Summer Garden Watercolour

Hello friends!! I hope you had a good weekend! We have a long weekend here since today is a public holiday (national day). Anton and I went on a bike trip on Saturday. I am so happy that he now cycles well enough to be able to do that, because it is one of my favourite things to do. We found a beach at a lake and stayed there most of the day. He discovered a bush full of really pretty blue dragonflies and I am hoping to make a project inspired by them soon. 

This week at the Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge we are featuring products by Paper Artsy, and our theme is Summer Garden. You don't have to use Paper Artsy products to join, but it is always fun if you do. 

I created a summer garden with stamps and watercolours in my large Dylusions journal, aiming for a sketch book look. I love flower stamps, since they are so pretty, versatile and can be used for so many different themes. Paper Artsy has a lot of wonderful sets with flower stamps. This was really fun to do and I took some step photos. 

Here you can see the two stamp sets that I used. The ESN12 from Sara Naumann, which was used for the sentiment and for textures, and the ELB22 by Lin Brown. 

I worked on a sheet of hot-press (smooth) watercolour paper and stamped the images with Jet Black ink. After stamping, I white embossed the text stamp from Sara's set here and there. I masked out areas on the flowers, added stems to the flower without a stem, and dots as flowers in the grass, with a Molotow Art Masking Fluid Marker. The clouds were made with Distress Micro Glaze, applying a thin layer with my finger on a few areas in the sky.

When the masking fluid had dried, I painted the scene with Prima's watercolours, using paints from the Classics, Tropicals and Decadent Pies sets. The sky was painted with clean water first.

When you rub off the masking fluid, you'll find the white of the paper underneath. Applying masking fluid with a pen is so easy, and mess free, and it has a fine tip, which is great too.

Add texture to the scene with two texture stamps from the ESN12 set and the grass stamp from the flower set.

After removing the masking fluid, I added some paint to the white areas, such as the yellow dots on this flower, and the green stem.

Stamp one more stamp, but this time with Peeled Paint Distress Ink. Mist the stamp with water before stamping, for a water-colour effect. Use this stamp to fill out the scene where it might be a little empty.

After everything dried, I took out some black pens and started doodling on the page, adding birds to the sky, scribbles to the clouds and some words. The white flower dots in the grass were given a shadow and I added quite a lot of marks to the stamped flowers too.

Here you can see how the Distress Micro Glaze creates a resist effect in the sky, making pretty cool clouds. The text in the cloud translates 'blue'.

The great sentiment was stamped on mixed media cardstock and cut into strips. I inked the edges with Black Soot and added some shading with a pen.

Aren't these flowers fun? They were given a rough circle around them, to mimic the circles I made around some of the words, and simply because I like circles.

 

The grass has a lot of texture, with the painting, embossing, stamping, masking and doodling. I also splattered black watercolour paint on the page here and there. 

Here's another view of the grass. I used just the first part of the sentiment from the flower set. 

I love thistles and this big one is such a great stamp. Painted purple and with extra black splatters at the base of the flower. The white embossed text adds texture to the flowers.

The masking fluid helps to preserve white highlights, so you don't need to think about that when painting.

This flower was painted with yellow and just a tad of orange.

I love this resist look from the Micro Glaze. You need to use a permanent pen on top of the glaze.

I wrote some summery words and sentences here and there on the page, about enjoying summer. On these little flowers you can again see the effect of the masking fluid. I added the yellow paint after removing the fluid.

I hope you will join us in our Summer Garden challenge. As every week, you have a chance to win a $50 gift voucher from Simon Says Stamp. You have until Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in.

 

If you want 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 stopping by today!

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

Paper Artsy ECLECTICA3 LIN BROWN 22	Paper Artsy SARA NAUMANN ECLECTICA3 12	Arches HOT PRESSED WATERCOLOR PAD 9x12 in	Prima Flowers TROPICALS Watercolor Confections	Prima Flowers DECADENT PIES Watercolor
Prima Flowers THE CLASSICS Watercolor Confections	Molotow ART MASKING LIQUID 2mm FINE TIP PUMP MARKER	Ranger Inkssentials PIPETTE	Faber-Castell BLACK ESSENTIAL PITT Artist Pens	Ranger FUDE BALL 1.5 MM BLACK
Dyan Reaveley DYLUSIONS JOURNAL	Ranger MIXED MEDIA CARDSTOCK	Tim Holtz DISTRESS MICRO GLAZE	Ranger Archival Ink Pad JET BLACK	Simon Says Stamp BLUEJAY
Tim Holtz DISTRESS INK PEELED PAINT	Ranger Wendy Vecchi Archival FERN GREEN	Tim Holtz DISTRESS INK FOREST MOSS	Simon Says Stamp EMBOSSING POWDER WHITE	Tsukineko Versamark EMBOSS INK
Ranger Inkssentials Non Stick CRAFT SHEET	3M Scotch PINK ATG ADVANCED TAPE GLIDER 1/4	Ranger Inkssentials US HEAT IT CRAFT TOOL	Ranger Inkssentials EUROPEAN HEAT IT CRAFT TOOL	Hero Arts CLEAR ACRYLIC BLOCK 4 x 4.5
Hero Arts CLEAR ACRYLIC BLOCK 3 by 3	Tim Holtz Distress SPLATTER BRUSH	Tim Holtz DISTRESS SPRAYER Ranger	Winsor Newton COTMAN SYNTHETIC SABLE 111 ROUND 1

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