints: sea green, olive green brusho

Also: gold foil, minc