Understand Blue: February 2021

Thursday, February 25, 2021

VIDEO: Glazing for a vintage touch

*Compensated affiliate links used where possible at zero cost to you. No posts are ever sponsored or paid.*

I've always been drawn to vintage nature illustrations. We had a million books containing both animal and botanical illustrations when I was a kid and I loved looking at them just as pieces of art.

Birds were my favorite, and on ephemera I buy and vintage books, I noticed a style I liked - where the entire image has a sepia wash over it, and the bird remains the brightest, and the background botanicals etc., fade in comparison to the bird imagery. Here is a good example of what I had in mind.

Since I had done glazing before, I thought I would try it again with this stunning new bird set and large floral set and see if I could recreate that style I loved.

I stamped the bird in Fadeout, and then masked it and stamped the flowers behind it. I removed the mask and brushed on Sweet Corn and Sea Glass inks with life changing blender brushes to fill the background with pale color before starting to color the image with Graphit Markers. (Coupon code in the footer)

I made sure there was a big difference in tonal value between the bird and the flowers, so that the bird would pop and the flowers would fade when glazed.

To create the glaze, I just used this glazing medium with a few drops of Vintage photo Distress reinker mixed in. I applied it on top of my already colored image with this scraper for uniformity - no stripes because of the size of the scraper. So here's the finished card, and you can see the video below.

So you can watch the process of coloring the image in this video. I didn't film the glaze mixing because it's just two seconds with a toothpick - LOL. I do have a glaze mixing live in my Facebook class group if you're dying to watch me mix it up! :)

Here are all the supplies I used today!

February Gina K Release [ GNK ]	Fadeout No Line coloring Detail Ink [ INK ]	GKD Color Companions Ink Pad- Sweet... [ GNK ]
GKD Color Companions Ink Pad- Sea... [ GNK ]	Graphit — Marker Universe [ MRK ]	Tim Holtz Distress Reinker VINTAGE... [ SSS ]
Liquitex Acrylic Glazing Medium [ BLIC ]	Life Changing Blender Brush: 2-Pack [ PFS ]	A to Z 5" Bondo Spreader - 3"x5"... [ AMZUS ]
My Sweet Petunia [ MSP ]	Pre-Cut & Scored Cardstock [ CTC ]	Rotatrim Professional Series Cutter -... [ BLIC ]
Mudder 10 Pack White Buffer Sanding... [ AMZUS ]	Xyron ADHESIVE ERASER 23675 [ SSS \| ART \| AMZUS ]	Teflon Bone Folder - Ellen Hutson LLC [ ELH \| SSS ]
Crafter's Companion GEMINI... [ SSS ]	Scor-Pal MINI SCOR-BUDDY Scoring... [ SSS ]	Storage Envelopes, Medium 25pk,... [ ELH ]
CheckOutStore Stamp & Die Clear... [ CHC ]	Extra Large -50 pk, Avery Elle Stamp... [ ELH ]	Mermaid tidy towel case and glue... [ ETS ]
Lawn Fawn STAMP SHAMMY Cleaner LF1045 [ SSS \| CST ]	Airtable: Organize your stamps & dies [ ART ]

Loveyameanitbye.

CURRENT COUPON CODES

15% off anything at Marker Universe or any of their other sites - Understandblue15.
10% off the whole store at A Colorful Life Designs - LydiaFan10
5% off at LBC here with code LYDIA5
Phone stand for filming link below in the banner - 20% off sitewide with code UNDERSTANDBLUE

Tuesday, February 23, 2021

Here's the thing about that Mars landing...

*Compensated affiliate links used where possible at zero cost to you. No posts are ever sponsored or paid.*

Here's the thing about that storm, and about that Mars landing.

For the last year, our home is what kept us alive. It kept us safe - we were able to work and cook and bathe and do normal things while the storm raged around us in the form of a pandemic. Our homes became classrooms, offices, restaurants, and entertainment venues. They replaced the outside world for us.

