Twenty Eighth day... Completed!

Dear all,

 

Today I went shopping so I have some new goodies to show you.

 

The first thing to show you is my new brushes. I got some Pro Arte Masterstroke Filbert brushes. I got two of those. I also treated myself to a Pro Arte Renaissance Squirrel brush in size 3/0.

 

 

The squirrel brush is the one in the middle. I used the small filbert and the squirrel in todays painting and I absolutely love them. 

 

 

 

I also bought an A4 piece of Perspex to paint on like in the picture below. This keeps my painting nice and flat. It is taped down with medical tape.

 

 

I also purchased some new paper. It is made by Daler Rowney and it is 100% Cotton. It is cold pressed and it is smooth.

 

 

 

I also purchased the Masquepen masking fluid with the supernib. I didn't use it this time so I don't know what it will be like.

 

 

Here it is stamped out on to the new paper. I believe everything in the scene apart from the roses comes from Hobby Arts sets.

 

 

I coloured it using Windsor and Newton watercolour paints and Terry Harrisons paints. I used the new brushes.

 

 

Here it is in the book. I love the border around the edge. I originally planned to trim it off but I really liked it with the white edge.

 

I hope you enjoyed.

 

SJ

Twenty seventh day... part two completed!!!

Dear all,

 

I managed to finish the scene so here it is:

 

From this:

To this:

 

This scene was coloured using a Aztec Airbrush and Liquitex Acrylic Inks. I am tempted to put some white pigment ink on the top to create fog and the scene needs spraying but apart from that the scene is complete. If I alter the scene I will post a further picture.

 

I hope you enjoyed.

 

SJ

Twenty Sixth day... half completed!

Dear all,

 

Well today will have to be a two parter. I wanted to airbrush a scene but because I work it is hard to try and do it all in one night. Therefore, I decided to make it a two parter.

 

It is stamped on glossy cardstock with Memento Tuxedo Black Ink. I masked the scene of using Frisket Film.

 

Here it is:

 

So far I have stamped, masked and started the sky.

 

I will hopefully be finishing it off tomorrow.

 

I hope you enjoyed.

SJ

Twenty Fifth Day... Completed!!

Dear all,

 

For todays blog I decided to do yesterdays scene again with a different sky.

 

I stamped it out on watercolour card and coloured it with Windsor and Newton Watercolours and Terry Harrisons watercolours.

 

Here it is:

 

I apologise for todays blog post being a bit short but I wanted to try a different sky in the same scene and see what happened. The idea being that this is sunset and yesterdays is sunrise.

 

I hope you enjoyed.

 

SJ

Twenth Fourth day... Completed... Plus a haul!!

Dear all,

Let me start todays blog post with me telling you about my new watercolour supplies. I needed some colours for my skies which I got today. I purchased Naples Yellow, Quinacridone Gold, Neutral Tint, Auerolin, Cobalt Violet and a pack of empty half pans.

 

 

I also ordered Terry Harrison's three greens. You can buy them individually but I decided to buy the set of three because I liked the look of all of them. They are great colours and the packaging is so cute. The pictures below are of the box which they came in. I don't like working with tube watercolours so I wanted to put them into empty pans.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wanted to label the pans before I filled them so I wrote his initials on one end of  a long label and the name of the colour a bit further down. I then cut them out separately. I stuck the initials on the smaller side and the name of the colour on the long side as shown in the two pictures below.

 

 

 

 

 

I then put the paint inside the pans.

 

 

 

The palette I purchased a while ago was supposed to hold 24 half pans but I altered it to hold 39 half pans. The palette is metal so I put magnets on the bottom of the pans and they stay in place in the middle of the palette.

 

The four pictures below demonstrate how to do this. I take a half  pan and use these square adhesive blobs to stick on a rectangular piece of magnet strip to the bottom of the half pan. I used the adhesive blobs because it holds the magnet on but if you pull it off hard enough you can remove it completely.

 

 

 

 

 

I forgot to stick the magnets to the pans I was filling before I filled them so I had to try and stick the magnets to them afterwards without tipping the paint out. I would recommend putting the magnets on first.  

 

That is it for the haul part of todays blog so on to the scene.

 

Here is the scene stamped on to watercolour card. I think most of the stamps are Hobby Art stamps except for the birds and the deer. The birds are from a Lyndsay Mason set I believe and I think the deer comes from a Creative Impressions set. I find it really hard to remember which set my clear stamps come from because they are in one folder and I haven't distinguished between them in any way. I am going to try and inventory all my stamps soon so I will look up all the sets I have and take pictures etc so hopefully I will be better in the future at remembering where they come from.

