Handpainted blooms

Posted: October 28, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Hand painted | Tags: , | 3 Comments

I’ve been putting together some gift collections of cards, no overarching theme, just a selection with greetings or blank options. To do so I’ve raided my stash of panels or as I’ve called it before, my ‘pile of possibilities’!

This handpainted watercolour panel was in the pile and I couldn’t say how long it’s been there; long enough that I can’t remember which paints I used. It is on cold pressed watercolour paper and I added some gold cord wrapped around several times before I attached it to a card base

Initially it was going to be a portrait oriented card as shown above and below but when photographing it I turned it on its side and quite liked it that way too. What do you think? There is no sentiment so the person who receives the gift set can make the final decision.

Stripes & Daisies

Posted: May 16, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Hand painted, Tim Holtz, Watercolour, wild flowers #1 | Tags: , , | 2 Comments

Back in February, I posted a pile of watercolour possibilities; you can see them here. The very bright strip on this card is one of the panels I painted during a watercolour technique class. I didn’t note down the exact paint colours but it would have been a limited palette of only 3 or 4. My guess is a yellow, a blue and a pink.

I used only half the painted panel on this card which means I can make another card or decorate the envelope. The background is so bright I liked crisp white daisies on top, it was a bit like putting together a summer outfit. The daisies were cut with Tim Holtz wildflowers dies and it looks like I cut 2 from white and one from cream cardstock. When I added the photos to this post I thought, ‘oh no! Did I add a cream daisy in?’ I pulled out the actual card and the daisies are indeed all white. Sadly the angle and lighting when I took the photo seems to be suggesting otherwise.

To just have one daisy was too stark so I added the other two to create a little more texture but no competing pattern or colour. I might put a sentiment on when I send it or I might not; we will see. Thank you for all your lovely messages about my Dad’s birthday and the card I made. The community of people who read my blog are so thoughtful; I always love hearing from you.

The 90th birthday card

Posted: May 14, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Hand painted, Heather lowercase die set, Pink Fresh studio, Watercolour | Tags: , , | 8 Comments

As some of my readers guessed when I was away recently I was visiting my family in Australia. One of the reasons to be there in April was my dad’s 90th birthday. Late March/early April ended up being a lovely time to be in NSW where the sun shone and the temperature hovered around the mid 20s! It was also a good time to be out of Ottawa where there were several ice storms and 15cm of snow more than once!

We celebrated Dad’s birthday with a lovely afternoon tea gathering attended by friends from recent years and years gone by, along with many family members including a brand new great grand daughter! We had an afternoon of food, fun and fellowship with songs, speeches, photos, a quiz and a slideshow. It really was a special occasion.

For his birthday card I painted some eucalyptus leaves (as I also did for the invitation) and added a die-cut 90 in co-ordinating colours. By the time I left to go home the sideboard in his living room was covered in cards and not a duplicate among them. How lovely to see so many of his friends and family celebrating with him or sending kind greetings for the occasion. And here’s another sunset photo taken close to Dad’s home.

Strips & Stripes

Posted: March 5, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: border collection, Hand painted | Tags: , , | 1 Comment

Amongst my recent watercolour panels there are quite a few with stripes. I was colour mixing and playing with wet into wet technique as I painted stripe over stripe to fill the panels.

I could have die cut a scalloped strip to add on top of the card front but I liked the layered look which reminds be a bit of carnival tents so I added first the painted strip, then over the top a scalloped piece of white. The scallop die is from the Penny Black set, ‘border collection’ and the sentiment from the ever faithful PB ‘snippets’ set.

The heart themed card below is the same layout with a couple of variations. As you can see I still used a striped panel but die cut some hearts from it and lined them up to span the card front.

Although the hearts looked cute in a row, the white card front looked too plain so I added an embossed panel as the background to add texture and interest without adding more colour.

The little happy birthday is from Darkroom Door, once again I used a small sentiment; I do have a soft spot for tiny text.

These two are examples made for my upcoming in-person card design class which still has a few available spots in it.

