We recently went on a road trip that​ was eight hours round trip.  I had the bright idea to paint cards using supplies that wouldn't involve much effort to work with while riding in the car. 

Here's what I brought along that all fit in my purse:

Aquarelle Watercolor Pencils
Faber-Castell Water Brush Pen
Strathmore 5x7 Watercolor paper
.3 Copic Multi Liner Black

All of the flowers were free hand painted first.  When dry, I decided to doodle them.  The flowers were just silly shapes that I just made up as I went along.

My process for applying paint to paper was to swipe the wet tip of the water brush over the tip of the pencil until I had picked up sufficient color and then colored each flower, leaves and stems.  Sometimes I created a flower shape with the clean water brush first and then brought in paint from the pencil.  The overall splatters were created once I got back home to my craft room space. 

​It was so much fun having simple supplies to work with and made the long ride so enjoyable.

Thanks for stopping by!

XOXO

LYN

This month's card is designed with my happy place in mind, which is Florida!  I'm not there in the summer months and all of my numerous coastal stamps are there with the exception of this set from Spellbinders Seahorse Garden.  I'm loving all the possibilities designing with this stamp and die set. 

​Watercolor used was Kuretake Gansai Tambi.  Images were stamped on Canson watercolor paper.  Background panel is A Muse Studio paper.  Seaweed was stamped with Catherine Pooler Fiesta Blue ink.  Sentiment stamped with Versafine Onyx Black ink and the white panel is Hammermill Color, Copy, Cover cardstock.  Perforated edge is Lawn Fawn.  Sequins are A Muse Studio and they were affixed with Tombow Multi Glue.

Here's a closeup of the glittered areas using a Quickie Glue Pen.

I was thrilled to see an optional Christmas theme for this month's Watercolor Challenge!  I was also excited to dig out my stash of shimmer paints (that I haven't used in years) for this challenge.  It's been so long, I needed a quick review on YouTube to brush up on the proper use of them.  I'm glad I did, as I forgot about wetting them and letting them sit for about five minutes to get a nice gummy consistency in order to pick up all the shimmery color with a brush.  (It appears the Luminart Twinkling H20's are discontinued, but I'm sure any metallic paint will work.)

Once I found the perfect Penny Black cling stamp (la fleur rouge), I grabbed The Misti and began the technique of painting directly on the rubber, misting with a spritz of water and stamping onto watercolor paper (Strathmore).  At first, I worked on painting the flowers, letting them dry and moving onto the leaves and stems.  I even laid another panel of watercolor paper on top of the first dry panel, spritzed the rubber again and pressed another image!  If certain areas weren't well defined, I proceeded to paint where color was needed.  I repeated this step four times with great results!

The Noel card has a lovely painted gold edge.  To achieve that, I masked a border with drafting tape (my go to removable tape) and it worked great!  To add further interest, I splattered the panel with the same gold paint.  A Spellbinders Holiday Sentiments die word is all it needed to finish the card.

The Joy card is painted using the exact technique as described above.  For this card, I left the panel as is.

The last card, Merry, is a closeup to show more of the yummy shimmer!  It was mounted on coordinating green cardstock with a narrow strip of red metallic cardstock mounted vertically behind the panel.

Thanks for stopping by!

XOXO

LYN

​Today's watercolor challenge is all about using Gelatos by Faber Castell as my chosen coloring medium.  I love Gelatos but I don't use them very often, so I was excited to work with them again.  They are so versatile!  Since there are several techniques with Gelatos, I chose a wet technique where I scribbled them onto wax paper first.  Next, I dipped a round brush in water and picked up the scribbled Gelato color onto the brush and proceeded to watercolor my image (I think Penny Black) that was previously stamped on Strathmore watercolor paper.  The more water on the brush, the lighter the color.  To really intensify color, I took my wet brush directly on the Gelato tube.

​Even though you can't see the detail, I splattered gold paint (Peerless) to fill in the background.  I also used a Quickie Glue Pen (Tombow) and added glitter to the flower stamens and a little white Uni-ball Gel Pen.  Happy Birthday sentiment (Stampendous) was colored using Gelato directly on the edge and blending with a brush.  Ribbon and gems (A Muse Studio).

Here are the Gelato colors I used for the card.  If you aren't familiar with Gelatos, there are numerous YouTube tutorials to help you through all the techniques! 

​I'd say my favorite wet technique is water coloring as in my card today and my favorite dry technique is to Gesso cardstock, scribble on color over the dried Gesso and blend color with a baby wipe.  Perhaps next month, I'll work with that technque!

Black and white color pop!

I've been in a doodle phase lately, which worked perfectly for this month's watercolor challenge!  Basically, I paint shapes on watercolor paper without any sketching first and once dry, I add double line doodling.  It's a fast process and I love the end results!

Prior to starting this card, I wanted a black and white background and decided to paint splatter on a white cardstock card front first.  I "forced" some splatters by directly painting larger shapes.  Now the background was ready for the colorful flowers!  I purposely affixed a couple flowers off the edge of the card and cut away the excess for visual interest.

I had so much fun with the first card, I decided to hand paint horizontal black lines on a second card!  I hand painted lines using a fairly light touch and a round brush with a good point.  No pre-measuring was done as I just started painting the wonky lines.

For both card assemblies, I used some principles of collage that are super helpful when figuring out where all the pieces go in a visually pleasing manner.  For more information about collage, find the link to a previous blog post HERE.

Here is my painting session showing all my silly flowers and leaves and the doodling that really brings out the final shapes.  I worked with Canson watercolor paper and Sakura Koi watercolors.

Thanks for stopping by!