 

 
It is coloured with Windsor and Newton watercolours and the three Terry Harrison greens. I wanted to use some of my new colours so as well as the three greens I used Naples Yellow and Quinacridone Gold, in the sky.

 

 

I really love this scene. I think the three greens are really nice colours and they work well with each other. I hope you like it to.

The picture below is of the scene in the museum book. I don't think you can tell from the picture that it is in the book but I thought you might like to see it anyway.

I hope you enjoyed.

SJ

Twenty Third Day... Completed!

Dear all,

I managed to make a scene today that I like. Although I should mention that I have changed my opinion on yesterdays scene. I don't think it is horrible anymore. I think sometimes you need to step away and then look at it from a distance to see what you really think.

I did forget again to take a picture of the stamped scene without colour. I have again stamped on to watercolour card an coloured with Windsor and Newton Watercolour colours. I am developing a new watercolour system and I will take pictures and show you all the system once I have got it sorted. I find using watercolours so relaxing. I am starting to learn the names of my colours so hopefully I will soon be able to explain the colours I use.

 

I really like this scene. It will not be appearing in my museum book. A couple of years ago I bought my boyfriend a multi picture frame to put scenes in for him and it is still not completely full. My scenes end up going elsewhere but I am now trying very hard to fill it. So he is happy with the 30 in 30 challenge because it is filling his picture frame pretty fast.

 

 

I have some new watercolour paints coming in the post to try and get some better sky colours and three greens from Terry Harrison which are supposed to be nice and natural greens and they can make nice tree trunks when mixed with brown. The book I purchased that was written by Terry Harrison is filled with great tips so I thought I would try three of his paints. I do intend to turn them in to pan colours because they come as tubes. I wish you could buy his colours as half pans but I guess I will have a lot of back up paint. I will take pictures when they arrive to show you all what they look like.

 

I hope you enjoyed.

 

SJ

Twenty Second day... Completed!

Dear all,

Well todays challenge has been completed despite the illness I am feeling. I almost don't want to post it because of how bad it actually turned out. I have decided to post it though because I think it is important to realise that you need to learn from your mistakes.

As well as the colouring turning out bad I forgot to take a picture of the scene before I started colouring. I think the scene itself is a nice composition, it just got ruined by the colouring process. It started off quite well and I liked the sky. In fact I still like the sky. I then painted the sea, which I liked and then moved on to the land pieces. But, after I finished the rocky shore I decided to add reflections in to the sea, which turned out fine. Then, I thought the sea was too pale and that is where it went wrong because I had to try and get the lines to blend into each other and what transpired out of this is a huge mess.

I hope you enjoyed reading even though today's scene was a fail.

SJ

Twenty First day... Completed!!!

Dear all,

I am running out of ways to introduce my scenes!! I put my practice from yesterday to use and I created a watercolour scene with a nice sky. I think it turned out pretty well. This scene uses three stamps only.

I stamped this on to watercolour card. The branches are a Stampscapes stamp along with the snow texture stamp. The building is part of a Personal Impressions stamp set I think.

 

 

I coloured it using Windsor and Newton watercolours. I think my skies are getting better. I really like it :). I hope you do to. I am thinking of trying to make a tutorial for a watercolour sky because I know I wanted some basic tips and would have been interested in a tutorial relating to a stamped landscape. It is a bit different when you are colouring a stamped scene.

 

I hope you enjoyed.

SJ

Twentieth day... Completed!!!

Dear all,

For today's blog post I decided I wanted to practice my watercolour skies. I purchased two watercolour books to try and improve my watercolouring skills.


Here is the two books I purchased, I think they are both great:

 

 

So I decided to just play on watercolour card. I used Windsor and Newton Watercolour paints.

 

This one was really nice until it went wrong and I tried to fix it and then the harsh lines appeared.

 

 

I absolutely love this sky. I think it is a gorgeous sky. I didn't have the exact colours to recreate the sky perfectly but I think it has worked out well anyway. On this scene I actually did hand draw the scene as well.

 

 
I love this sky as well. This sky is designed to be a cloudy sky. I really like this one as well.

The skies obviously are not the most amazing watercolour skies but I really like them. I hope you do to.

I hope you enjoyed.

SJ

Nineteenth day... completed!

Dear all,

Sorry I didn't upload yesterday but I did make the scene. I went to see Ross Noble and by the time I got back it was so late that I didn't have time to write the blog.

