There's No Place Like Gnome

I admit I finally joined in the gnome craze, because My Favorite Stamps have the cutest gnome stamps. I stamped and colored the gnome with Parkoo alcohol markers and then I swear I was trying to join a MFT challenge using Orange, Red, Blue and Yellow...but I'll be darned where I saw the challenge. MFT runs a color and sketch challenge, but these colors weren't either of the last two challenges. So, basically, this little guy just wanted to be on a card and not in a challenge!

I made the sky by using water and the beautiful blue in my Viviva Colorsheets to smoosh the card panel into. Then I fussy cut the scene I made, popped it on the dry background and added a rainbow from Sizzix, hand cut some clouds (cuz I was too lazy to find the cloud die) and added a sentiment from Taylored Expressions. I'm an affiliate for the colorsheets, but I looove how handy and saturated these are. I keep them in a pencil case with a water brush and I'm good to go at a moment's notice.

I did manage to make a balloon card for the November MFT balloon birthday project challenge. These dragons from MFT are stinkin' cute and I added the background castle and sun/cloud stamps. I drew in the balloons and hills. I used my fave Prismacolor pencils to color and used white gel pen and black marker to differentiate the grass.

Do you enjoy challenges? Sometimes they're the only things that motivate to make things—because, one, prizes and two, there's a specific theme, company, color scheme, etc. I've had these stamps for a long while and finally used them because of the real and imagined challenges. ha!

Happy Friday!

Chark

Viviva Colorsheets In Action

I was invited to try out a free set of Viviva Colorsheets and I accepted because I've never tried watercolor sheets before. Let me just say, these are so much fun! I only used a tiny bit of the provided sheets to do a ton of watercolor projects and they were so easy to use. I thought the paint cards would buckle from applying water but they didn't.

 

These were just swatches of some of the colors with little water and more water used on the right side. See what I'm saying about the vividness? As you can see, this is watercolor paper. These sheets would be fabulous for taking outside to paint, taking on vacation (when we get to do that again) or for keeping handy when you watch TV and want to paint. They won't spill and the amount of water you need to activate the paint is minimal.

I have some Suzy's preprinted watercolor cards (I think this is the Mother's Day set) from Simon Says Stamp. They aren't printed on watercolor paper, but instead just really thick cardstock. It takes water well and since you don't need to use a lot of water to activate the dry paint, they work well together.

On another Suzy's card, I painted the entire background along with the image.

Again, the card did well with the water and the paint stayed bright and pigmented. I added a smidge of black marker and white uniball pen highlights to the image. The colors mixed well as you can see on the flower and leaves but they also didn't move too much, so I only got a little bleeding outside the lines.

I used an Adornit mini coloring book for this project and then trimmed out the jar to pop on a card. I went a little looser with this, using a little more water and you can see I didn't stay in the lines as cleanly. These are printed on watercolor paper with a lot of texture but you can see the paint remains bright.

So my review of these Viviva Colorsheets is this: Love 'em for their compact design, concentrated colors and ease of use! I'd recommend trying them out if you're in the mood for a new art supply. And these would make great gifts to send in the mail too...you'd need more postage, but you could use an envelope to send and not need a box. 

Happy Tuesday!

Chark

All the Birthday Wishes

Today I'm highlighting a bold Birthday Wishes die from Stamplorations. I've had this awhile and I keep die cutting it from a variety of papers and materials. I love it because it's bold and it's all connected and not too dainty. 

There are some word dies that have delicate lines that get bent easily but this isn't one of them. Looks like this die is on sale right now too, if you want one. I'm not an affiliate link, I just like the store and die.

For this first card, I framed a beautiful patterned paper from Altenew with a gold cardstock frame I cut with an oval and then used black foam to die cut the greeting. I added gold Uniball pen dots to the foam and it worked great.

This card uses a mermaid stamp and die plus a spiral stencil from Hero Arts. The sentiment is die cut from some ink sprayed cardstock. When I create with new materials, it's not always with a project in mind but I've found cutting the artsy pieces for backgrounds and sentiments works great.

This one uses alcohol ink experiments for the background and the sentiment. I added glossy accents to the paints for a little dimension.

