Erased Background Technique + Giveaway

I took a fun class at Jerry's Artarama a few years ago with my sister. It was put on by Golden Paints, which I love and the instructor was very good.

We did both additive and reductive painting techniques, both of which appear on my card today.

Here's what I did to create this card. First, I put a piece of 3M masking tape diagonally across the card. Then I took this stunning floral background stamp and stamped it on either side of that mask, capturing the parts of the stamp I wanted to see, so that it looked like one big cohesive image.

I stamped the image in Versafine Clair on my favorite colored pencil paper and then got to work with the dreamy hybrid colored pencils that haven't left my desk much. Then, for an additive technique, I took my 100 / Black Copic marker and filled in the white space around the flowers. Before removing the tape, I took my Sharpie pen and outlined the tape to make it a bit crisper.

The pencils I used are: Spring Green, Peacock Green, Marigold, Luminous Rose, Luminous Opera.

After I got done coloring the leaves, they were competing with the flowers too much, so I did the reductive technique with this handy dandy tool you'll see in the video to tone them down. So fun & easy. The sentiment is from this stamp set.

So here's the video, and then come back for a fun giveaway below!

Wild Rose Bouquet [ PFS ] Ways To Say Get Well - Picket Fence... [ PFS ] Copic 36 BASIC Sketch MARKER SET And... [ SSS ] Holbein OP945 Artist Colored Pencils... [ EB. ] Sharpie Super Twin Tip - BLICK art... [ BLIC ] Sharpie Pens - BLICK art materials [ BLIC ] Derwent Battery-Operated Eraser [ BLIC | AMZUS ] Scotch Low Tack Artist Tape - BLICK... [ BLIC ] Tsukineko VersaFine Clair NOCTURNE... [ SSS | ELH | CST ] Artist's Choice 110lb White Card Stock [ GNK ] Coloring Glove - Anti-Smudge [ AMZUS ] Ipoint Orbit Pencil Sharpener, Turquoise [ AMZUS | BLIC ] Art Anthology BIG CRAFT MAT 24x36 311473 [ SSS ] Global Art Classic Leather Pencil Cases [ BLIC | AMZUS ] Staedtler Mars Plastic Erasers [ BLIC | JGG | AMZUS ] Crafter's Companion GEMINI... [ SSS ] Rotatrim Professional Series Cutter -... [ BLIC | AMZUS ] Heavy Base Weight Card Stock- White [ GNK ] MISTI Stamping Tool [ MSP | HA | SSS | ELH | MFT | UNT ] LightView 2in1 LED Magnifier for... [ BRG ] Mudder 10 Pack White Buffer Sanding... [ AMZUS ] Xyron ADHESIVE ERASER 23675 [ SSS | ART | AMZUS ] Teflon Bone Folder - Ellen Hutson LLC [ ELH | SSS ] Essentials by Ellen Storage... [ ELH ] Die Storage - Clear Storage Pockets... [ CHC ] XL Stamp Storage Pockets [ ELH ] Lawn Fawn STAMP SHAMMY Cleaner LF1045 [ SSS | CST ] Blog - Picket Fence Studios [ PFS ]

I have two more cards for you today - they are over on the Picket Fence Studios blog - so click here to see the other fun stuff that's out today.

I'll be giving away a $15 gift certificate to Picket Fence Studios too - just leave me a comment on this post. I will announce the winner on March 21st in my blog post.

And - if you watch today's video on YouTube and you've followed me for a while, look just below the video, and you'll see that you can get my favorite art phrase on a T-shirt now - in blue of course - "Perfection is for serial killers." You can get stickers and all sorts of stuff there with my philosophy. :)

Loveyameanitbye.

My Default Sentiment Strategy & Double Dipping

When I design a card, I do tend to pick out both the image and the sentiment before I start creating.

I do that for a couple reasons. First and foremost I like to tell a story on my cards, so when I come up with the images I want to work with I've usually made up the story in my head before I sit down to Airtable to look in my inventory for just the right words. Airtable is the bomb for this by the way.

But then when I find the sentiment, I have to make sure it fits - if I have a vertical card, it can't be a long horizontal sentiment. If the images are elegant, I can't have a cutesy font, etc.

The second thing I do when I'm totally enamored with a cute image, like I am today, I tend to reach for sentiments for the cards I send the most - which are birthday and thank you cards. Those two are my defaults.

As a child of a redacted decade, I LOVE all images of red and white mushrooms. (Did you know these are called fly agaric mushrooms? Obscure bit of triva for your Tuesday.)

So when this adorable little set made its way into my heart, I couldn't wait to make a little scene. This is one of the rare times when the most recent set I've gotten is the one I'm using - usually I'm a few months behind. Or years. But this didn't get filed away for later use - it came to live on my desk until I could watercolor it.

First, I stamped the images in Versafine Clair on cold press watercolor paper in my MISTI a few times to get good coverage.Then I die cut them both with the matching dies and started to paint. Why in that order, you ask? Because I'm not going to spend an hour painting something and then screw it up if the die shifts while I'm cutting it. That would make me very sweary.

I put them onto a beautiful piece of watercolor patterned paper of grass and a sky, but sadly, it's retired. I'm hoarding my sheet of it, so you know how much I love you guys since I brought it out today.

Then I stamped this sentiment next to them and glued the whole panel onto a card front.

Now the next thing people ask me is what I stamp inside my cards. And the answer is - nothing! I like to leave as much space as possible for my messy scrawl on the inside.

But now - I'm not even going to do THAT, because I love these A2 sized sticky notes you can put in either a horizontal or vertical card! You can write your message on one of these, stick it inside the card, and then your friend can send that same card to someone who needs a lift! That's why they are called double dip notes - each card has at least two lives. And if a lot of people use them they can go on and on like that chick's heart in the Titanic. How cool are these?? They say "this card was made with love - share the love by sending this on to a friend who could use a smile." They come in a package with two pads - a horizontal one and a vertical one. See them here.

It's the little things, right? You can see everything I used today below. Loveyameanitbye.

Under the Toadstool [ TE ] Under the Toadstool Dies [ TE ] Double Dip Notes [ MSP ] VersaFine Clair Ink Pad, Nocturne -... [ ELH | SSS ] Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors [ BLIC ] Escoda Versatil Brushes, Travel Round... [ UTR | BLIC | INK ] Da Vinci Cosmotop Sable Mix F Brushes... [ BLIC | ELH ] Fabriano Extra White Cold Press... [ BLIC ] MISTI Stamping Tool [ MSP | HA | SSS | ELH | MFT | UNT ] Lawn Fawn STAMP SHAMMY Cleaner LF1045 [ SSS | ELH | CST | ART ] Rotatrim Professional Series Cutter -... [ BLIC ] Nesting Porcelain Bowls - BLICK art... [ BLIC ] My Favorite Watercolor Sketchbook [ UTR ] Tombow MONO MULTI Liquid Glue Two... [ SSS | MFT ] LightView 2in1 LED Magnifier for... [ BRG ]