The bookshelf card

Posted: January 28, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Hand drawn, Watercolour | Tags: , , | 2 Comments

Last year I taught a workshop called ‘Watercolour & Whimsy’ where we experimented with colour mixing in art journals and on watercolour panels, some of which we turned into cards later. This panel began very simply as I mixed three or four paints to make a range of different colours. Because I stuck with a few paints I knew they would all look cohesive on the panel.

I used a half inch flat brush to paint rough rectangles in lines. I was inspired by schlemmer.art but where she turned her rectangles into houses, I turned mine into books!

I used a black fine tip pen and a white gel pen to decorate the book spines and turned three paint strokes into vases instead of books. A simple idea to paint, a relaxing theme to doodle and something I will definitely try again.

Watercolour and Whimsy

Posted: January 17, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Hand drawn, Hand painted, Moda Scrap | Tags: , , | 6 Comments

Last year I taught a class called watercolour and whimsy. The watercolour part focused on colour mixing and how to limit your palette and get cohesive results. The whimsy part included stenciling and doodling. The truth is we spent most of our time on the watercolour leaving little time for the whimsy.

I have gone back to my panels to finish the doodling details. Most were done on cold press watercolour paper with a mix of pan paints and tube paints. For each panel I chose several colours that would not necessarily look great together straight out of the pan/tube but with some mixing ending up looking like they were born to be together. This first one is a favourite. I love the way a deep green, a purple, an orangey red and a blue ended up looking so good together.

I did most of the doodling with a white gel pen with some black sharpie underneath here and there for more contrast. I have more cards to share made as part of the same class. The watercolour colour mixing part of the process is very relaxing and enjoyable. I haven’t added sentiments to either of these cards but I can add one before sending if I wish.

On the panel above and below, I painted again with a limited palette but touched each brush stroke to a previous stroke so that colours flowed into each other. The result was blends, watermarks and harder lines.

To add some whimsy I blended black ink through fern stencils. They are homemade stencils created die-cutting into grafix stencil film with dies from the Moda Scrap ‘fern die set‘.

Once the black ink was dry I doodled different patterns on the fronds with white gel pens. This post includes affiliate links from Foiled Fox. If you buy through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Blue Florals

Posted: May 12, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Hand painted, scripty, sennelier watercolours, Stampin Up, Taylored Expressions | Tags: , , , , | 17 Comments

I spent a little while painting florals the other day. My watercolour paints were on my table so I painted two precut card panels with a few blues. I started the flowers on both cards by putting five little dabs of paint in a circle then blending them out with a wet paint brush. After blending I added dots to the centres with black and yellow markers.

Both the bold and the soft florals looked ok but the leaves I’d added didn’t work. I set the panels aside, happy that I had practised but not planning to use either pieces. When I came back to them a day or so later I did some extreme cropping which took out the leaves I didn’t like and left me with some nice blends and a configuration which had some balance.

Even if I had not cropped them and put them on cards the exercise was worthwhile. Even after years of making, practising and learning I still have the niggling feeling that everything I work on should ‘work out’! I know it is unrealistic and I am getting better at spending time practising and playing just to grow and enjoy.

The pale blue ‘washy-er’ panel is my favourite but I love the colours in both. After cropping them I added them to an embossed panel (SU scripty) and popped up some Taylored Expressions sentiments over the top.

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Shimmer trees

Posted: December 28, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Coliro paints, Finetec paints, Hand lettered, Hand painted | Tags: , , , , | 1 Comment

The pearlescent paints and black watercolour paper are still on my work table so I’ve continued to experiment with them. To create this little scene I taped all four sides of a square panel with painter’s tape to mask off the area in the centre. The surface of the black watercolour paper is very soft and likely to lift when tape is removed so I press the tape against my clothing before using it so it is less tacky and when it comes to removal I heat it with a heat tool as I slowly peel it off.

