Pine Forest

Posted: October 4, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: pine forest | Tags: , , , | 5 Comments

As I’ve said before, you can never have too many tree stamps! This one is a beauty from Penny Black. I used three green inks plus a spritz of water on the stamp; you can’t see all the detail in the trees but the mix of solid and delicate lines makes for a lot of texture. I used forest moss, pine needles, evergreen bough distress inks stamped onto cold pressed watercolour paper which I had splattered masking fluid on earlier.

After stamping the trees I painted the sky in chipped sapphire and stormy sky stains. I painted in amongst the trees so there is some green bleeding into the blue sky. I don’t let that bother me; it adds to the loose artsy feel.

Once the panel was dry I removed the masking fluid to reveal dots of snow and added a sentiment in versafine ink.

I am thankful you stopped by today.

Supplies

Stamps: pine forest 40-638(PB), Christmas sentiments 30-504(PB)

Inks: forest moss, pine needles, evergreen bough distress inks & chipped sapphire, stormy sky distress stains & Olympia green versafine ink
     
Paper: cold pressed watercolour paper

Also: masking fluid

Autumn Sprigs

Posted: September 28, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Xmas sprigs | Tags: , , | 23 Comments

Our gratitude week continues both here and on the Foiled Fox blog. Next week we will return to our regularly scheduled programming but the gratitude themed posts will stay open for comments until the end of Friday October 5th. The Foiled Fox is giving away a $25 gift certificate to three of our readers who leave a comment here on my blog and/or on the Foiled Fox blog telling us something they are grateful for. It does not have to be related to art and craft at all. We will randomly choose a winner from each gratitude post and announce them on Tuesday, October 9th. Now before I move on to the card details I will add that I am very thankful for the people I have met through art and card making, those of you I know through this blog as well as those I have met in person at classes or crops. It is a great community that I love being involved in.

To create today’s gratitude themed card I used a Penny Black Christmas set. The only part of the set that is particularly Christmassy is the bauble hanging on one of the branches. I left that stamp out and used the other two that feature only leaves and berries. I used autumn tones too, three Catherine Pooler inks: spruce, bellini, shea butter. I started by inking the larger of the two stamps in shea butter ink then dabbed some spruce and bellini here and there on the leaves and berries. I spritzed the stamp with water then stamped on hot pressed watercolour paper. The inks had begun to blend after spritzing; I blended them more on the paper with a paintbrush. While there was still ink on the stamp I spritzed it and stamped again resulting in a paler image. I blended the pale leaves and berries with a brush too. I repeated the process with the large stamp then did the same thing with the small stamp and ended up filling 75% of the panel. You could leave the blending step out, I just like to get the look of painted leaves.

I did a little splatter in both spruce and bellini then moved on to the sentiment. To make sure my die cut sentiment and accent strips matched exactly I swiped the spruce inkpad onto some watercolour paper then let it dry. The CP inks are very juicy and gave great coverage. I added double sided adhesive to the back of the spruce coloured watercolour paper then die cut the word ‘thankful’ twice. The die is ‘thankful heart’ combined but I did a little surgery and removed the heart. I layered the two die cuts then worked out where I would put them on my leaf panel. There was an area where the ink and water had splodged so that was the perfect area to cover up with a sentiment. As I was using some stamped words right up next to the die-cut words I did the stamping first in my positioner so I wouldn’t have to try stamping around die-cuts already stuck down! I wonder how I knew to do that?! The stamped words are half a phrase from the very useful ‘happy snippets’ set.

I cut a very narrow strip of spruce inked paper with my paper trimmer (linked below) and used a dot adhesive to attach two pieces to the top of the panel. I know ribbon or twine might have looked nice but my matchy-matchy heart wanted spruce green so inked paper was the way to go. I trimmed the panel to match the card front exactly, which seems to be my preference currently and now I have another card to send to someone I am thankful for.

 

Supplies

Stamps: Christmas sprig, happy snippets (PB)

Die: thankful heart (PB)

Inks: spruce, shea butter, bellini (Catherine Pooler)


Paper: hot pressed watercolour paper

Also: glass mat, paper trimmer, stamp positioner, double sided adhesive sheets, dot adhesive
  

Christmas berries

Posted: September 14, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Christmas berries | Tags: , , | 15 Comments

I’m hanging out on the Foiled Fox blog today, one of my favourite places to be. They have a bunch of lovely new stamps & dies from Penny Black; if you haven’t had a chance to browse their new arrivals, you really should. Christmas berries is one of the new rubber cling stamps and I have filled out my panel with extra branches from a handy set called ‘winter branches‘.

I used a stamp positioner so I could work on berries separately from leaves and twigs. I stamped the berries in ‘festive berries’ ink (imagine that) and blended on the paper with a paint brush. I let the ink dry before painting some ‘aged mahogany’ onto the shadowed areas of the berries.

I inked the leaves with pine needles distress ink at one end and peeled paint at the other. After stamping I blended the two colours together with a damp brush. I stamped all the branch and twiggy bits with ground espresso distress ink which is a nice dark brown and used the same colour to paint details onto the berries. I used the ‘Winter Branches’ stamps to fill out the design but first I stamped the Christmas berries stamp on post-it notes so I could cut some masks to cover the berries while I stamped the branches over the top in the ground espresso ink.