That ~~was~~ is stressful enough.

But then to realize that that same home in an instant was going to possibly kill you, freeze you to death, be destroyed with you in it by freezing pipes bursting, or a fire caused by a water heater that no longer has water, or a fire caused by a gas main rupture, and all the fire hydrants are frozen or have no water - that was too much after the last year.

When the water stopped running and the power shut off, and the roads were impassable - your only options are to wait, filthy and cold, to see if you survived. That's all there was. There was no help. There was no escape. It was so cold inside we had a hard time melting our snow to flush our toilets with. It was gross, uncomfortable, and demoralizing, not to mention rage-inducing when you know the reasons it all happened.

So you are going to have to pardon some of us who are not super excited about the Mars landing right now. That was happening while we wanted the most basic things for the longest 6 days in Texas history, like water, flushing toilets and power. There was a man who kept his wife alive with a car battery, and he, too, knows he's still luckier than most. I had this conversation with a friend today. We'll be excited later. But like any event that takes all of your adrenaline when you were already worn out by the last year - we are tired. And food and water is still hard to come by for us, and our water still isn't safe to drink.

Luckily I have plenty of both of those - but most do not, and our shelves are bare here. So someday, I'll care about brilliant technological feats, but that day is not today.

I'm staring at dead plants in my yard that I've cared for for 18 years.

So I'm going to hope that there are signs of life out there soon, and bring you a card I made when everything was still alive.

I used this stunning lotus stamp, stamped it in Fadeout Ink and then watercolored with Daniel Smith. The background, which I LOVED making, and made many sheets of, is a mixture of Art Print Brown and Dandelion Liquid Watercolor, which makes the most PERFECT Sepia. On top of that, I used this background stamp in Unicorn. I stamped that same background stamp in black for the piece I cut with my circle infinity dies to frame the flower. Such a fun and relaxing card to make.

SB271 Hero Florals Lotus Combo - Hero... [ HA ]	CG830 Script Bold Prints - Hero Arts [ HA ]	Fadeout No Line coloring Detail Ink [ INK ]
AF249 Unicorn Pigment Ink Pad - Hero... [ HA ]	PD110 Liquid Watercolors Dandelion -... [ HA ]	PD117 Liquid Watercolors ArtPrint... [ HA ]
My Sweet Petunia [ MSP ]	Pre-Cut & Scored Cardstock [ CTC ]	Art Anthology BIG CRAFT MAT 24x36 311473 [ SSS ]
Xyron ADHESIVE ERASER 23675 [ SSS \| ART \| AMZUS ]	Crafter's Companion GEMINI... [ SSS ]	Scor-Pal MINI SCOR-BUDDY Scoring... [ SSS ]
Storage Envelopes, Medium 25pk,... [ ELH ]	CheckOutStore Stamp & Die Clear... [ CHC ]	Extra Large -50 pk, Avery Elle Stamp... [ ELH ]
Mermaid tidy towel case and glue... [ ETS ]	Lawn Fawn STAMP SHAMMY Cleaner LF1045 [ SSS \| CST ]	Airtable: Organize your stamps & dies [ ART ]

Loveyameanitenjoyyourwaterandpowereverydaybye.

CURRENT COUPON CODES
15% off anything at Marker Universe or any of their other sites - Understandblue15.
10% off the whole store at A Colorful Life Designs - LydiaFan10
5% off at LBC here with code LYDIA5
Phone stand for filming link below in the banner - 20% off sitewide with code UNDERSTANDBLUE

Monday, February 22, 2021

Bunny Festival + Exclusive Voucher

*Compensated affiliate links used where possible at zero cost to you. No posts are ever sponsored or paid.*

After the last six days, no one wants to see spring as much as I do, trust me. More on that later. So I HECKING enjoyed making cards this weekend when I had both power and water starting late Sunday, and beautiful little bunnies from a new illustrator from Russia.