 

For this last one, the background is Distress Ink watercolored and the sentiment is cut from more yupo with alcohol ink. I don't think I'm finished with this card yet. It might get some black spatter, sequins or enamel dots...maybe even a flower in the right lower corner. I guess we'll have to see!

Do you have any dies you love to use? psst! I just got a new set of pizza dies from MFT and I've been cutting up a storm...I can feel a post about to written about those dies soon.

Happy Friday!

Chark

It's A Bird! Journaling with Julie 5

So, my sister and I are each completing the art journal prompts from this fab book by Tamara LaPorte—it's on sale here at Dick Blick I noticed. Julie and I live a couple states apart, but we try to work on the same lesson at the same time and then share our results. This week's lesson was a Quirky Bird and it was super fun and easy.

We used watercolors and doodles to make them. It's supposed to be a representation of you, so my bird is holding a pen and book and Julie's has glasses. Here's my bird in the early stages of watercoloring.

And here's the finished version after markers and doodles and lettering. The quote on the book is something my husband's Aunt Mae said about me once. I took it as a compliment.

This is my sister's version. I really like the black background and the intricate symbol she drew. 

Are you doing any collaborative art projects during this crazy time? I'm joining in some challenges to try to keep my art going so I don't get discouraged with life right now. Art heals and I'm determined to keep a positive outlook and hope for a better world.

Happy Weekend!

Chark

Dragonflies Make Me Happy

I have a fabulous cover die from Stamplorations that I can't get enough of...I have a stack of these die cut from different papers just waiting to be used and I thought I'd share a couple here.

This first one (my entry for the Stamplorations Spring Fling Linky Hop) is in white cardstock and the background is watercolor on Bristol paper. The body is done in Stickles and the eyes are dimensional clear and glittery from Stickles and Tonic Crystal Glaze. I edged the card in silver washi tape and used a little white gel pen on the wings.

This one uses a piece of Bristol cardstock that I watercolored with ink smooshing and Distress Inks in Picked Raspberry, Salty Ocean, Squeezed Lemonade and Peacock Feathers. I backed it with text paper from an old book and actually Did Not Use any glitter products...wha?! I felt like the die was colorful enough as is. I entered this project through IG in the Linky Hop.

I love large cover plate dies that take up the front of a card, especially cool ones like this that need very few additions. I could've added a sentiment but I just didn't want to cover any of it up.

I'm planning to enter project #1 from here in the Spring Fling Stamplorations hop...you have until May 31 to join in to win prizes.

Happy Friday!

Chark

At Sea—Journaling with Julie 4

If you scroll through the recent posts, you'll see my sister, Julie, and I are art journaling together, in a social distancing way. We both have this book and are doing the lessons at the same time in our respective states and then sharing them.

I've enjoyed the lessons so far and this lesson was all about a journey...you're supposed to spend some time reflecting in nature or in meditation about things and then paint a picture to illustrate. The included illustration was a boat so I took a cue from that and did four mini-paintings of a boat. I'm on a health journey right now so of course that's on my mind. So my pages are about that.

I used an ink-sprayed background in my art journal to mount watercolor panels with mod-podge.

The first picture is of a storm brewing.

This one is of the storm itself, with lashing rains and high waves and a tilting sailboat. I used watercolors, collaged text paper, and black ink and white gel pen.

This is as the storm has passed and things are still a little rough and dark.

And the final panel is of calmer seas and a glowing sun and silver linings (Moltow Silver Chrome marker) on the clouds and boat. It represents how I imagine this journey of mine will go. I might be back in the storm a couple of times, but I really feel the boat will right itself and we'll see a better tomorrow.

This is Julie's interpretation of the assignment. She made a sunrise with inks for the sky and water, acrylics for different definitions in the waves and sun and then colored pencils for the little island, tree and clouds. I especially like the look of the clouds, because they aren't always cartoony puffs in the sky, sometimes they're just like this, reflecting the sky colors. The birds are in black marker and I probably should've asked why there are so many...either it's an artistic choice, they are a metaphor for something or she just got carried away...lol, Jules. I don't know the emotional journey behind the art, but I like that it's a sunrise and not sunset.

