Brother's Birthday Card

This is the card that I sent to my older brother for his birthday.  It was a fairly quick card to make, even though I was designing it as I went.

I stamped the lighthouse image onto watercolor paper with archival black ink, colored it with watercolor pencils, and used my water pen to smooth out the colors. After it was dry (used my handy-dandy heat gun for that!), I used a circle punch to punch out the picture. I didn’t have the next larger sized punch, so I used my Brother Scan n Cut to cut a larger circle.

The sentiment is made up of two stamps. The frame is a Stampin’ Up stamp that coordinates with one of their framelits. The sentiment is from set made by a different company.  I used my Scan n Cut to cut a mat for the sentiment and added brads for accents.

Both the sentiment and the image are popped up.  The background is a piece of designer paper from my scrap bin; I sponged around the edges to distress it a bit. The card is 5” x 7”

Painted Birds

During my lunch break at work yesterday, I doodled a couple of birds on a piece of scrap paper.  They turned out pretty cute so I decided I was going to duplicate them.

This card started out with a piece of dampened water color and some blue distress paint splattered down.  The paint didn’t move enough for my liking, so I added some green gold paint, spread with my paintbrush and spritzed it with more water.  Sometimes I don’t know when to stop, and this was one of those times!  The colors started getting muddy, so I attempted to fix them by laying a wonky circle stencil on the wet paint and removing some paint with a baby wipe.  I didn’t get the effect I was looking for so I decided it was fine the way it was.

After the paint was dry (heat guns are wonderful tools to speed up the process!), I drew the birds with a #2 pencil. Once I was happy with the shapes, I primed them by painting inside the shapes with white paint. Then came the fun of playing with paint colors!  I used red craft paint for the darker areas of the bodies, and mixed the same red paint with flesh colored craft paint for the lighter areas. I used burnt umber acrylic paint mixed with some of the red craft paint for wings. 

The sentiment is a thinlit die from Stampin’ Up.  I cut that out of white cardstock & glued it down. I then traced around the sentiment and the birds with a black stabilo pencil. I used a clear glitter pen as the finishing touch on the sentiment.

The card size is A2  (5-1/2" x 4-1/4").  The size of the painted image is 4" x 5-1/4" and it is layered onto a piece of  black cardstock measuring 4-1/8" x 5-3/8"

Embrace Your Art, Prompt 19

Well, I missed all of the Embrace Your Art prompts between my last prompts posts and this one!

Prompt 19 is Bubbles.  I painted this page in my small art journal.

Embrace Your Art, Prompt 20

This mixed media card was a lot of fun to make! Prompt 20 is Diamonds and Pearls.

I cut a piece of watercolor paper 4-3/4” x 6-3/4” for the card front.   I spritzed the paper with water, then used a sponge dauber to add the different blue and green inks.  The blue spray blob in the top is from Limor Webber’s 2014 “steampunk” collection at Lindy’s Stamp Gang.

I used a foam stamp that has three diamonds on it with two colors of green inks. I stamped the lighter color first, then over-stamped with the darker color.   After that, I stamped the flower from Totally Tracy’s set, “Let It Go,” in Archival Black ink. I painted the petals and leaves with different colors of watered down inks. After the page was dry, I lightly smeared a charcoal pencil around the diamonds and used Liquid Pearls to create the textured flower center.

The card front was layered onto navy blue cardstock (4-7/8’ x 6-7/8”) and then glued to a 5 x 7 card base.

(Yes, I know!  I am a couple days behind on the prompts!  I haven’t even started Prompt 21, Ghost Writing.  )

Watercolor Masculine Card

The image for this card was supposed to be used on my brother's birthday card.  But when I watercolored it, I used a lot of water trying to smooth out the pencil lines. It took a long time to dry and I didn't want to wait.  So I created something different for my brother.  I'll post that card after his birthday next week; don't want to take a chance on him seeing it on my blog beforehand.  :-)

Anyway, the watercolored image was still sitting on my desk a few days later, all nice and dry!.  So I decided to use it to make a really quick card for my stash.  I'll add a sentiment when I send this card out.

I apologize, but I do not know the manufacturer or either the image stamp or the background cross-hatched stamp.  The cardstock is Stampin' Up! Chocolate Chip and Pear Pizzazz.  I used Stampin' Up!'s Old Olive ink for the background stamp.   The image was stamped in Archival ink on watercolor paper.

Rowdy to the Rescue!

Something that is “near and dear” to my heart is Senior Dogs, especially those who are in shelters for one reason or another.  Senior dogs do not have a good chance of being fostered or adopted and we all what that means.  L

Rowdy to the Rescue is a rescue group whose mission is to rescue and rehabilitate all senior dogs, not just senior pit bulls.  You can read a little about their history as well as their Mission Statement in this article.

Since the article was written, Chris Hughes and his lovely wife, Mariesa, started the Mr. Mo Project after one of their pack, Moses, went to the Rainbow Bridge in 2014.  He was such a sweet fellow and I enjoyed following his adventures on Facebook.  I never had the pleasure of meeting Moses or scratching his ears, but I fell in love with him over the internet and cried like a baby when he left us behind.  You, too, can follow the Mr. Mo Project as well as all the rest of the pack in the Dog House on Gremlin’s page on Facebook

The Mr. Mo Project covers all costs for senior dogs who are in their foster program. Not just the transportation costs to get the dogs from the shelters around the country to their foster homes, but also all veterinarian costs. Most times, the senior dogs need extensive medical care.   Please consider donating to Rowdy to the Rescue which is a 501(c)3 Non-Profit organization.  The article talks about levels of donations, but I’m sure Chris and Mariesa would welcome a donation in ANY amount.  If you would like to foster a Senior Dog, please email Chris Hughes at rowdy2therescue@gmail.com.

Embrace Your Art Daily

I have joined a (Facebook) challenge called Embrace Your Art Daily. This challenge  started on January 1st and runs for the entire year. Tiare Smith selects the prompts for the week on Mondays.

The first eleven prompts have been selected:

1. Pastels, Paints, Ink

I was staying at a friend's house over the Christmas and New Year's holidays and did not have a lot of art supplies with me.

I drew the tree trunk and flowers, then used watercolor pencils to color the image. That fulfilled the "pastels" and "ink" portion of the challenge. I used a sharpie pen to outline everything and to write the quote; that fulfilled the "ink" portion of the challenge.



2. Bloom

I found a tutorial on YouTube on drawing poppies.  They are easy!

Again, the flowers were colored with watercolor pencils and outlined with the sharpie pen.


3. Hand

I traced my hand with a #2 pencil, then colored the image and background with (you guessed it!) watercolor pencils.

I did have a couple of stamps with me; I used one of them to stamp the flower images. If I remember correctly, this is a Hero Arts image.

After everything was colored, I outlined my hand and the flowers with a sharpie pen.




4. Intuition
I did not create any art for that challenge. I spent the late morning packing up everything to come back home. My friend plays guitar and is part of a local band  (J.Q. and the Master Blasters). They had a gig on Sunday afternoon, so I went with him to that before driving home yesterday evening.

5. Numbers

This card fulfills the challenge for numbers AND it is also my Teapot Tuesday card for this week.  I do not have the link for the Teapot Tuesday challenge yet, but we were supposed to either make an ATC or a mixed media card.

I did both!  The section inside the black and pink butterfly tape is an ATC  (2-1/2" x 3-1/2") I matted the ATC and stamped the background of the card. The ATC is popped up to add dimension.

Go join the challenge group on Facebook!  Watch the videos to get the rest of this week's prompts.

I have been having a good time. I hope to be able to create something every day in 2015.