I painted the snowy ground and circle moon first with silver pearl from the Finetec Artist Mica set of 12, then the foliage of the trees with blue green, moss green and midnight blue from the Coliro Ocean set of 6. The tree trunks are chocolate from the Coliro Earth set. I finished by dotting stars over the sky with Sakura gelly roll pens then wrote the words ‘thank you’ with a very fine nib and the same moss green pearlescent paint.

I hope you are having a relaxing few days as the year winds down. We are back in lockdown in Ontario so life is very quiet; I’m continuing to get the word out about the Dressember Campaign. My fundraising total has grown to $1962.10 and tomorrow, December 29 is a matching day, so if you’d like to donate, tomorrow is a great day to do it. Donations in Canada will be matched up to $50, 000 starting at 9am PT on Tuesday Dec 29.

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Pearlescent wreath

Posted: December 24, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Coliro paints, Finetec paints, Hand painted | Tags: , | 2 Comments

I remembered after watching Kristina Werner’s final holiday card series video that I hadn’t done anything Christmassy with my black watercolour paper and pearlescent paints. Also it’s been a while since I hand painted anything.

This simple wreath was painted with pearlescent paints from two Coliro sets, ‘earth’ and ‘ocean’. I began by tracing round the inside of a roll of tape with a white pencil to give myself a circle guide. I painted leaf shapes in bluegreen, Tibet gold, bronze and red from the two sets then drew tiny stems and berries with a gold gel pen.

I had some red pearlescent cardstock from Crop A While which matched the paint exactly and I’m also going to paint some leaves on a black envelope before I send this card out to a Dressember donor. Thank you for keeping the fundraising total growing. The total is now passed my original goal of $1500 and I am hoping to get to $2000! We did a little more magic editing earlier this week to keep the campaign interesting! Check it out on IG or pinterest

God bless you all this Christmas and thank you for your support and kindness through this year. Connecting with you here on the blog has been a highlight for me when most interactions have not been possible. Take care everyone.

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Painting atmosphere

Posted: July 29, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Brusho, Coliro paints, Darkroom Door, Finetec paints, Hand painted, Leaves, tall flowers, Wings | Tags: , , , , | 27 Comments

I’ve done some more playing with watercolours and clingwrap. Quite a lot of playing actually; it’s addictive. I don’t even remember if the panel above was painted initially with brusho powders or pan watercolours or both. I do know I started with a large piece of cold pressed watercolour paper taped to a glass mat. I wet the panel then added the paint and let it move around and blend a little before I placed the cling wrap on top. I did remember to take a photo of the panel after it had dried and I’d removed the cling wrap. The card above which looks a bit like some hydrangea flowers was painted on the bottom right corner below.

The butterfly card below was made from the top left corner of the large panel and the flower card was made from the top right corner. I did work on the bottom left corner but didn’t end up liking what I’d made.

For the butterfly card I used a stamp from Darkroom Door ‘wings’ set and stamped it on the panel in blueprint sketch distress ink. After stamping I blended the ink plus some pearlescent paint from a finetec palette to fill the butterfly’s wings. It’s not obvious in the photo but the wings shimmer.

Once the butterfly was dry I did some water stamping using a fern stamp from the DD ‘leaves ‘ set.

The flowers are from the DD ‘tall flowers’ set and were stamped in festive berries, mowed lawn and wild honey distress inks. I also added gold paint to the flower centre. You can see some more water stamped ferns and some second generation stamping with the flowers also. The little circles on all three cards were made just by adding some droplets of water, letting them sit on the panel then dabbing them up with a paper towel.

The card above with the purple flowers doesn’t feature any stamping, the patterns made by the cling wrap made me think of a hydrangea flower head so I painted a bunch of little flowers using a purple watercolour pencil to draw centres then a paintbrush and water to blend the pencil into petals. While the petals were still wet I used the pencil again to add some darker areas in the centres.

The red shape on the left hand side looked a bit like a flower so again I used a watercolour pencil to add a bit more colour and followed the lines left by the cling wrap.

Whether painting or stamping over the panel, I love the patterns and play of light and dark in the background; I think it creates atmosphere. Have I finished with this technique now I hear you ask? No, definitely not. Have you tried it?

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