Winter Joy

More poinsettias to share today. These ones are from the Penny Black transparent set ‘winter joy’. I embossed several poinsettias in gold and did some loose colouring with distress inks inside the poinsettias then decided to paint a warm antique linen background with a little red added in.

Distress inks are easy to use as watercolour paints. I just press my ink pads onto my glass mat or an acrylic block then pick up the ink with a paint brush. I can add water to make a paler colour or work with undiluted ink.

You can see in the close up how loose I kept the painting both inside and outside the petals. What you can’t see so well is the pretty shine of the gold embossing and the gold twine. I’d like to try painting a white poinsettia for a change; it is a bit more of a challenge though to work out how to add colour even though I want it to appear white. If I have success I’ll be showing you.

Supplies

Stamps: winter joy, Christmas sentiments

Inks: versamark, forest moss, antique linen, barn door, wild honey, tulip red versafine clair

Paper: hot pressed watercolour, neenah cream

Also: metallic gold rich embossing powder, glass mat, gold cord

Poinsettia gift set

Posted: December 2, 2016 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Winter Joy | Tags: Artline Stix brush markers, Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer Watercolour pencils, Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Peerless Transparent Watercolors, Penny Black stamps, Tombow fudenosuke brush pen | 20 Comments

Although I had posts popping up on the blog while I was away for a month all the projects had been created and photographed before I left for Australia. I did take some art materials with me and spent a little bit of time creating this gift set for my sister-in-law. I was able to catch up with her a couple of times, once for dinner and a concert where she lives and again for my last day in Australia, a girls day out in Sydney. We had a great time together and I was happy to have finished this little set as a thank you gift.

I only took two stamp sets with me, one stayed uninked but the poinsettia from ‘winter joy’ was perfect for this set of cards. I stamped it on some label paper and cut it out so I would have a mask to enable me to layer the images and stamped all but one design in vintage photo ink. The one pale card was stamped in antique linen so I could create ‘white’ poinsettias.

I did my colouring with a mix of watercolour pencils and peerless watercolours on hot pressed watercolour paper. Because I hadn’t taken any sentiment sets with me I hand lettered all the sentiments, some more neatly than others! I picked up some kraft coloured square cards and envelopes from Eckersleys art store and raided my parents’ stash of coloured cardstock to create some mats. Even though I was working with minimal supplies I still managed to spread myself over half the dining room table at mum and dad’s house!

Supplies

Stamps: winter joy (PB)
Inks: vintage photo, antique linen distress ink (Ranger)
Paints: Peerless watercolours, Faber Castell Albrecht Durer watercolour pencils
Markers: Tombow fudenosuke brush pen, Artline Stix brush pens
Cardstock: fabriano hot pressed watercolour paper, Kaisercraft card & envelope pack

Golden Poinsettias

Posted: September 20, 2016 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Red Star, Winter Joy | Tags: Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress stains, WOW embossing powders | 15 Comments

As the title of this post suggests I embossed the poinsettia stamp from the ‘Winter Joy’ transparent set in gold. I also added gold wink of stella to the centres of some of the poinsettias. The colour painted in and around the poinsettias is distress stain. I kept the look loose and fluid by painting wet into wet.

On the card below I began by inking the ‘red star’ stamp in red and green stain then stamping it onto the wet panel. Some of the colour ended up in the poinsettias, some outside. I used a paintbrush to paint the same stains into the petals to make the colour more intense.

I’m not sure that the camera picked up the gold and shiny factor as much as it could have; it’s pretty in real life.

Supplies:

Stamps: Winter Joy, Holiday Snippets, Red Star, (PB)
Inks: Versamark, Versafine Olympia Green & Satin Red (Tsukineko) pined needles, crushed olive, festive berries, barn door distress stainsRanger)
Cardstock: Fabriano 100% cotton hot pressed watercolour paper, green cardstock, red cardstock
Also: WOW metallic gold rich embossing powder, gold wink of stella brush marker