Nature Art Journal Page

Hi friends! It is a new week and I can hardly believe that May is already over. We had a challenging month and hopefully June will be better.

At the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog we have an 'Inspired by an artist' theme this week. Don't miss the last project by our May guest designer Simona Rebecchi aka Ginny and the Sheep. 

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

I was inspired by Swedish artist Lars Lerin. I really like his work, with it's focus on nature and with lots of interesting texture and a play of light and dark. My project is in particular inspired by his watercolor nature samplers, which are often a mix of details and whole images. He also has an interesting approach to borders and lines, with multiple borders and lines within a project.

I started out with a watercolor wash on watercolor paper, using masking tape to attach the paper to a wooden board. I used the one to the left.

Next, I re-attached the paper with masking tape, placing it further in than the original tape. I also created six squares by cutting masking tape, somewhat irregular and creating a grid. Some squares were glazed with a second layer of the same paint. I also used a second shade of brown and added some lines.

Two squares got a blue glace. Let dry.

When dry, I inked stamps with Distress Inks, misted with water and stamped on the squares. I used stamps from Anna's Flowers, Laugh In Flowers, Beautiful Butterflies and All Seasons Tree.

I stamped lines by painting watercolor paint on a ruler and pressing it here and there.

I also scratched out some lines with a craft knife and added highlights by scratching away the top layer of the paper.

In one of his books Lars Lerin uses stenciled letters and I added a word by painting with watercolor paint through Tim's Cargo stencil.

Lars also writes with a pencil on some of his sketches. Instead of writing, I used the Old Letter Background stamp together with Smoke ink. I also stamped additional sentiments with black ink.

I added some shadows here and there, but left most of the stamping without shadows, since I was aiming for a lose and quick sketchbook look.

The trees were inked with Forest Moss and a little Ground Espresso. I scratched out highlights on one side of the trunks.

I tested the color combos of all the stamps on a scrap paper first, except for this one, which I ended up not liking as much as the others. The scratched out white highlights made it better. 

The smaller flower from Anna's Flowers was inked with two shades of pink and a little Vintage Photo. I stamped it multiple times to fill up the square.

One of my favorite parts of this page is the sharp line on this square and how it is visible through the butterfly.

Stamping with a ruler and watercolor paint is lots of fun and adds great irregular lines.

Here's a close up showing some of the lines and how they intersect. 

More lines. I really enjoyed this technique and will use it again.

When I removed the tape, I wasn't as careful as I usually am, since I wanted the tape to rip off some of the paper. You can see one of those places here.

The thinner tape pieces were not pressed down hard on the page, since I wanted some of the paint to seep under the edges. I didn't want only sharp edges, but also imperfect and rugged ones. The edges of the page were distressed and I glued it to a cotton-rag watercolor page in my Dina Wakley Media Journal. The cotton-rag paper is whiter than the watercolor paper that I used, adding another border and shade.

I hope you will join us this week in our Inspired by an Artist challenge. You have a chance to win a $25 gift voucher to do some fun shopping at Simon Says Stamp. You have until Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in.

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 stop by here 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.