I switched to versafine vintage sepia ink for the sentiment because it prints fine detail so well. To make the colour closer to the depth of ground espresso I just stamped several times in the stamp positioner.

Supplies

Stamps: Christmas berries 40-626(PB), winter branches 40-637, Joyful wishes 30-434
 
Inks: pine needles, peeled paint, festive berries, aged mahogany, ground espresso distress inks & vintage sepia versafine ink
     
Paper: hot pressed watercolour

Also: stamping platform

Peaceful

Posted: September 12, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: peaceful | Tags: , , | 8 Comments

This simple card utilises only two stamps and three inks but I think it manages to convey an impression of a big winter sky. I splattered masking fluid on hot pressed watercolour paper then, after it had dried I sprayed water, stormy sky and forest moss stains over the panel. I did it fairly randomly but tilted the paper to keep one corner pale while the rest of the panel filled with colour.

When the sky was partially dry I stamped the trees with forest moss distress ink. With the trees in place I added more drops of stormy sky stain and scattered straw stain while tilting the panel upside down to make the colours bleed up into the sky like the northern lights. I blended forest moss stain into the stamped trees then let the panel dry before removing the masking fluid.

I trimmed the panel to cover the whole card front and added a sentiment from the PB ‘Christmas and love’ set. I had forgotten how much I like the look of masking fluid splatter. I use it more as snow in wintry scenes than anything else but it adds a little something to other designs also. Now I want to go and splatter masking fluid on all my watercolour paper…

Supplies

Stamps: peaceful 30-511(PB), Christmas and love 30-508(PB)

Inks: forest moss distress stain, stormy sky distress stain, scattered straw distress stain olympia green versafine
     
Paper: hot pressed watercolour

Also: masking fluid

Christmas arrangement

Posted: September 11, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Christmas arrangement | Tags: , | 4 Comments

I have another Christmas card for you today; in fact it is going to be ‘Christmassy’ all week here on my blog. If you haven’t watched Michael McIntyre talk about feeling Christmassy you should check it out; I’m sure you’ll smile. I’m not actually feeling Christmassy myself; I love summer too much to wish it away right now but I have started creating with Christmas stamps as well as wintry images. This PB stamp is called ‘Christmas arrangement’. I embossed it in platinum embossing powder, which is such a lovely not gold/not silver but still shiny colour. All the watercolouring was done with zig clean colour real brush markers. If I didn’t have exactly the colour I wanted I did some blending to get it. You can see in the close up that I did not take all that much care with my colouring but the overall effect is still vibrant with the pop of red against both dark and muted greens.

The sentiment is from the ‘peaceful season’ set and the whole panel is matted in red to make those berries pop even more.

Now if you are in Australia or elsewhere in the Southern Hemisphere you would realise that preparing for Christmas does not herald the coming of winter, far from it. The Christmasses I enjoyed for the first part of my life were often hot and sunny. We headed off to the Christmas tree farm in t-shirts, played cricket in my grandparents back yard after Christmas dinner and often headed off for some time at the beach after Boxing Day.

Supplies

Stamps: Christmas arrangement 40-646(PB), peaceful season 30-498(PB)
 
Ink: versamark

Markers: zig clean color real brush markers

Paper: hot pressed watercolour, red

Also: platinum embossing powder

Christmas Glow

Posted: September 10, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Christmas glow | Tags: , , | 10 Comments

Penny Black has launched a challenge on their blog asking you to share your holiday themed PB creations.

Two lucky winners will receive a $25 shopping spree to our online store. And the grand prize winner will receive a $100 shopping spree to the Penny Black online store!That’s three winners! The $25 shopping spree winners will be announced here on the blog on September 28 and October 26. The grand prize winner will be announced on November 30th.

I am sharing Christmas cards on my blog this week; I hope you get inspired to do some creating with your PB stamps and dies. If you do make sure you enter the challenge; there are several ways to enter so check out the details here.

This large tree stamp is called Christmas glow and it is stamped on hot pressed watercolour paper. I coloured it with distress inks while working in a stamp positioning tool. I dabbed different green inks on the tree branches and spritzed lightly before stamping. I wanted to retain the shape of the tree but have the greens blend with each other so I added only enough water to move the ink a little. I stamped the pot in vintage photo then blended with a paint brush then added black soot ink to the inside of the pot.

I dried all the coloured stamping then inked the star and sentiment with versamark and coloured inside the string of lights with a versamarker (embossing pen) then embossed in gold powder.  I used a gold gel pen to draw the string between the lights.

Supplies

Stamps: Christmas glow 40-627(PB), peaceful season 30-498(PB)
 
Inks: crushed olive, pine needles, mowed lawn, vintage photo, black soot distress inks & versamark
     
Paper:
 
Also: WOW metallic gold rich embossing powder, gold gel pen, embossing marker
 

Watercolour pencil cacti

Posted: August 30, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Happy together, Watercolour | Tags: , , | 12 Comments

I’ve worked with this stamp before, last time with bister powder to colour it. It took longer with watercolour pencils but the process was quite relaxing. I used my tried and true Albrecht Dürer watercolour pencils from Faber Castell and limited my choices to light green, dark green, light blue, purple and brown.

