Warm wishes circle

Posted: June 5, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Darkroom Door, warm wishes | Tags: Darkroom Door stamps, Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Ranger Distress inks | 3 Comments

I am hanging out on the Foiled Fox blog today sharing a Darkroom Door project. I’m pretty happy to tell you Foiled Fox is carrying some Darkroom Door stamps now. I’m always happy when my favourite products come to my favourite stores! Today’s card features the DD ‘warm wishes’ set with it’s pretty clover flowers and sweet sentiments.

Before stamping I traced a circle on a piece of hot pressed watercolour paper then painted masking fluid around the edge of the circle to mask off the area inside. I also splattered some dots of masking fluid inside the circle. I used two distress inks to paint the background starting by smooshing the inks on my glass mat and adding a little water so I had a diluted ink to pick up with my paintbrush. I painted broken china ink on the top section of the circle and bundled sage on the bottom blending them together a little while keeping the centre of the circle lighter than the edges. Once the background was dry I placed the panel in my misti so I could stamp the flowers multiple times if necessary. The flower heads are a mix of worn lipstick and spiced marmalade distress inks and the stems are stamped in forest moss distress ink.

I splattered a few water droplets over the finished panel and dabbed them away with a paper towel to leave watermarks. With all the stamping and painting complete I removed the masking fluid (so satisfying) and popped up the panel on a piece of foam before attaching to a luxe white textured card base. Make sure you pop over to the Foiled Fox blog and store today to see the other Darkroom Door products in stock.

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Disappearing lilacs

Posted: June 3, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: lilacs, Penny Black | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks, Tsukineko Versafine inks | 9 Comments

I keep returning to these lovely stamps because they handle watercolour effects so well. My other examples are more defined than this one but I like both techniques. I worked on cold pressed watercolour paper for this one and started by wetting the panel so I could stamp a pale washy background. I used only three distress inks, shaded lilac, blueprint sketch and mowed lawn. I inked the stamp with mostly shaded lilac and mowed lawn, spritzed it with water then stamped on the wet panel. The result is the pale disappearing images you see in the background.

I dried the panel before doing another impression with the lilac stamp, this time I added a few drops of water onto the panel and a spritz of water to the stamp. The ink blended on the stamp and pooled a little on the panel. My last impression was the more defined print on the right hand side. For this one the panel was dry but the stamp still got a spritz of water to move the ink.

I chose an area of stamping with very little definition as the spot for my sentiment stamped in versafine imperial purple.

Are your lilacs blooming? Mine are along with the first iris and some lupins so the blues and pinks are currently well represented in my garden. Yay!

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Masked hand painted circle

Posted: June 1, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Hand drawn, Hand lettered, sennelier watercolours | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Hand lettering, Hand painted, sennelier watercolours | 10 Comments

A few weeks ago I posted a floral wreath I’d painted and asked your opinion on adding a sentiment. In the end I didn’t risk stamping or writing one because I didn’t want to spoil the finished wreath with an inky mistake. So….can you guess why I have a large sentiment strip stuck across this floral circle I painted?

To create the floral circle I drew a circle in pencil on cold pressed watercolour paper then painted liquid frisket (masking fluid) to a width of about half an inch around the outside of the circle. I used my Sennelier watercolours to paint three large roses first then moved onto other flowers, leaves and berries until the circle was fairly full. With a random design like this one whether it is painted or stamped it makes sense to start with the largest images to make sure you can fit them in then finish off will little leaves, dots or tiny flowers to fill any spaces at the end.

Once the painted circle was complete I practiced a ‘happy birthday’ greeting on scraps of watercolour paper with my nib pen and some black ink until I was happy with the size and style. I had only written 2½ letters before a large blob of black ink landed on the panel where the letter ‘p’ should have been! As you probably guessed that is the reason I have a large birthday banner obscuring some of my pretty flowers.

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Masked Wildflowers Video

Posted: May 29, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Darkroom Door, Tutorial, warm wishes, Wildflowers Vol 1 | Tags: Darkroom Door stamps, Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Ranger Distress inks, Tutorial | 11 Comments

I have a simple design for you today and I turned on the camera while I was doing it. It’s probably something you have tried before but might be new to a few readers. I used washi tape to mask off a frame on a one layer hot pressed watercolour card base then created a watercolour background with distress inks and salt.

The stamps are some of my favourite silhouette stamps from the Darkroom Door ‘wildflowers vol 1’ set with a sentiment from a recent set ‘warm wishes’.

It was fun creating a one layer card again; some of you will remember when I was part of the ‘One Layer Wednesday’ challenge and ‘One Layer Simplicity’ challenge a few years back.

Let me know if you try this technique, I’d love to hear or see what you came up with.

