Troubled Skies 2

We continue our monthly theme of 'Troubled Skies' at Craft a Scene. The DT has come up with a great variety of troubled skies this month (don't miss checking out the new inspiration that is posted every Sunday). I hope you will share your skies with us, as I am showing below, you can make a nice sky using only ink, you don't actually have to use sky-themed stamps.

Here's my second troubled skies card:

I wanted to show that you can do a sky using only ink and no stamps, but still with lots of action and movement. I totally forgot to take step-by-step photos and only remembered that I had planned to do so when the sky was almost finished, but you can see a similar colouring technique in Kevin Nakagawa's Stampscapes 101 video here, only using different colours and different directions of the fields of light.

I stamped the Old Mill and the Meadow on glossy cardstock (4 x 6 in), with Archival Ink Jet Black. They blend together so well, you don't need to do any masking. The colouring was done with shades of blue dye ink, using a Colorbox Stulys tool. Decide roughly where you want the lighter swirls to be in the sky and then start applying your lightest blue ink (I used Adirondack Aqua) in a smooth motion, sort of streaking it across the sky, leaving areas the white of the paper. It is easier if you turn the paper on its side and work from the top to the bottom (that is from left to right on the sky). Continue with darker and darker shades of blue, always leaving some of the previous colour showing. The darker values make the lighter areas look even lighter. I used the same inks to colour the landscape.

The scene was framed with a Oak stamp stamped twice in the top corners and with Spruce tree stamp stamped three times at the bottom. I added stars and highlights with a white gel pen, as well as some white strands of grass. Finally, mist and shine was applied to the scene by dry-brushing white pigment ink, especially where the lighter areas of the sky meets the darker areas, and in the water.

Thank you for looking! There is still plenty of time to show us your troubled skies, and they can be more or less troubled, I'd say anything but a clear blue sky will work very well.

Happy Stamping!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:
Stamps: Stampscapes: Spruce Tree 077C, Meadow 057G, Old Mill Lg 063G, Oak Branch 203G
Ink: Ranger Archival Jet Black; Adirondack Aqua, Stonewashed, Denim; Distress Ink: Black Soot; Memento: Danube Blue; Colorbox Frost White
Surface: Kromecote glossy cardstock