Watercolor Cards

I've been playing around with drawing and watercolor - oddly enough, with fruit images.

Anniversary Card

July 17 was our 30th Wedding Annivesary. I made three cards for Steve; this is one of them. It's watercolor, hand drawn, no stamps.

Sometimes I am just brave enough to paint. I hope you are, too.

Variation on Inspriration: Watercolor block stamping

 Are you a card maker? Do you follow Jennifer McGuire's videos? If you are and if you don't, you should.

The latest one demonstrated a technique in which she use an acrylic block to stamp watercolor ink (distress ink) on paper, and then emboss images on it.

I liked the look of what she did, and was inspired by it. All of my acrylic blocks are curved at the edges, but I do have a mirror stamp from MFT. I used that, along with distress ink, to stamp on Tim Holtz watercolor paper.

The first image uses Aged Mahogany, Victorian Velvet and Shaded Lilac. The second one uses Mowed Lawn, Evergreen Bough, Broken China and Salty Ocean. I inked the mirror image stamp, sprayed it with water, and then stamped it on the watercolor paper. I didn't lift it, and placed a jar of water on it for 5 minutes.

After lifting the block, I then allowed it to dry, used an antistatic tool, and then stamped Penny Black Dreamy (a wonderful, wispy flower) with Versamark ink, and then embosssed it with Ranger Liquid Platinum powder.

These are both anniversary cards, and the Celebrate stamp is from the June Simon Says Stamp kit, Floral Bliss.

Bicycle Card

Friends of ours are bicycling buddies of Steve's. For their anniversary, I made a card using Lawn Fawn's Bicycle Built for You.  If you look at that set, you'll see that it includes a bike for one - not for two, so I used a little creative masking and stamping to build a different bike.

Notice the left legs of the bikers. Those should be on the back.

Here, I fixed it. Stamped bike frame on white paper. Glued over.

Masked to add background - brushed on distress ink.

Finished anniversary card for friends

Process vs Project Card Making

I was thinking about card making today. I was kind of regretting that I hadn't had much time to just "play" with my stamps and supplies. For me, playing means to explore media, to pull a set of stamps and see what I can do with them, to experiment, to use up a card kit - playing is a great creative outlet.

In knitting, there are process knitters and project knitters. Process knitters mainly enjoy the knitting of the object. The goal for a process knitter is not really the finished product - it is the knitting, The ultimate story about process knitters that I've heard is women in a eastern European country (I think) who couldn't get yarn, so they would knit a pair of socks, frog the knitting, and then knit the socks over and over again, just for the pleasure of knitting.

Project knitters are in it for the end product. When I knit a gift for Christmas, with a fixed deadline, and a rush to finish, I am a project knitter. I just want to get to the end, where I have the scarf or the socks and can wrap them and call it all done. I don't enjoy the knitting as much.

Today, I realized that the same can be thought of in card making - sometimes I am a project card marker and sometimes I am the process card maker.

1. When I make cards for the people on my list, I am a project card maker. This month, I needed to make 11 Mother's Day cards, 7 "event" cards (birthday and anniversary) and a few other, non-categorized and non-planned cards (Get Well, Thinking of You. I've been pushing to get this list done for a few weeks. Today I finished the Mother's Day cards, and I have two more event cards to make for the month. I enjoy doing it, don't get me wrong, but there isn't a lot of "play" in it.
2. Sometimes, I just sit down and enjoy the process. I end up with cards, but they aren't for particular people. For example, the card in the image with this post is a Suzy Plantamura pre-made print. I took it with me when I had time to color during breakfast, and colored it in with Zig Clear Color watercolor markers. Later, I took the finished piece, mounted it, and made it in to an anniversary card for a couple on my list.

It seems to be a small difference, but the first way feels as if I am working toward a deadline. The second way feels less stressful and more like play. It in in the process that I learn new skills, usually, because I'm trying new techniques. It's in the play that I grow as an artist.

I need to remember to take tame to play - not just to make cards.

Best Fishes Anniversary Card

I made this card as an anniversary card for two friends.  I'm not sure where the idea was born, but I like it.

The stamp and die set is from Simon Says Stamp:  Keep Swimming.  The water in the bowl is stenciled with the SSS Waves stencil.  I used several blueish distressed ink pads and mini inkers.  After I used one color, I would move the stencil and add the next color.  I colored the sand die cut with shades of light brown copic markers and the bowl with two shades of neutral gray.  The greenery in the bowl and the bowl itself are stamped with Memento dew drop colors. The white dots on the fish were hand drawn with a Uniball Signo white pen.

The greeting is stamped on vellum (I seem to like that design element lately) and then the ends were adhered to the back of the front panel.  The panel itself is from the January SSS card kit ( Bazzill Glitz bling heavy weight card stock).  The table under the bowl is My Favorite Things kraft card stock and the card base is The Card Shoppe (Bazzill) jelly bean.

The heart embellishment is from My Minds Eye.

Why do I like this card?  Because it's just cute.