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Alluring Cut Up

Posted: May 22, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Alluring, Penny Black | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks | 10 Comments

This watercoloured panel stamped with the PB ‘alluring’ stamp has been sitting around for a long time. I’ve been trying to come up with a slightly different way to turn it into a card. I create a great many cards with one large stamped and painted panel and little else so I wanted to mix things up a little with this one. I finally decided to slice up the panel then pop it up on foam backing.

I stamped the original panel on cold pressed watercolour paper and used one of my favourite watercolour techniques. Instead of stamping in a pale water soluble ink then painting with ink or watercolour paint I ink the different parts of the scene with different inkpads or markers, spritz the ink with water then stamp. With some extra ink handy on my glass mat I use a paint brush to blend the stamped ink into the petals, leaves and other shapes adding extra ink where needed.

When slicing it up I took care to divide it unevenly while making sure some elements carried across to adjacent sections. That way the eye moves across the panel and doesn’t come to halt in the middle. I’ve listed the inks I used below, all distress inks in either ink cube or marker form. Oh and by the way have you seen the new distress colour? ‘Speckled Egg’ looks like it might be a blue green or even better a grey blue; I wonder how it compares with tumbled glass and broken china. Regardless, it’s part of the blue family so yes, I will be getting it in a few different forms. How about you?

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Country Charisma

Posted: May 15, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: country charisma, Penny Black | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Papertrey ink, Penny Black stamps | 13 Comments

This rustic style card features a few stamps from the Penny Black ‘country charisma’ set. The clear set includes a jug, a watering can and four floral/foliage stamps to pop in the jug. I had a rough plan in my head as I started stamping but it didn’t work quite how I had hoped. I almost quit half way through but I remembered a tip I had heard from the talented Jenna Rainey in one of her recent videos where she recommended not stopping too soon. Sometimes a painting or card can look unappealing part way through but balanced and complete when more detail, colour or texture is added.

I worked on hot pressed watercolour paper with some masking fluid splattered on it. I stamped the jug first in papertrey ink cubes ‘smokey shadow’ and ‘cocoa bean’. I blended the inks to fill the jug, adding extra ink from my glass mat where necessary. I let the jug dry before adding flowers and foliage. The leaves and flowers I inked with bright buttercup and olive twist ink cubes. I spritzed them lightly with water before stamping and did minimal blending with a very small brush on the panel. At this point it looked a little ho-hum so I took a chance and stamped another flower in ‘royal velvet’ and ‘enchanted evening’. Can we take a second to wonder how these delightful ink names are chosen? I think I would have fun with that job! The purple flowers definitely added some contrast but it was still a bit of a patchy design; it lacked depth. I ruled a line of black soot ink across the panel then blended the ink downwards adding cocoa bean and stormy sea inks I’d already used and a few drops of the buttercup and royal velvet.

With the jug grounded I felt I was almost there but the background needed a little something. Trying to watercolour around all those little leaves was not an option so I pulled out the blending brushes and blended some bright buttercup ink around the edges and a little bit over the flowers. It is possible to add a very pale layer with a blending brush which was exactly what I needed for this design. I removed the masking fluid to reveal the white blotches adding to the overall rustic look.

To finish off the card I added a very narrow mat in the purply blue colour and attached that to a new fave, ‘luxe grey cardstock’. I think I mentioned recently the lovely luxe white textured cardstock from the Foiled Fox; it’s a creamy colour that works well with my watercolour paper. The same textured cardstock comes in grey; I rarely use grey card bases but I think that might change with this lovely luxe grey.

Have a great weekend, friends.

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Hand painted floral wreath

Posted: May 11, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Hand painted | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, sennelier watercolours | 31 Comments

It is a constant resolve of mine to do more painting. I love painting with stamped images but I want to improve my painting without stamps too. I spent some free time recently painting this little wreath for a friend’s birthday. I worked on Fabriano cold pressed watercolour paper (100% cotton 140lb) and used Sennelier watercolour paints. As usual I kept my palette of colours limited concentrating on the same red, blue, purple, grey and mustard paints to get different hues and tones. I began by tracing a circle with a light brown watercolour pencil knowing that I would cover most of it up and it would dilute and disappear as I painted over it.

I started by painting the large flowers then moved on to the smaller ones and leaves. I kept adding little leaves or buds thinking the circle was unbalanced but eventually had to tell myself to stop. The decision about whether to stamp, hand letter or die cut some words is still unresolved. What to do you think?

Meadow blossoms

Posted: April 27, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Concord & 9th, Inktense pencils, meadow blossoms, Peerless watercolours, Penny Black | Tags: Concord & 9th, Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Inktense, Peerless Transparent Watercolors, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps | 6 Comments

I attended a class not too long ago taught by my clever friend, Liane, where we used paint chips to make cards. Some paint chips have colours from the same family displayed but others have colour combinations that are suggestions when painting and decorating a room. I used one such card to choose the colours for this blue floral card. The paint chip featured colours called nautica, blizzard and tahini. I found similar colours on my peerless watercolour palette and did some no-line watercolour.

