Simple masking and watercolouring using Newtons Nook Peony Blooms stamp set.

Hello everyone. 

I'm back today with another card - this time I'm using Newtons Nook Peony Blooms stamp set and Altenew watercolours.  

I've started this project with stamping my florals on to piece of watercolour paper. To achieve the look I wanted, I did simple masking by stamping and cutting out additional flowers from post-it notes. You can also use masking paper or post it tape. When creating scenery, which requires masking technique, remember to plan which images going to be on the front and you got to stamp them first. Cover them with prepared masks and continue stamping. Add more masks if needed as you progress. 

After my stamping was done, I've coloured everything with Altenew watercolours in rainbow order ( Yes - I love rainbows!! ) by simply laying colour down where my shadows supposed to be the darkest and pulling it out with a water brush. I repeated the process until I was happy with the results.

My next step was to create the background, using ink blending technique and distress oxides in lovely pinks. I added texture by splatting clean water and gold paint with a paintbrush.

When all my images were dry ( I like to leave it aside to dry naturally, but you can also heat set it with your heat tool ), I've fussy cut them out and adhered to the background with foam squares to give the whole design much-needed dimension.

I like the look of white gel pen on coloured images - critters and florals - so I've added some here.
 The last step was to stamp a sentiment from the same set with Versafine Onyx Black ink and add few Nuvo drops.

Products used in this tutorial can be found at sevenhillscrafts.co.uk

That's it! Thank you for stopping by! I will be back next Thursday with another card.
See you soon!

 Anna  

Gnomes go Swimming

Sometimes my brain goes on a tangent when I sleep, and the other day I woke up with this idea in my head so had to create this scene using a mix of stamps from Stamping Bella.  I imagined that someone had left a cup of coffee at the bottom of the garden and the gnomes were like - woohoo - heated pool!   (Yes I need to get out more!)

 It's a one layer card, so I did a little masking to get all my characters in place.  I forget how useful masking is as a technique and must do it more.   Just remember to start at the front and work your way to the back.

Here I stamped the smiling gnome from Gnomes Have Feelings Too, and then stamped him again onto post it tape and cut him out to create my mask.  Once that was in place I stamped the Swimming Gnomes over the top and again masked those off (my tape wasn't wide enough but that doesn't matter as the background stamp won't touch the bottom of the cup).  Finally I stamped the Gnome Background stamp over both masks - and as my card is wider that the stamp and split it to get a wider image - I just inked up one half and stamped that, then inked up the other half and drew a line to join them up in the middle where the gap is.

I love taking the masks off and seeing the magic of the scene revealed.

From that point on it was just a case of sitting watching TV and colouring it all in.  I used my polychromos pencils and sansoder with blending stumps to colour it all in.  I like using pencils on one layer cards as it doesn't bleed onto the inside - blending out with stumps and a solvent gives a smoother look and is particularly useful for large background areas like the sky and path.  I used the same on the smaller images like the toadstools but then added more solid detail over the top.

If you've not tried masking to create a scene I hope this will encourage you to give it a go.

Tara