Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Make it Monday #173 - No Outline Watercolor

So you may've noticed - I'm not the trendiest girl in town. I am intrigued but it often may take me a bit of time to jump in. It's more of wallet issue with me. I love classic things (at least in my mind what is a classic ok) and I find it easier to put my money down on something I know I'll use for a long time.

Watercolor is classic for sure. And it makes the rounds in the stamping world and it's back again. It really never went out of style right? Nah :-) That being said, I am often reluctant to pull out my watercolors when I've got pencils and markers that can get me there a little quicker. But I decided I had a couple of cards to make and I'd try this week's Make It Monday over on the Papertrey Ink blog. I haven't participated in the MIM for a while.

This is where I segue into the little promise I made to myself. What's that you say? I need to give some of my older stamps some love. You know how it is - you buy new stuff - use it for a bit - then you're on to the next thing. Am I right? C'mon... you know what I'm talking about :-)
Okay so I'm determined to make it a regular habit - I'm makin a new category here on my blog - Everything Old Is New Again. After overhauling all my woodblocks and looking at quite a collection of clear stamps - I need to use them! So... here's my first installment.

These are not my oldest stamps for sure - but they haven't gotten any love in quite a while. I used PTI's Strawberry Patch and Background Basics: Sheet Music. The sentiment is new - Banner Sentiments (and I didn't even use the banner - go fig!)
I pulled out my old watercolor set and some watercolor paper I had and stamped in PTI Fine Linen. I stamped twice figuring I'd just see how it went. Watercoloring and me are not the best of friends. I used to get very frustrated with them. I wish there had been a course in watercolor when I was in school. But it seems these days I've gone from the perfectionist I was (back oh 10 years ago) to a more go-with-the-flow kinda girl. I like her better ;-)

So I colored away with a water pen and really enjoyed myself. I decided the finished card might look nice if I did something with the background. I picked out the sheet music stamps. I pulled out a post it note pad and made myself a mask (not being too fussy about it and stamped that music all over.

On the second card I did go back and edit the mask a little - cutting deeper into the image hoping to get some more of the music stamped there. Then I stamped on the sentiments (one's a little crooked and one's slightly smudged - that Versafine can be a little finicky but its such a gorgeous black yaknow). On one of the cards I decided to try some Rustic Cream twine. And on the other card I went back in with a white Gelly Roll pen and put the seeds back in the strawberries :-)

Overall - I'm pleased. And it was a very relaxing to just paint away and not get too wound up about every little detail.  I may have to pull out the watercolors again real soon.
Have a good one!




5 comments:

Nora Noll said...

This is beautiful!! I love that you made more then one and how you did the background with the masking and stamping. Sensational cards!!

Kathryn A said...

Lovely cards!! Your masking is terrific and you've water coloured the strawberries beautifully!

Diana K said...

I love these cards! The perfect stamp set to use; they really look like little paintings. And the extra work you did with the masking really paid off!

Linda said...

Such pretty cards.

Helen F. said...

Lovely card, Tracy. So glad you gave water coloring a try. I think it's always fun to challenge ourselves and try different techniques.