Brilliant

Posted: March 16, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: brilliant, Peerless watercolours, Penny Black, vintage touch | Tags: , , , | 18 Comments

It seems that Penny Black always includes a poppy or two in a spring release. This large stamp is called ‘brilliant’ and I think the mix of flowers, leaves and seed heads is just lovely. I chose to do no-line watercolour with soft stone ink and peerless paints.

I stamped the large image in Papertrey Ink ‘soft stone’ then worked with rose red, mountain green, golden yellow and warm sepia peerless paints. If you haven’t heard of Peerless Watercolour paints take a look at the video I made about them a few years back.

I wondered about adding background pattern or blended ink but left it clean except for the simple ‘vintage touch’ die-cut. The vintage touch set has two fancy banners as well as two dies that cut negative space banner patterns. I finished off the centre of the poppy with a black marker.

I am still undecided about the lack of background and sentiment; what do you think?

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Carmine – No Line Watercolour Video

Posted: November 16, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: carmine, Penny Black, sennelier watercolours, Tutorial | Tags: , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

I hope you enjoy today’s no-line watercolour video. When I first saw this stamp I knew it would be perfect for the technique. There are a few little petals but most of the image is made up of open leaves and petals which are easy to see while painting. I used soft stone ink for the initial image on cold press watercolour paper and Sennelier watercolour paints for all the painting.

If you don’t always have a plan for the background you will see how I added one after all the painting was done. Take a look at the video below to see my process.

This is such a pretty stamp and might get inked up again soon to keep my stock of Christmas cards growing. I think it would look good embossed in white on a coloured background. Stay tuned!

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2021 BuJo – November theme

Posted: November 2, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: all natural, beautified, Bullet Journal, Coloured pencil, Dingbat notebooks, Hand lettered, Penny Black | Tags: , , , , | 1 Comment

And just like that it’s November! I’ve been stamping and painting wreaths for the last few months while creating my new online course so it seemed natural to add one to my bullet journal.

I used stamps from the Penny Black ‘all natural’ and ‘beautified’ sets to create a wreath with dye inks and coloured pencils.

For the calendar page I stamped the same grass stamp in a different colour for each week day and added coordinating labels at the top of each column.

The same stamps from the wreath popped up again on the to do list page springing out of a masked corner and once again coloured with polychromos pencils.

No snow yet in Ottawa I’m happy to say. Still quite a few leaves to fall and collect. I have planted some bulbs and done a bit of garden clean up but I am hoping the weather stays nice long enough for me to finish the job!

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Grid & Floral mix

Posted: August 30, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: Background Stamps, contemporary, Dies, Penny Black, rosa | Tags: , , , | 3 Comments

It was fun to pull out a floral and a background stamp for a new card design. I was planning to stamp the PB ‘rosa’ stamp a few times across the panel but ended up putting it snugly on the right hand side leaving room for the grid patterned ‘contemporary’ stamp on the other side.

Before any stamping I smooshed some salty ocean, scattered straw and mowed lawn inks on my glass mat, spritzed water then swiped watercolour paper through the mix of colour. I let the colours dry for a while then dropped water on top and then absorbed it with a paper towel leaving pale water marks all over the panel.

I stamped the flowers in a mix of canyon clay and raspberry fizz inks (Papertrey ink) and the leaves and stems in rustic wilderness and bundled sage. I added copper pearlescent paint to the centres of the flowers as well as splattering some on the panel. I also added some black to the centres to define the flowers a wee bit more.

I added the PB ‘contemporary’ stamp to complete the panel along with the ‘THANKS’ die-cut from copper cardstock. You can see the fall colours are easing their way in but the summer colours are not leaving just yet!

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2021 BuJo – August theme

Posted: July 31, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: Bullet Journal, Dingbat notebooks, Hand lettered, perfect pairing | Tags: , , , , | 5 Comments

This might be a first, having my month theme set up and ready to share before the month has even started! I wanted to include butterflies as the garden has been attracting quite a few. I’ve been enjoying both blooms and wings.

I masked the circle with an ‘express-it mask it sheet then stamped butterflies and flowers from the PB ‘perfect pairings’ set with soft stone ink. Before colouring I added memento summer sky ink with a blending brush.

As I did the last two months I used markers to colour the flowers and butterflies; I am still new to (non-blended) colouring with markers. Usually when I use markers for colouring I add a little ink then blend it with water to fill a space. As the bullet journal pages do not handle water in the same way as watercolour paper I’ve avoided water blending.

On both the title page and list page I filled the wings with blue first then added all the details over the top with black and white gel pens. I switched to a pilot fineliner to do the numbers and lettering.

After prepping my August pages with flowers and butterflies it is time I headed out to my garden and did some real life tidying up. Thanks for dropping by.

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Work & Relax

Posted: July 30, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: paws and relax, Peerless watercolours, zooming by | Tags: , , , | 2 Comments

Are you surprised to see another critter post? Regular programming will resume I promise but first let’s enjoy Scooter and her friends working from home and pampering themselves!

Once again I stamped the images with Papertrey ink’s soft stone. It is great for no-line watercolour. I used Peerless watercolours to paint the little scenes concentrating on a few main colours for each card. For the hedgehog I switched to brown distress markers, easier for getting all those spikes!

If you didn’t read it in my earlier post, Penny Black is donating some of the proceeds from the Scooter release to Muttville a rescue program for senior dogs.

