So I try to keep in mind that not everyone wants to spend four hours with a teeny paintbrush or 300 markers and color one flower. Just us crazies.
So if you don't have either the time or the inclination to color, then these cards today are for you. The color is done in a very minimalist way, with very little effort or time.
First up - I have a fantastic video for this neutral background
coming to my YouTube channel this Friday, so be sure and subscribe to my channel to be notified to watch that this weekend.
On top of the background, I stamped this gorgeous tree. Watercolor would not have worked here because my background is made with acrylic paint. But I wanted something watercolor-like so that it wouldn't obscure the lines of the stamped image - so gouache it is! I blended an orange, a pink and a pale orange to get the flowers to look different across the tree. I painted it on quickly with a waterbrush. Then I took a larger piece of watercolor paper and edged it with that gouache mix. When you work with gouache - just put little bits on your craft mat - my ginormous non-slip silver craft mat is awesome - because it can't be rewetted. I just put a little dot on my craft mat and water it down and mix it on there and then just wipe it off when I'm done. My craft mat is huge, so I can have my paper pad on it and still have tons of room on either side to mix and smoosh and whatever.
I LOVE that there's a stamp set with our beloved Ladybird Johnson. I am within walking distance of the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center, where I love to spend time. She knew how good being outside was for mind and body and she loved the plants native to Texas. This will be a treasure that will never leave my collection.
What if you don't want to color at all? Use cardstock! I was telling my friends Mel & Kat today that I find paper piecing so relaxing and zen. So I used this beautiful heart die to cut into a card front, and then pieced in a little rainbow of cardstock cut with the same die. Some Stick-It on the inside of the card front and a Quickstik made fast work of this. The sentiment is from this set.
Now what if you have a big floral image, but you don't have the patience to color the whole thing? I saw Angela Bode do this technique on this gorgeous large lily stamp, and I decided to CASE her!
Big florals are perfect for this minimalist flicking technique. It still gives you the overall feel of beautiful color all over the card, but you've only quickly colored a portion of the images.
She did hers with markers, but I used my Holbein pencils - they are dreamy. First I just flicked on a little Cerulean Blue, then followed that with Violet. The leaves are done in Olive Yellow and Olive Brown. So quick and easy to just quickly flick the color on. The sentiment die, which I love, is this one. Even though this is a large image, this is quick and could easily be done in front of your favorite Netflix binge-worthy series. Here's my fave right now. And here's the even better podcast by the actual family members. And for God's sake don't listen to podcasts in the Apple app - get Stitcher. Even better, Stitcher Premium.
Loveyameanitbye.
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Your cards are beautiful as always! <3
ReplyDeleteYou had me at the flowring pink tree! Your first card has a bit of the cherry blossom art feel that I love. I want to go back slowly and read your technique for coloring the flowers. I love the second paper pieced heart. So pretty and such a fun way to feature color! Aww, thanks so much for the mention! Now I want to CASE you and try my hand with pencils!! I keep scrolling back up to look at your technique, it's beautiful! I really want to work on my pencils skills!
ReplyDeleteI love these! Sometimes the minimum coloring makes it more colorful.
ReplyDeleteI’m in love with this new release from SSS! Yikes...it’s all so pretty. I love your cards and I really like the technique with the floral stamp ❤️ I’m going to have to buy those filigree dies too!
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