Sunrise or Sunset?

Remember I set my self a “keep it simple, cards in less than half an hour challenge”?  Well I did make a card in less than half an hour and then sat for quite a bit longer making this one.  I am not entirely happy with it but I learnt a few things as I was making it, which should help make my next attempt better.  There is more definition in the trees in the left and right hand corners in real life, but I didn’t capture it with the camera.  That is one area where I should be able to improve the sponging by taking it a bit slower and building it up only to the point where you can still see the tree outlines.  It looks brown in the picture but it is actually black.  But that is enough excuses!

It was really a trial and error process creating this scene,  I stamped the trees in yellow first and then versamark/black a little offset.  This was an attempt to get the look of light coming through the trees.  It looked odd so I decided to brayer it instead.  I started with Summer Sun , then Apricot Appeal and finally Pumpkin Pie at the top.  The only other time I had tried using my brayer on a card I had ended up with lines and patches, but I have been reading  Michelle Zindorf“s tutorials  ( can you tell!?!) and she said plenty of ink, over and over.  I used a piece of paper to mask the lake area and a punched out circle for the sun.  Originally the sun was pale yellow and looked almost white.  Even though this is often what the sun looks like when it is rising it didn’t look right so I masked the sky and sea and sponged the sun in orange,  the colour I’ve occasionally seen at sunset.  The lake is sponged in Turquoise and Not quite Navy.

Supplies:

Stamps: Lovely as a Tree
Inks: Summer Sun, Apricot Appeal, Pumpkin Pie, Only Orange, Tempting Turquoise, Not quite Navy, Versamark.
Cardstock: Whisper White,  Tempting Turquoise, Basic black
Also: Circle Punch, Brayer