One seed can start a garden, one candle can light a room, one step can begin a journey, one conversation can start a friendship, one smile from a handmade card can lift one's SPIRIT!

Sunday, September 6, 2015

Watercoloring ~a very productive 8 days and one more to go!

Linda and I have had so much fun, starting with PTI's SAF that we mostly participated in and then watching videos for watercoloring and blending inks by Laura Bassen.
I am just going to post a whole bunch of them here and give a brief description of them.
 A water wash with distress inks for the background, the stamps were colored with Zig Brush pens.  Lawn Fawn "Happy Harvest"
 MFT Wonky Chevron Background white embossed and then water colors in a gradient effect.  Mama Elephant "Up & Away" colored with Distress Markers
 A beautiful flower set from Clearly Besotted, "Friends Forever" that Linda brought with her.  The background is a gradient water color with an added dotted stencil that was dotted "off" with a piece of paper towel in random places.
The same stamp set as above from Clearly Besotted, this time white embossed and colored with distress ink, smooshed on an acrylic block.  My brand new FAVORITE: Abandoned  Coral (LOVE!!).  I took my Impression Obsession thin stripe background stamp and inked it up with versamark and embossed with white ep.  Then I took my bundled sage distress ink and rubbed it across the paper.  I wanted to add a light blue water wash around the flowers  but was afraid I would totally mess it up!!  Water color still scares me!!
 A single blue gradient watercolor wash, after it was dry I stamped the leaves from Turning a New Leaf, then I added some white pigment dots for the Bokeh effect.  The sentiment is from PTI Choose Joy...love it!
 I had this NBUS from Impression Obsession, "Pine Tress"  Cover a Card,  and decided I needed to use it and to also try another technique with the distress inks.  First I rub a bit of the distress inks (I think I used four colors) across the page, then I spritzed the heck out of it and helped to move the ink around with a brush.  After it was dry I stamped the trees...like FOUR times in the Misti...because the watercolor paper had so much texture, I didn't get a perfect impression, so I simply went over it with some black water color paint and my paint brush.  I took some pigment ink for the watercolor inks and really got a lot of ink on it and then I flicked small paint splatters all over the card.
 I took a new to me Kirarina Wink white pen and made more distinct snow dots.  I also added white to the branches of the trees.
 After I did the first one, I thought I would try another one, only this time emboss the trees with white as if they are covered in snow...more softer looking and not nearly as striking as the first one.
And after doing those two I thought I would like to try the same embossed trees but this time sponging on my distress inks.  It is very pretty in real life, but again not nearly as striking as the first watercolor one with the silhouette trees.

Sorry for the long post, just thought I would put them all out there in one full swoop..!!!

Tomorrow I may try more flowers...hmmm, I think I will have to practice a lot more before those ever meet the blog!!

My BFF is here tomorrow, then leaving on Tuesday morning.  She lives in Washington, about a 3 hour drive.  we have spent hours and hours in this studio.  She is in sitting and relaxing playing games on her Kindle while I post this!  I think I will retire now too!
Thanks for hanging in with me and taking in this long post!!

7 comments:

Marcia Hill said...

OMG Colleen...I am SO impressed with all these cards! I love the 2nd Clearly Besotted flower card, but not totally sure I understand the part where you said you smooshed it?? And I also love your pine tree cards...those backgrounds all make your cards look like the Northern Lights and are just beautiful!! Great job on all of them...I really enjoyed looking!! :0)

Susan (rainy) said...

Wow and WOW!! Those are some gorgeous backgrounds that you have created with the watecolors. Especially love the dotted ones. Beautiful.

Alanna said...

Wowsers, these are all amazing.

Greta said...

These are amazing, Colleen! Love seeing how they all turned out!

Natalie said...

Wow, gorgeous cards!! Each one beautiful and unique in itself! Very pretty backgrounds!

Brenda in IN said...

Oh my, these are wonderful! I love them all but the one that stands out to me is the Northern Lights card. Beautiful. I was so glad to meet your friend, Linda, even if it was by accident! She sounds as nice as you are and I know you're sorry to see her leave. You gals sure got a lot done while you were together.

Maria said...

Wow! So many awesome cards! Great job with the water coloring!:-)