Denim and acrylic background

Hello crafters! It's been a rainy weekend, but on Saturday I took a long walk after the rain. The forest is wonderful after a summer rain and the birds were having a concert. Since it was very warm last week, the blueberries are ready earlier than normally and I ate lots of blueberries. It was totally worth the mosquito bites I got every time I stopped to pick berries.

This week at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog we have a Play With Paint theme. Since it is the first Monday of a new month, the team is showcasing products by a specific designer/company. This week it is Dina Wakley. You can find Dina's wonderful paints, stamps, stencils and art journals here. You don't have to use Dina's products to join, but it is always fun if you do.

We also have a new guest designer and for July our guest is Sheila Wy with her beautiful blog Sheila Wy's 216 Alchemy Lane. Don't miss stopping by her blog to see what she has created.

I love Dina's new Blue Edition Media journal and decided to work on one of the denim pages. The journal also has cotton-rag watercolor pages and cream burlap pages. For an example of a burlap page, check out my Watercolor Butterflies from last week. I also used Dina's paint, gloss spray, Scribble Sticks and Scribbly Birds. I took out one of my South African bird books this week and turned the birds into three favorites: the Southern Red Bishop, the Dark-capped Bulbul, and the Cape Glossy Starling.

If you don't want to make an art journal page, cut a piece of denim from an old discarded pair of jeans and make a card instead.

Start by coating the denim with two coats of gesso, letting it dry in between.



When dry, paint with Tangerine, Lemon and Turquoise.



When dry, place the SSS Large Dots stencil on the page and mist with white Gloss Acrylic Spray. I pressed the stencil on the opposite watercolor page to save the spray that remained on the stencil. It will become a base for a future project.



Apply black paint to one of the Textures stamps with a foam brush. Stamp on the page. Immediately clean the stamp.

Stamp two birds from Scribbly Birds and one from Scribbly Small Birdies on watercolor paper.

Color them with Scribble Sticks. I love Scribble Sticks and reach for them often. They are perfect for watercoloring and also for other techniques. You can color directly onto the paper and then turn them into watercolor with a paint brush and water. Or you can pick up the pigment with a paint brush right from the tip of the Scribble Stick. I used both methods here. I used sticks from Scribble Sticks 1 and Scribble Sticks 2.

I wasn't quite happy with my first red bishop, even though it looks more like the real bird, I wanted the black areas to be a little lighter. 

I scribbled more lines with a black pen and changed the look of the yellow bird, so that it would look more like a Bulbul. The starling was sprayed with a mix of water and Perfect Pearls (homemade glimmer mist) since it is a very shiny and sparkly bird in real life. I used a white gel pen for some highlights and finished with Glossy Accents on the eyes.

 

I don't know if you can see the shimmering look of the starling. It is a really gorgeous bird.



In real life, the bulbul has less yellow in its coloring, but I wanted it to have a warm and yellow look.



With a black pen, you can easily change the look of a stamped image.



I could see red bishops among the reeds in the dam outside the window of my study in South Africa. Like small bright red spots flying around. And so hard to capture on photo!

The background was stamped with words from Scribbly Birds and stars from Tim Holtz Rock Star set.

I used the stars as branches, so that the birds had something to stand on.

Can you see the Glossy Accents over the eye here?

The denim adds a great texture to the page and I like the way the bright colors look against the denim blue.

I hope you will join us this week in our Play With Paint challenge. You have a chance to win a $25 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

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