Hope you get to ‘paws & relax’ this weekend. It’s a long weekend here in Ontario!

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If you have a garden…

Posted: May 31, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: Art Journal, Darkroom Door, Hand lettered, Papertrey Inks, scratches, Wildflowers Vol 2, you are everything | Tags: , , , , , | 8 Comments

The rest of the quote says, ‘… and a library you have everything you need.’ My art journal is pretty much all book or flower related pages; I guess there is room for a new inspiration. Currently with a garden that is looking promising and an online course newly launched you could say flowers are on my mind.

The background for this page was created months ago when I was making subtle backgrounds for a few cards. Instead of swiping a whole panel through waterbased inks I was inking a piece of acetate then spritzing it and swiping it on a stamped panel. I opened a spread in the art journal and swiped the acetate across the pages a few times to leave some ink there. I don’t remember the exact colours but the smooshed ink covered the lower half of the pages in blue, green, yellow and pale orange. Last week I pulled it out again and turned the page into a messy garden.

As I said the lower half of the pages is smooshed ink. The upper half is broken china distress inks applied with a blending brush. The flowers are a mix of silhouette stamps from Darkroom Door’s ‘you are everything’ and ‘wildflowers vol 2’ sets. I inked with papertrey ink cubes, spritzed the stamp and stamped on the pages. Sometimes I blended the stamped ink, other times not. To make the blue flowers stand out a bit more I painted blue gouache paint over the stamping. The gouache works well on the journal pages so you will probably see more.

Once all the flowers were added I stamped the DD ‘scratches’ background stamp in black on the lower section of the page and added black and white splatter all over. I added the quote with a black gel pen. If you are in my Floral Faves online class you might this was inspired by one of the projects in lesson 3.

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Daisy Sunshine

Posted: May 28, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: dancing daisies, Penny Black | Tags: , , , , | 11 Comments

Last week I asked what your favourite floral stamp was and several people mentioned PB ‘dancing daisies‘. That was all the motivation I needed to get it inked up. I used the same technique for today’s card as I did for a recent lilac card. I inked the stamp with three ink colours (listed below), spritzed and stamped on hot pressed watercolour paper. Without re-inking I spritzed the stamp again and stamped another print then another spritz, another pale watery print. I dried the panel a little then dipped it in a bucket of water. The result was the background you see in pale colours.

I made sure the panel was totally dry before putting it in a stamp positioner to do a bold focal print. I used the same colours berry sorbet for petals, orange zest for centre and prairie grass for leaves and stems. I stamped a second time adding aged mahogany shadows on the flower centre and abandoned coral definition on the petals. I did some blending with a paint brush but not on all the stamping.

I finished the panel with a sentiment from PB ‘thinking of you’ in acorn versafine clair ink. I’m glad to have been reminded about dancing daisies; it’s a lovely stamp which I’ve used a few times over the years.

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Rose Dance & a Giveaway

Posted: May 19, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: A2 layers, Additional A2 layers, Papertrey Inks, Penny Black, rose dance, Waffle Flower | Tags: , , | 48 Comments

When I first posted a card with the PB ‘rose dance‘ stamp I mentioned I’d been putting it to work with several techniques. To create this card I worked on hot pressed watercolour paper with papertrey ink cubes.

With the stamp and paper in the stamp positioner I inked the roses in ‘royal velvet’ and a few dabs of ‘pure poppy’ inks, spritzed then stamped. I used three different greens (listed below) for the leaves and stems. The papertrey ink cubes are fairly juicy to start with but with a spritz of water before stamping the ink is wet enough to blend into the petals and leaves.

When it came to putting the card together I decided to mix things up a little by cutting out the main image on an angle before adding some dimension with a few extra layers of cardstock. The Waffle Flower A2 layer dies and additional layer dies made it possible to cut the image from the panel, cut a scrap the same size to fit in the space and cut a slightly larger green mat before putting it back together. I pulled out an older PB sentiment set ‘kind words’ and stamped the message in dusty concord archival ink.

This technique is covered in lessons 2 of my new online class FLORAL FAVES. The lessons cover a range of my favourite techniques, some simple and elegant, others requiring more time and fine detail but all outlined clearly on video so they can become your favourites too! Registration opens tomorrow and I will have all the information in tomorrow’s blog post.

If you would like to win a place in the FLORAL FAVES class please comment below telling me one of your favourite flower stamps. I will randomly pick a winner and announce it here on the blog on Monday.

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Garden fresh

Posted: April 28, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: garden fresh, scripty | Tags: , , , , , | 7 Comments

Inspiration for today’s card came from a watercolour artist I saw on Instagram. Her name is Garima Srivastava and she paints loads of florals sometimes in cute little jars and vases. I saw one of her paintings then pulled out the new Penny Black ‘garden fresh’ clear set to create my own little trio.

I stamped on hot press watercolour paper with Papertrey soft stone ink, a pale grey that works well for no line watercolour. To paint inside the outline images I used a mix of distress inks and markers, sometimes picking up smooshed ink off my glass mat, other times inking the stamp with a marker to add some definition.

To finish the panel I stamped a sentiment from the new PB ‘ever thanks’ set in versafine clair morning mist ink then popped it up over the embossed mat made with one of my new embossing folders. (SU ‘scripty’). I’m looking forward to filling jars and jugs with flowers. Right now the daffodils are making a fine effort but a little too sparse to cut any for indoors.

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