Todays scene is on watercolour card and is coloured with Windsor and Newton Watercolours.

I tried to make a scene with clouds but it hasn't turned out as hoped. I am still very new to watercolours so still trying to get the hang of them. I use a lot of different mediums to colour in my scenes but recently I have been loving using the watercolours.

 

The stamps used in this are all Stampscape stamps except for the fence by the cabin. That is a stamp from Linday Mason I believe.

 

 

 

 

I liked colouring this scene but as I mentioned it hasn't turned out quite as I had hoped. I think watercolour clouds on this size are not easy to do. That is not to say that I could do better with them on a bigger scale.

 

This blog is certainly making me learn from my scenes.

 

I hope you enjoyed reading.

 

SJ

 

P.S I will be back later with the scene from today.

Eighteenth Day.. Completed!

Dear all,

I tried something new today. It is a watercolour scene like most of the others but it is a lighthouse scene. I've done many lighthouse scenes but never in watercolour. If I had time I would have redone this scene I think.

 

 

All the stamps in this scene are Stampscapes stamps. To start with I only realised when I finished the sky that I had stamped the lighthouse wrong. I think the sky colouring hides it so that's not to bad. The sky looks really streaky in this picture but in reality it isn't that streaky. I am still learning to use watercolours so hopefully I will get better.

 

The yellow is supposed to be the reflections of the light on the lighthouse. I thought I would put them in first but afterwards I realised that was a mistake. I tried to colour the blue around it but that didn't work as well because a lot of the yellow turned green but I think in the end it didn't look to bad. I suppose the reflection on the water wouldn't be pure yellow anyway.

 

I hope you like it. If anyone has any tips for me on watercolour then please comment and let me know.

 

 

I hope you enjoyed.

 

SJ

Seventeenth day... completed!

Dear all,

I completed the seventeenth day of the challenge. I decided to try a new technique with watercolours. I wanted to try a new sky type. I wanted a sort of cloudy sky with a yellow cast.

It is stamped with archival ink on watercolour card.

 

Ok, now to try and remember where all these stamps came from. I believe the cottage stamp is one of the individual Hobby Arts rubber stamps. However, you can get this in one of their stamp sets. The meadows and the hills at the front of the scene came from one of the Hobby Art scene sets. The trees and bushes stamps came from Sutter Stamps.

 

I coloured the scene using Windsor and Newton water colours. I think the sky looks ok although I must admit it is not what I was hoping for. I hope you like the scene.

 

I hope you enjoyed reading.

SJ

Sixteenth day... Completed!

Dear all,

I completed the sixteenth day of my 30 in 30 challenge.

I made this scene a ATC sized scene. 

I stamped it out on watercolour card and then coloured it using Windsor and Newton Watercolours and Twinkling H20's on the water.

 


I love the twinkling h20's for the added sparkle. They are a bit of a pain to use though because you have to let them completely dry before you can put them away. This part is pretty annoying but I feel they are worth it. You can't see the sparkle in the picture because the lighting was bad but the water is sparkly.

I haven't gotten around to putting this scene in the book. I'll post the picture as part of tomorrows blog.

I hope you enjoyed.
SJ

Fifteenth day.. Competed!

Dear all,

Well the fifteenth day is completed. Half way through already!

Here it is, the scene for today:

 

This scene is stamped on watercolour card. The two stamps used in this scene was both Stampscapes stamps. I used Windsor and Newton watercolours and Twinkling H20's.  The Twinkling H20's are sparkly so I used them on the water to make the water seem to sparkle.

 

 

This scene is simple but I think it works.

 

 

 

I decided instead of putting in the book or in my journal I put it inside a cross stitch coaster. I think it looks good inside the coaster. I hope you like it.

 

 

I hope you enjoyed.

SJ

Fourteenth day.. Completed!

Dear all,

Well today I finished the fourteenth day of my challenge. I really like today's scene. I think its quite cute.

Here is the stamped out scene. Its on Watercolour card with Archival Ink. The tree and leave stamps at the top of the scene are Sutter Stamps. The cottage and the fields are Hobby Arts stamps. The flower stamps at the bottom are Joanna Sheen Flower stamp sets.

 

I used Windsor and Newton Watercolour pans and Spectrum Aqua pens. I always start with the sky, then usually go on to the grass and then any buildings or other structures such as mountains, then lastly I could any extra little bits like the flowers.

 

 

I think it looks cuter still in its little frame. I hope you agree.

 

 

 

I hope you enjoyed reading.

 

SJ