I stamped the image from the PB ‘happy together’ set in crushed olive distress ink then used a paint brush with my watercolour pencils to add colour. I painted shadows in a mix of brown and purple then matted with some purple cardstock.

Now, help me out here, what is the right occasion for sending a cacti card??

Supplies

Stamps: happy together


Paper: hot pressed watercolour, neenah natural white, purple

Inks: crushed olive distress ink
,
Also: Albrecht Dürer watercolour pencils

Peaceful village

Posted: August 23, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: peaceful village | Tags: , , | 10 Comments

This is the last of my vintage style watercolours (for now) and I think this one might be my favourite. I don’t have step by step photos for this one but the process is exactly the same as shown in the tranquil hamlet video I posted earlier this week.

I worked on hot pressed watercolour paper but stamped with walnut stain ink instead of vintage photo. The walnut stain ink is a darker brown so the whole scene is a little darker but still has the vintage sepia look to it. I stamped in a stamp positioner because there is a lot of detail in the stamp.

As with my previous vintage style scenes I blended the stamping with water which pulled colour into the interior of the buildings, trees and bridge. As I blended the walnut stain ink I also added colour from watercolour pencils, including blue, green, black, yellow and red. I was careful to blend colour right up to the edges of snowy areas so it would contrast with the bright white of the snow on roofs and hills.

Supplies

Stamp: peaceful village

Ink: walnut stain distress ink

Paper: hot pressed watercolour paper

Pencils: Faber Castell Albrecht Dürer Watercolour pencils
Tools: stamping platform

Winter Solace

Posted: August 22, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Stamped Landscapes, Watercolour, winter solace | Tags: , | 4 Comments

My vintage snowy scenes continue with this new Penny Black stamp ‘winter solace’. I kept it simple once again with vintage photo ink plus some black for shadows and some blue for the sky.  The technique is similar to the one I shared in my recent video but because this is a more solid stamp it is necessary to blend the ink more carefully so as not to obscure the details in the stamp. I stamped in vintage photo distress ink on cold pressed watercolour paper.

Rather than use watercolour pencils to add extra colour, I pressed black soot, vintage photo and broken china onto my glass mat to use as needed.

When blending the vintage photo ink I dabbed with a damp paintbrush instead of blending. I didn’t want the ink to cover the walls of the church uniformly, instead I left areas white and added black for shadows wherever I thought there would be some.

I added black under the eaves, under the windows and on the corners.

I used a pencil to lightly draw a roof line to give me a guide for painting blue sky. I painted right up to the pencil line and edges of building with water then added broken china ink to fill sky.  I dabbed the blue ink around the edges of the trees with the point of the brush.

I blended water over the stamped sections of trees taking care to leave the white areas to look like snow.

To add some snowbanks to the foreground I painted a few lines of vintage photo ink with a fine tip brush then blended them with water.

To complete the card I added a sentiment from the new ‘Christmas sentiments’ set.

I’m looking forward to trying some other looks and colour schemes with this stamp.

Supplies

Stamps: winter solace, Christmas sentiments
 
Inks: vintage photo, black soot, broken china distress ink
  
Paper: cold pressed watercolour paper

Also: cutterpillar glass mat

Snowy cottage

Posted: August 21, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: snowy cottage, Stamped Landscapes | Tags: , | 4 Comments

I’m continuing to feature stamps from the new Penny Black release. Today I have the second of my vintage style watercolours, this one stamped with a large clear stamp from the transparent set, Snowy Cottage. You can watch the video I posted yesterday to see the technique and refer to the step by step photos below to understand my process.

I used a stamp positioning tool to make sure the detailed stamp was fully printed on my hot pressed watercolour panel. I used vintage photo distress ink but other brown distress inks can give a similar vintage appearance.

I began by using a damp brush to blend the stamped ink over all the stonework of the cottage and wall. I picked up a bit of black off a watercolour pencil to add to any shaded areas.

Next I added red to the door and blue to all the windows, again picking up colour from the tips of my watercolour pencils.

I used a darker blue to fill the sky with colour, painting first with water around the edges of the trees and roof then adding blue to the damp area so it would blend and move to fill the sky. While the sky was wet I picked up vintage photo ink on the paint brush and dropped it into the sky above the chimney.

I also blended the areas adjacent to the snow to create contrast from snow banks to shadow. I picked up colour from a green pencil to add to all the trees, taking care to leave some areas white in each tree.

Finally I used a vintage photo distress marker to redraw the lattice on the windows.

To complete the card I trimmed the panel then matted it with brown cardstock and added it to a natural white card base.

I hope you enjoyed my second vintage style scene, I’ll be back tomorrow with another.

Supplies

Stamps: Tranquil Hamlet

Ink: vintage photo distress ink

Paper: hot pressed watercolour paper, brown cardstock

Pencils: Faber Castell Albrecht Dürer Watercolour pencils
Tools: MISTI, Cutterpillar Glow premium

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