Blooming Bunch

Posted: March 4, 2020 | Author: Heather | Filed under: blooming bunch, Penny Black | Tags: Fabriano Watercolour Paper, no-line watercolour, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks | 5 Comments

It’s time for a new release from Penny Black! This one’s called Secret Garden and it is full of gorgeous floral stamps and dies (and other cuteness). I will be sharing projects here on the blog in the coming weeks.

This lovely bucket of tulips turned out to be the perfect stamp for distress ink no-line watercolour. I inked the flowers one at a time in either festive berries or abandoned coral then blended ink from stamping along with a little extra from smooshing on my glass mat. I kept the panel (hot pressed watercolour paper) in the stamp positioner as I was painting my way through the flowers. I blended the stamped ink within each flower and added more ink towards the base of the petals. I tried to work on flowers that were not adjacent to each other so the inks didn’t run into each other. When all the flowers were done I inked some of the outlines again with a marker and re-stamped to add a bit of definition here and there.

I used forest moss distress ink for the stems and leaves. Forest moss is quite a dark ink so I diluted it for some of the leaves and was able to get depth and shadows.

Painting the bucket was my favourite part of the process; it isn’t fiddly and the mix of vintage photo and stormy sky ink made it look old. To ground the image I ruled a line with a black soot marker then blended the ink downward and painted a shadow at the base of the bucket with some stormy sky ink and a tiny bit of abandoned coral ink. I finished the card with a sentiment from the new ‘blooming sentiments’ set. It is one sentiment but I did some masking in order to stamp the large word at the top and the rest of the text at the bottom of my card front in versafine clair versafine clair misty morning.

See you again soon with more from the PB ‘Secret Garden’.

Supplies

Flower fantasy blossoms

Posted: May 15, 2019 | Author: Heather | Filed under: flower fantasy, Penny Black, winter branches | Tags: no-line watercolour, Penny Black creative dies, Penny Black stamps, Ranger Distress inks | 6 Comments

Blossoms are finally appearing in Ottawa! I even have a daffodil or two in my garden.

There are two blossom stamps on the PB ‘flower fantasy’ set and I paired them up to create this spring card. I used spun sugar distress ink to stamp the blossoms then painted the petals first with spun sugar ink then a second layer with worn lipstick ink. My painting is inside the lines for the first layer but I added the darker layer more loosely just wanting some extra depth in the flowers. I was working in my MISTI so I was able to ink the centres in rusty hinge ink and stamp them over the flowers once the painting was dry. This is an example of what is known as ‘no-line watercolouring’. Distress inks are great for this technique as you can stamp with them and then smoosh them on a glass mat or acrylic block and paint with the ink. The original stamped outline blends with the painting making the lines less obvious or disappear entirely. I often use antique linen distress ink for no-line watercolouring but the spun sugar did a good job for today’s panel.

To fill in the design I added some twigs using the ‘winter branches’ stamps and forest moss distress ink. I painted little dabs of shabby shutters and diluted forest moss ink around the twigs to look like leaves budding.

To add some subtle decoration I used the new stitched nested frames dies to cut the stamped panel and the sentiment strip. I stamped the sentiment in peeled paint archival ink; having archival inks in distress colours is a wonderful thing! The sentiment is from the ‘best mom’ stamp set and I think it is so nice to have a ‘we love you’ stamp as this card is going to a friend and will be from our whole family.