Mixed Media Winter Landscape

Hello friends! Last week winter started to make itself felt here, with snow flurries falling, frost that had to be removed from my car windows, and much prettier frost on grass, leaves and branches. Still no snow on the ground, but it might be here any day now. 

And of course, it is the perfect time for some winter crafting. Today I have an easy winter landscape mixed media tutorial to share with you. 

Creating snow with different techniques is one of my favorite things to do. You can create snow in so many different ways, and here I used texture paste, paint splatters and Tim Holtz's new mica flakes. I have loved mica since I was a child and often look for it when out walking. There is mica to be found along some of my walking trails. Tim's mica flakes are not real mica, but they look very similar to the real thing, and they are heavier than I thought they would be. I expected the jar to be very lightweight and was happily surprised to discover that it does have some weight.

For the canvas I used a brand new stencil by Darkroom Door, and also one of their background stamps.

I worked on a 5x7 canvas board. I wanted to use one of the Dina Wakley media boards, but I couldn't find them. Not everything has ended up in a logical place since the move, and I still find myself having to look for things. You can use one of Dina's boards instead. Smear gesso on the board with a palette knife. Press the lid of a Distress Paint bottle into the gesso to create circles. 

When dry, paint the sky with watered-down Distress Paint and mist with even more water to make them blend. Leave to dry, it takes a little while because of all the water, but it looks better if left to dry on its own.

Apply texture paste through the Reindeer set stencil with a palette knife. I just love how proud and joyful this deer looks. The set also comes with a mask.

When the paste is dry, put the stencil back and apply Distress Inks with a mini round blending tool. Start with Antique Linen and then add the other two colors.

Darken the brown shades with a little Ground Espresso.

I painted the tail and the belly of the deer white, and added some white to the antlers. Stamp the background with the Starry Night Background stamp and white paint. Always clean your stamp immediately after using it with acrylic paint.

Apply white texture paste with a palette knife in thick layers. Try to create the look of snowy hills. Leave to dry. This takes a while since the paste is so thick. I left it overnight.

Paint the paste with white paint. The white paint is whiter than the paste.

Add just a tiny bit of Pumice Stone to the snow, to create texture, and Ground Espresso around the edges of the canvas.

Splatter with white paint using Tim's splatter brush. Always cover up your work surface and protect your clothing when splattering paint.

Apply gloss multi-medium along the base of the canvas, here and there in the snow, and as dots over the sky. Sprinkle Mica Flakes on top. They will stick to the gel and create the look of glimmering snow.

To add a few more warmer elements, I colored a Gumdrop Heart with Teakwood alcohol ink.

Here you can see the effect of the splattering and mica flakes on the antlers.

The stamped white stars in the sky are subtle, and I really like how they add another layer to the background.

One of my favorite parts of a project is often to add words and here I had such fun picking out phrases from Tim's Christmas sticker book. This is meant as a general winter decor item, and not only for Christmas.

I tied a Word Band around the base with twine. Here you can also see the mica better.

 

White paint was rubbed into the word band.

The texture paste in combination with the sponged paint gives a very nice texture to the deer, looking almost like the fur of a real deer. We haven't seen our two deer visitors in the garden for a couple of weeks, but they are bound to return.

Thank you so much for taking the time to visit my blog today!  

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

* Please note: the links are affiliate links, for which I receive a small percentage of sales generated by the link, at no extra cost to you.

Winter Floral Watercolor Tutorial

Hello friends! I hope you had a good weekend and that you got some crafty time. We had our first snow this weekend, although it didn't remain on the ground. I went to a second-hand shop and was very happy to find a vintage printed tapestry depicting what happens every day in December, in the old farming way of life. My grandmother had the same tapestry in her kitchen and my mom inherited it. I am very happy to now have one of my own and it was in perfect condition. I will take a photo of it and post another day. 

I also found some great Christmas gifts. It is such fun to find beautiful vintage items as gifts. I am aiming for that most of my gifts will be either vintage, second-hand finds, or handmade. 

This week at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog, we have Thinking of You theme. I home you will join us! Don't miss the project by our November guest designer Nikki Acton with her blog Addicted to Art.

I was inspired by the snow flurries falling outside my window, to create a card with a winter theme. The background is easy to do with a Simon Says Stamp background stamp, white embossing powder, Distress Ink and white acrylic paint. You can use any color combo that you'd like and this could easily be turned into a card for any season.

Start by white embossing the Outline Winter Floral stamp on watercolor paper.

Smear Distress Inks on a craft sheet, mist with water and pick up with a paint brush. Paint the background without worrying too much about perfection. Work on one flower at a time and drop in different colors before the first layer is dry. I painted the space in between the shapes with very light Tumbled Glass, pulling some of the paint from the flowers and leaves out across the lines. You can also use watercolor paint.