I started by stamping C&9 ‘meadow blossoms’ floral stamp in Gina K ‘whisper’ ink. The ink is a pale beige/grey dye ink which disappeared nicely as I painted with peerless watercolour paint over the top. I worked on non adjacent petals so the paint and water would not bleed from one area to the next. On the largest flowers I painted a dab of ‘Alice blue’ paint then blended it with water to fill the petal.

On the smaller flowers I switched the order and painted each petal with water first then dabbed in some blue paint. The second method resulted in slightly paler flowers. I painted all the leaves and stems in ‘warm sepia’ and the flower centres in ‘pearl grey’. Once all the paint was dry I used two inktense pencils to add veins and shading to the leaves and petals. I painted black dots in the flower centres then drew tiny stems to the dots with a very fine tip black pen. The black thank you die cut is from the PB ‘many thanks’ die set cut from black cardstock and stacked for extra dimension. I think it works well either side of the cute phrase from the PB ‘million thanks’ set which is stamped in nocturne black on a strip cut with the Taylored Expressions ‘simple strips’ die.

If you are stuck for a colour combo try some paint chip inspiration; I don’t think I would have thought up the blue, brown, grey combo without the inspiration on the chip. And call your bestie!

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Stamping with Arteza Real Brush pens

Posted: April 17, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Arteza, nature's glory, Penny Black, Tutorial, Watercolour, watercolour real brush pens | Tags: Arteza, Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black stamps, Tutorial, video | 10 Comments

Hi there, this pretty stamp, ‘nature’s glory’ is making its second appearance on the blog and I’ve paired it up with Arteza real brush pens. I did all the inking with the brush pens and made a video to give you an idea of the process. One of the tricky steps when creating watercolour cards with stamps is when, where and how much water to add, hopefully the video will give you an idea.

You probably noticed in the video the way the brush pen bristles were able to easily get into small sections of the stamp so I could ink the flowers, berries and leaves. I spritzed the stamp before pressing onto the hot pressed watercolour paper so the inks would blend on the stamp rather than me blending them on the paper. I love the softness of the blends including the areas that get more water and the ones that look a little dry because they got less water.

The soft background leaves and flowers were all stamped with ink left on the stamp after doing the bold images. The ink is certainly intense enough that an extra spritz of water is all you need in order to stamp the pale images that appear to be further back between the branches. Dabbing these pale images with a paper towel after stamping makes them even paler and removes any liquid sitting on the surface.

I even had enough ink on the stamp to get a pale print on my envelope then finished with splatter as you know I like to do.

The card below was done with the same stamping technique but I created the soft coloured background at the beginning of my process. I scribbled the blue, yellow and green pens on my glass mat first, spritzed with water then swiped the hot pressed watercolour panel through the ink picking up sections of diluted colour which I dried before transferring the panel to my stamp positioner to do all the flowers. If you are wondering about the sentiment, it is for one of my friends who was told this by a student! When she relayed the experience to me I knew it had to become a card. I did a bit of partial stamping with MFT ‘birdie brown greeting stamps’ then cut the letters b, a, b, y from dark green cardstock (I know it looks black ) with MFT ‘little lowercase dies’.

If you are a teacher connecting with your students on line, encouraging them and trying to come up with methods that work in the current situation please know I think you are the best of the best…baby!

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Three colour brusho video

Posted: April 9, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: Brusho, flutterby, Penny Black, Tagged, Tutorial, Watercolour | Tags: Brusho, Faber-Castell Polychromos Colour Pencil, Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Tutorial, video | 7 Comments

A while back I posted three cards all painted with the same three brusho paint colours and my Welsh friend, Karen requested a video. Well this is it, a different stamp and three different colours (Brusho sunburst lemon, prussian blue, rose red) but the same technique. Here is the one that prompted the video request.

As with the card above I embossed the outline stamp, ‘flutterby’ in gold powder then swiped up a brusho background by sprinkling brusho on my glass mat then spritzing water over it to activate the powders and turn them into liquid watercolour paint. From there I moved onto painting petals and leaves with individual colours and secondary colours. Take a look at the video and you will see what I mean.

After all the painting was done I added some extra shading in shadow areas with Faber-Castell polychromos pencils and some gold thread detail. The sentiment is from PB ‘banner sentiments’ gold embossed and die cut with a die from the PB ‘tagged’ set.

One of the things I like about this technique is the way the background works with the painted images even though the are painted right over the top of a multicoloured panel. The colours work because they are the same colours and because the background is not too bold. You can see in the tulip on the left what the true colour of the rose red brusho is, but the ones that are painted over the blue background still look red, just a deeper red perhaps in shadow not full sun.

Happy Easter my friends. Stay home, stay healthy, stay hopeful and maybe try a new art or craft technique!