Waterside view

Hi all, 

I hope you are all well and using the weekend to do some crafty projects. 

I just finished a new scene so I thought I would share it with you. 

This is a watercolour scene using mini distress inks and Langton Prestige Watercolour. The mini distress inks are perfect for watercolouring with. The size of them is small enough to fit on a palette. I have some pictures of my set up to show you, so that you can see how I use them to watercolour. I will show these down below, after the stamping.  

First of all, I cut the watercolour paper to 4 inches by 6 inches so that I would fit in my standard sized frame. I then taped it to a piece of perspex using masking tape. Here it is so far. 

I used only the Hobby Art Limited stamp set called Coastal Walks for this scene. I stamped out the big rocks twice on either side of the paper. 

The next thing I stamped out was the cliff side stamp. I really like this stamp because of the path which comes down towards the viewer. 

I then stamped out a smaller cliff side on the other side of the paper to balance the scene out better. 

As you can see in the above picture the stamp on the left isn't big enough to go all the way across the paper. I took my favourite waterproof pen, pictured below, and filled in the missing sections. 

Here is what the stamping looked like after I had drawn some areas in. I hope you agree that you can't see where I have drawn lines. 

Finally, I added the birds on the right side to finish the scene off.

Then I started to colour the scene. 

Below will be pictures of my distress ink setup and some set by set shots of the colouring of the scene.

This is my distress ink storage. I forgot to take a picture of it before I took the ink pads out. It is usually full. 

My usual process is I take the ink pads out of the storage case that I think I may use to colour the scene. I can always change these colours later. 

I then use this flat plastic palette to put them on so that I can use the ink to watercolour with. 

 This is what I mean by putting the ink on to the palette. I just rub the ink pad on the palette and I am ready to start. The colours of blue on the palette are shown above the palette. Although I can't remember which exact ones where used.

I did the same thing with the browns, greens and greys when I needed them. Once I had finished the sky and the sea I wiped the palette with a baby wipe and then put the greens, browns and grey on the palette and continue the painting. 

Now, I will show you the progress pictures of the scene.

This one shows the sky and the sea completed.

I then moved on to the distant areas of the scene. This included the back grassy hills and the right cliff. 

Here is a picture of the right cliff completed. 

I then started painting the left cliff. I painted this with warmer colours to try and make it show that it is closer. 

I also painted the beach areas of the scene. This was mainly done using antique linen.

I then started to colour the rocks and the foreground of the scene. This included the bushes and the path. 

The rocks were painted using hickory smoke and black soot. 

After this was finished I removed the masking tape to reveal the final scene. I quite like this scene. I hope you do to.

I then placed the painting in to the frame in my bedroom. I have a picture of it in the frame to show you.

I hope you enjoyed this scene and a demonstration of how I use the mini distress inks to watercolour. 

SJ 

I have been published!!!

Hi everyone,

I have some exciting news to tell you all. I have been featured in Rubber Stamp Madness. If you haven't heard of this magazine then I will tell you that it is fantastic for stampers. It is an american magazine which features stampers work.

I submitted some stamped scenes to go into the All Year Long book, which unfortunately I didn't get chosen for.  However, I was contacted after that to see if they could feature me in an artist profile for their spring 2016 edition. I of course said yes and shortly afterwards I was contacted by a writer, who was lovely. I answered all her questions and I couldn't wait for the magazine to come out.

Well... it is now out and I received my copy today. I was so excited I wanted to show my article on my blog.

If you are interested in the Rubber Stamp Madness Magazine then please check out their website. Here is a link to the home page http://www.rsmadness.com/.

I scanned the article in so I could show you all. Here it is:

I hope you enjoy it. I will be back soon with some more artwork for you.

SJ

New artwork

Hi everyone,

Hope you are all getting some crafty time.

In yesterday's post I said that I would show you some artwork that I have managed to complete. This was squeezed in, in between revision and course work. All the artwork below has been hand drawn by myself and water-coloured.

This one is not finished yet. 

This one is not finished yet either. 

I am in the process of making a secret valentines day gift for my boyfriend. I did some work on this also tonight. However, I cannot show you that at the moment. I will post pictures as soon as I am able.

Tonight I have created some tiny artworks with new stamps that I have received. The stamps are made by Art Impressions and they are part of their Watercolour selection. I found these via a Youtube video and I loved the technique. You will see from all the pictures below that I am not very good at it at the moment but it was fun. I also realised that the technique could be done with any stamp.

I will show you the selection of stamps I purchased. In total I purchased four sets. These are: foliage, flowers, water containers and the Arbour.

This last set is not one of the Art Impressions stamps. It is a set I purchased at a local craft show from Wightcat Crafts. I used this set of stamps to do the same technique also.

The technique is to use watercolour markers to stamp the images and then using a brush with water to blend out the colours and create a brighter and softer watercolour image. Their idea was to create stamps that could help people create watercolour images.

You can see from my marker collection below that I had plenty of different brands. However, I do feel that either the Stampin Up pens or the Marvy pens work better for this technique.  

I used Langton Prestige Watercolour paper cut in to a selection of sizes. I cannot tell you the exact size because I just randomly cut up a square of paper into different sizes.

Using the two pictures below I tried to demonstrate that you use a pen to stamp the picture. The container stamp was stamped in this pen ink. I used the side of the brush tip to ink the stamp. If you use the tip of the brush nib it can ruin the nib. 

In the picture above you can see that the lines of the container are still crisp. That is because I had not blended them using clean water and a small brush. In the picture below you can see that the container is filled in and that is just using a clean brush and going around the outlines of the stamps to blend out the colour. 

I then used a pink pen to stamp the pink flowers in the same way. 

I wanted to show you that I inked this flower stamp up with two colours. Sorry it is difficult to make out. 

This is the result of the two colour flowers, the yellow ones at the top of the container. I also added some green leaves to the bottom. 

This is the artwork all stamped out. None of the flowers are blended at this point.

I blended all the flowers with clean water and I liked the effect. I just did not like that the leaves came out a little bit pale. To fix this I took a deep green pen and scribbled some leave shapes in. I then blended those out with water and I created the effect below. 

This is the artwork in the My Museum book, which I am still using for little artworks. Overall, I like this artwork for my first attempt.

I did create several others. I used the exact same technique.


This one looked a little bare at the beginning. This is it stamped out without any blending out.

I then blended the colours with clean water and created the look below. I used a green pen to add a bit extra colour to certain areas to make it look fuller. 

This is the small artwork in the My Museum book.

I did this one third so I was getting the hang of the technique by now. I left the top of the vase with no ink on because the flowers need to be strong colours to cover it.

The process for the above artwork is the same. This is one of my favourites of the night. 

The one below is done again using the same technique. I made the flowers softer in this painting. 

Finally, I made one without any containers. 

I really like the colour selection in this one. 

There is is in the book with another mini artwork. 

I hope you enjoyed my artwork and give the technique a try. It was hard to explain the technique  using pictures. I may make a video on the technique to ensure that you can follow along with me. 

SJ