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. 

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​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!
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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