XOXO

LYN

It's that time of year for the Salmon River Fine Arts Center's annual 6x6 Community Art Show and FUND-raiser!  This is my third year participating in this event and I'm excited to be a part of so many wonderful 6x6 art pieces.  Follow the link above for show details.

Meanwhile, here are my three watercolor submissions.  Since I was back in NY when I painted two of the pieces, winter themes seemed a natural choice.  The third painting was finished in FL and was inspired by needing to see signs of spring after a month of grey days in NY!

Robin in Winter

Cardinal in Winter

Chickadee in Spring

I began using Tim Holtz Distress Cardstock and a Penny Black Slapstick/Cling stamp (Alight).   My "loose" plan was to use Distress Inks to color the image with the "direct to rubber" technique.  I decided to grab Tombow Markers instead to color directly onto the rubber.  Rather than color the entire stamp, I began coloring one leaf at a time with a green marker that I spritzed with water and stamped using The Misti tool.

Here's where the "experiment" happened.  Because the paper is textured, the stamped result was very mottled looking.  I picked up a small round brush and using just a little water, began painting the Tombow marker color that blended beautifully! 

I continued the direct to rubber coloring technique with each leaf and blended each one with the brush and water.  As the leaves dried, I worked on the berries.  The bird was colored a section at a time starting with the brown tones and then his belly.  To add more color, I scribbled Tombow color onto glass and "painted" using the small round brush mostly to the leaves. 

​


​Red Wink of Stella added a little pop to the berries.   

I have two absolute favorite activities and one of them is having painting time while in my art space and  yesterday was my painting day.  It began with a plan to paint a large painting that I imagine could potentially hang in my Florida home foyer.  I decided to heed the advice of every watercolor artist I've ever followed and "warm up" using a Pinterest inspiration to get into the moment.  This post is the result of my warm up!

In the style of Peter Sheeler, after I was done painting, I added the sketching, which really completed the piece I think.  I was so immersed in this little 5x7 exercise!  Because I was "warming up," painting the boulders and rocks was more of an experiment for me and I'm glad I pushed myself to try them.  The purple "mountain" reminds me of the Pacific west coast and not necessarily my Florida east coast, but it was a "warm up" and I'm okay with it.  I will re-paint this in another session in a larger format and tweak the scene to bring it over to the Florida coast!

Meanwhile, I did begin the intended foyer painting, but it's far from finished.

And what is my second favorite activity?  Reading, which is what I did after my day of painting!

Thanks for stopping by!

XOXO

LYN

My interpretation of the theme was to try a new idea that was swirling around in my head that involved stamping and masking while creating a forest scene in the background.

To begin, I stamped the critters onto the card front and covered them with a mask cut from Eclipse masking paper.  BTW, fussy cutting the mask was a challenge!!!  Next, I hand cut a hill out of Eclipse paper and laid it over the masked critters.  I inked the Tim Holtz grouping of trees with Distress inks, spritzed with water and stamped.  The hill mask was removed and additional trees were added in front of the hill using one small tree and repeating the Distress inking, spritzing and stamping steps.  Trees were added on the right and on the left of the critters.  A wash of cerulean blue watercolor was painted for the sky.

The critters were water colored using a wet on dry technique.  Once the critters were painted, the snowy shadows were painted.  After stamping the sentiment, falling snow was created using a favorite product from Stampendous called Chunky White Deep Impression Embossing Enamel.  It was sprinkled on and heated from underneath.  The chunks melt and voila, snow!
​

Here's a close up of the melted snow effects.

Supplies Used:
Stamps:  Furry Friends - Stampenous (CRP270) (Discontinued, but I found on Amazon), Tree Line - Tim Holtz Collection - Stampers Anonymous, For Everything Sentiment - Catherine Pooler Designs
Paper:  Strathmore 5x7 Watercolor Cards & Envelopes
Inks:  Ranger Distress Cubes:   Bundled Sage, Evergreen Bough, Forest Moss, Tsukineko Versafine Onx Black
Accessories:  Eclipse Masking Paper (Judikins), Daniel Smith Watercolor Extra Fine Dot Watercolor Chart, Stampendous Deep Impression Chunky White Embossing Enamel


Thanks for stopping by!

XOXO

LYN

 My card was created with a Stampendous/Dreamweaver stencil #DWLL3037 and I'm over the moon happy with the result!  I was inspired by Jill Foster's Penny Black card that I absolutely fell in love with.  I would call this a wet-on-wet watercolor technique.

I used Tim Holtz Distress Watercolor Cardstock and traced the butterfly in the upper right corner with a pencil.  I wet the wings with clean water and then picked up blue paint from my Koi Water Color Field Box Set and painted in the wings.  I ended up closing the bridges of the stencil with color.  As the first layer dried, I added a second darker blue layer.  The body and antennae were painted with black watercolor and if color bled, it didn't matter.

At this point, it was time to add the loose outline and drippage!  I started with the tan color but then decided I wanted to pull the blues down.  I painted darker blue along the wing's edge and then added more water to the brush to fluidly and loosely pull down the color.  I added the tan color next and again, painted darker near the wings and used water to pull it down down nice and loose.

An A Muse Studio Happy Thoughts sentiment set was stamped with Versafine Onyx Black as well as A Muse sequins and twinkles were added for interest.

You really have to play with this technique and stick with it until it's done!  There is no way to pre-judge this process and you just have to let loose yourself!  I had a few moments of doubt myself.  Now that I've painted one card, I can't wait to keep going with this technique!  Maybe I'll even try a larger piece to frame!

Thanks for stopping by!

LYN