This is kind of an unusual release, because along with the adorable bunny-themed stamps and dies, they have a limited time ephemera pack that has some of the images that match the stamps, that just makes me squee a lot! I love ephemera, and use it daily in my art journal. But ephemera that matches stamps? Yeah, baby! It matched the images in this set, but the ephemera images are smaller.

So for this first card, I used their grungy brick stencil and this gorgeous pale pink Paper Glaze to create a city background for my zoomie little bunny. Then I used one of these OMG THANK GOD THEY SELL PRE-CUT SENTIMENT STRIPS blank sentiment strip and the sentiment from this set for a super duper quick and fun card. For $3, those strips save me a lot of aggravation!

Now for the second card - I'll have a video later that will show you how I used the same stencil on the Gel Press to create this grungy background - it's so quick and easy and I'm a wee bit addicted. But the foreground was so fun. I used this stamp and the coordinating dies with cold press watercolor paper and Fadeout Ink. I love that it can be used for St. Patrick's Day, but also for all-year friendship cards. Then I used Daniel Smith watercolor with just five pigments from the Lydia split in my split group to paint the bunny. To create the shadow, I flipped the negative space from where I cut the image out of watercolor paper upside down, and lightly traced it with a pencil. Then I used a Graphit Marker to fill it in before gluing the bunny down. (Coupon code for these in the footer.) The sentiment is from the same set.

Finally - a very simply colored and adorable image - to me, it looked like he was laying in the grass, so I colored it accordingly with Graphit Markers, using the teeny fine point to get in the tight spots, and going around the edge with the brush end to create a subtle frame. So adorable.

This is such an amazing debut for this illustrator. I love that hardworking artists can find a new home in the craft industry, and I hope she's wildly successful. Most of all, I love that Mary Ann found such a fantastic artist to match her brand. What a win. Just so you know - she's a person who checks on her neighbors - filling up their generators for them if they are unable to. Since literally the only thing we Texans had this week was our neighbors and HEB to count on, I hold that trait very dear. So know that about her when you buy her stamps. It matters.

She also has two really pretty 6x6 paper packs out today and lots more bunny stamps! Very springy!

Also - all orders over $50 will get the limited edition ephemera pack free - no need to add it to your cart, while supplies last! They will also be randomly giving away another $25 voucher to commenters on their blog.

Here are all the supplies I used today!

Stamps – The Rabbit Hole Designs [ THR ]	Limited Edition Ephemera [ THR ]	Spring Delivery [ THR ]
Spring Delivery Dies [ THR ]	Clover Bunny [ THR ]	Bunny Bouquet [ THR ]
Back Alley - 6x6 Stencil – The Rabbit... [ THR ]	Paper Glaze - Pink Carnation – Picket... [ PFS ]	Sentiment Strips [ BMR ]
Graphit — Marker Universe [ MRK ]	Spring Floral 1 [ THR ]	Spring Floral 2 [ THR ]
My Sweet Petunia [ MSP ]	Pre-Cut & Scored Cardstock [ CTC ]	Fadeout No Line coloring Detail Ink [ INK ]
Art Anthology BIG CRAFT MAT 24x36 311473 [ SSS ]	Rotatrim Professional Series Cutter -... [ BLIC ]	LightView 2in1 LED Magnifier for... [ BRG ]
Xyron ADHESIVE ERASER 23675 [ SSS \| ART \| AMZUS ]	Teflon Bone Folder - Ellen Hutson LLC [ ELH \| SSS ]	Crafter's Companion GEMINI... [ SSS ]
Scor-Pal MINI SCOR-BUDDY Scoring... [ SSS ]	Storage Envelopes, Medium 25pk,... [ ELH ]	CheckOutStore Stamp & Die Clear... [ CHC ]
Extra Large -50 pk, Avery Elle Stamp... [ ELH ]	Mermaid tidy towel case and glue... [ ETS ]	Lawn Fawn STAMP SHAMMY Cleaner LF1045 [ SSS \| CST ]
Airtable: Organize your stamps & dies [ ART ]