Hope you get to do something crafty and maybe even meaningful with your art supplies this weekend!

Happy Friday!

Chark

Foxy Friday

While we no longer call good-looking people foxy (yeah, my older sister graduated in the 70s, so I know the lingo, man), we can call this stamp foxy. He's adorable and I knew I had to have him when I first saw him. It's a stamp set called Warm Wishes over at Honey Bee Stamps and you get lots of little stamps to change his sweater, though I could see them being great for making a background if you're good at that.

And because I got in the coloring mood with The Daily Marker 30-Day Coloring Challenge, I kept coloring :) I used Prismacolor pencils on some, watercolor on some and both on some.

Hope you have a great weekend, you Foxy Thing! And come back next Friday when I'll be having a giveaway!

Happy Friday!

Chark

Die Cuts are Challenging

So, I got this fabulous dragonfly cover die from Stamplorations and love it. I sat down and cut like 10 of these from different colored cardstocks and papers. I had to use different shims, and cut face-up for this to cut best, and the 80 lb. paper I had worked very well. If you have some challenging dies, don't be afraid to ask the seller for help. The folks at Stamplorations had great tips. I love the classic black, especially with this watercolored background (I used my Arteza markers as paints).

I put the die cut down on the card after it dried and did a little more focused watercoloring for the dragonfly, just by swiping the marker in each open spot. I removed the die cut and spread the color around in the wings and body.

Then I glued the dragonfly cover die on top and added Stickles to the wings and a silver paper Hello die from Paper Smooches. 

You can see the shimmer a little better here.

I'm entering this card into the Cutplorations February Challenge...I was inspired by the colors in this.

You have until February 28th to join in here!

Happy Friday, 

Chark

Stamplorations Gave Me This Freebie

Well, actually, Stamplorations gave everyone this freebie on their site, along with a couple others. They are very generous with their free digital stamps. I printed this one in a couple sizes and then decided this would be good for a card front. 

I had the watercolor panel already made from a day playing with liquid watercolors from Hero Arts and so, after coloring and cutting the digi (with the Crazy Double Stitched frames dies from Stamplorations), using a scallop frame on the watercolor panel and finding some old text paper, I layered it all and am pretty happy with how it turned out.

I like how their stamps already have the text paper as part of the stamp and that reminded me to get some of my vintage books out and pick a page for the background. I used an old cookbook (1970s or 80s) that referenced an even older cookbook from colonial America for the recipes.

Here's a couple yummy ideas for your dinner tonight, courtesy of a Virginian housewife from the 1700s.

Now, I know people may still eat this, and my very own mother (who grew up on a farm in the 40s) actually ate cow brains, but oh, my, god. If I had to prepare this or eat this, well, I'd be a lot skinnier. 

And this seems like a perfect time to mention that mom also prepared some sketchy things in our home. I remember in the 1970s, being about 8 or so and lifting the lid of the crockpot to see what yumminess was in there—only to find a cow's tongue. Ewwww! Which is probably when I learned that brains had been on the menu when my mom was a kid. It was probably good, because why else would anyone eat it in the 1970s? But I assure you, I did not taste it.

Hopefully your dinner will be a little more appetizing than this. I made a soup for tonight that has turkey sausage (from the grocery store) and tortellini (from frozen) so I have the fortune to have spent all of 20 minutes preparing my dinner. The stove did the long simmering work. I'm feeling pretty thankful to be living in the 21st century right about now, how about you?

Happy Friday!

Chark

Love You Birthday Card

Today I'm sharing a card I made with a 12x12 coloring page from Adornit. I picked it up at Scrapbook.com, and it's meant for watercoloring. The paper is thick and textured and perfect to paint. I cut down the large image and made a birthday card with it.

Here it is, mid-painting. I used Tombow markers and one Real Waterbrush marker and did both coloring straight onto the page and also applying water to make it paint before putting it on the page.

Here's the final card, with a few Nuvo Silver drops for flower and berry centers and white gel pen and colored pencil additions to the painting.

I like how fast you can make a card with these panels already painted...so, buy some (they have tons of watercolor panels here) and do an afternoon of painting and then on another day, trim them into card-size panels and attach them to card bases.

Happy Friday!

Chark