When the ink is dry, cut out and distress the edges. Splatter with Dina Wakley's white media paint, using a splatter brush. Always protect your work area and clothes when splattering, since the paint tend to travel unpredictably.

Here's a look at the effect of the splattered paint. The thicker opaque paint looks nice together with the transparent ink.

I mounted the panel on light blue and then on very light pink cardstock. Sequins were glued here and there for some bling, and to imitate snowflakes.

The Thinking of You Heart was die cut from SSS white glitter cardstock, which has a really awesome glitter look to it, while not shedding any glitter at all. I die cut the larger heart from vellum, to make it stand out better from the background, without covering the background completely. For a totally different look using the Thinking of You Heart die, check out my Heart Shaker Cards tutorial.

As a border, I die cut one of Tim Holtz's Crochet borders from SSS glimmery cardstock. A piece of lace trim was also dyed with Worn Lipstick Distress Ink and glued to the card.

I hope you will join us this week in our Thinking of You challenge. As always, you have a chance to win a $50 gift voucher to do some fun shopping at Simon Says Stamp. You have until next Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in.

Don't forget to follow Simon Says Stamp on Instagram, they post great stuff daily. 

Do you use Instagram? If so please add #sssmchallenge so we can see your entries there too.

Thank you so much for taking the time to visit my blog today!  

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

* Please note: the links are affiliate links, for which I receive a small percentage of sales generated by the link, at no extra cost to you.

Cone Flower Art Journal Page

Hello friends! I hope you had a good weekend! We took it easy, with some walking and crafting. Leo painted a whole bunch of bright colored zombies and jars, which he had noticed among my Halloween crafting. I can't believe it is November already, where did the autumn months disappear to?

At the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog we have a Thanks/Thanksgiving theme. Since it is the first Monday of a new month, the team is showcasing products by a specific designer/company, and this week it is AALL & Create. You can see all their wonderful stamps and stencils here. You don't have to use AALL & Create products to join, but it is always fun if you do.

We also have a new guest designer. During November Nikki Acton will be our guest. I hope you will stop by her beautiful blog Addicted to Art to see what she has created for you.

I made an art journal this week, inspired by late summer cone flowers, now all gone. I wanted to create the look of a whole bunch of flowers against a background of dense greenery. For my project, I used the AALL & Create Eclectic Stems stamp set, designed by our old team mate Tracy Evans. The page was done in my large Dylusions journal.

Tear random pieces of old book paper and glue to the page with Matte Medium. Add another layer of medium on top of the papers.

When dry, apply gesso with a palette knife, but don't cover up all the text.

Paint the page with watered-down Distress Paints, misting with more water to help them blend.

Stamp flowers from the Eclectic Stems set on the glossy side of white tissue paper. I used more flowers than what you see here.

Tear around the flowers instead of using scissors, since a torn edge disappears better. Adhere the flowers to the page by first applying a layer of Gloss Multi Medium, carefully placing a flower down, and then applying a layer of gloss medium on top of the flower. Depending on your tissue paper, it will disappear almost completely, or leave a faint white impression. Don't use matte medium to glue down the tissue paper, since it will make the paper more visible. At this stage the project might look pretty bad, but don't worry.

Paint the flowers with acrylic paint. I used Dina Wakley's paint, which is heavier than Distress Paint. If you use Distress Paint, you can add a layer of white paint first, making less of the green background show through.

Use the same green paints as already used for the background and paint around the flowers, to remove any trace of the tissue paper.

Add shading to the flowers with black or grey paint. Paint some more stems with green paint.

Add even more green paint, to create the look of greenery.

Leave to dry, and then add back details to the flowers with a black pen. You can also restamp the flowers, using a stamp positioner, if you would rather do that. I also added white details and highlights with a white gel pen.

Stamp sentiments on the background and then add some texture paste through Tim Holtz's Linen stencil, here and there.

Some of the sentiments were stamped more than once. This is my favorite sentiment on the page.

Don't worry about getting a perfect result when you work with the black and white pen, since we are aiming for a sketchy look.

You can also add some black scribbles along the stems.

The title was die cut from Specialty Stamping paper using the Simon Says Stamp Archie Jr Solid die set.

Here's another look at a finished flower. You need to be patient with this technique since the result often doesn't look very nice in the first stages, but it is well worth it in the end.

I hope you will join us this week in our Thanks/Thanksgiving challenge. As always, you have a chance to win a $50 gift voucher to do some fun shopping at Simon Says Stamp. You have until next Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in.

Don't forget to follow Simon Says Stamp on Instagram, they post great stuff daily. 

Do you use Instagram? If so please add #sssmchallenge so we can see your entries there too.

Thank you so much for taking the time to visit my blog today!  

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

* Please note: the links are affiliate links, for which I receive a small percentage of sales generated by the link, at no extra cost to you.