For Christmas, Tracy gifted me with two classes from Sandy Allnock’s Art Classes. I started the first one right after Christmas–Colored Pencil Jumpstart. I envisioned that it would be a one month project. Two things, however, have caused me to reassess my goal. First was the amount of time the Coloring Challenge Road Trip, Online Version took. It was so worth the time. (I blogged about it here.) The other was I had no idea how much content was included in the colored pencil class. There are 10 lessons, and each of the lessons I’ve worked through so far has included 3-5 videos with practice sheets to complete. Each practice sheet is time consuming if one wants to learn the principals behind the lessons. One night, however, I decided I wanted to use some of the skills I learned in the Road Trip class with some of the things I’ve been learning in Sandy’s class to actually complete a project. 

Before the holidays, I had purchased a few items from The Stamp Market, included an overall design of leaves, Just Vines. It’s not the kind of stamp I often order, but it was great for doing some coloring practice. And it took some time! I worked on it while I watched my favorite women’s basketball team play a game on television. It was a win/win. I enjoyed the game and completed a project. 

Once I had colored the background leaves, the challenge was to turn it into a card. Another Christmas gift was a gift certificate to Simon Says Stamps. I used part of it to purchase a new set of frames, A2 Thin Frames. Cut in black, it provided just the right contrast.

Finally, I cut another piece of black cardstock and embossed it with the sentiment from Simon Says’ Brush Stroke Messages. 

All the colored pencil work was done with my Polychromos pencils on Stonehenge paper (recommended for pencil work by Sandy Allnock.) 

There’s a lovely texture to the paper which goes well with the leaves. 

Once again, it’s been a long time between blog posts. The days fly by. This week, however, I’ll be checking in soon with my progress for my OLW: COMMIT as I believe Honoré is hosting a link-up early in the week.

Back again with another project from Altenew’s “Watercolor and Beyond” class. This has been such an easy class to keep up with. Jennifer’s video’s are short and to the point, but with enough detail to easily understand the concept she’s teaching. I have just two more lessons to complete—the one that failed the first time (I think now I know how to correct my problems), and the last lesson of the class which I watched this morning. I should be able to meet my self-imposed goal of being done by the weekend.

This lesson was about coloring a detailed embossed image with watercolor. It’s a technique I’ve used before but not with such a detailed image. Jennifer used the new Altenew “Needlework Motif” set. I’d seen a lot of beautiful projects using the stamp during Altenew’s release week, and ordered it. It was sitting on my desk awaiting this opportunity.

I’m very happy with the results. I took my time and used a very small watercolor brush, following the advice to move around the image letting one area dry before watercoloring the area next to it. It’s advice I’ve read many times before, but haven’t always heeded. It’s clear it’s advice worth following. I stuck to four colors of blue and two colors of green all from my Gansai Tambi watercolors. I do think I’m about to splurge on the Altenew set because of it’s compact size and the wide range of bright colors. I embossed the image with rose gold embossing powder which is so lovely. Here’s a closer look.

We’re off to lunch with our couples book group–discussion of Killers of the Flower Moon at one of the member’s home afterwards. Later this evening, we’re going to the Food Truck Rodeo at the Public Market with good friends. It’s our first of the rodeos this summer. Although summer days are waning, the heat and humidity are not, so it still feels like summer for sure. 

The next lesson in Altenew’s watercolor class was on using watercolors as ink. It’s important in this technique to use concentrated amounts of watercolor which you apply directly to the stamp, and then lightly spritz the stamp with water before stamping onto watercolor paper. Following that you can use a small brush to distribute some of the watercolor and enhance some of the details. I don’t have a lot of Altenew’s layering stamps (it’s a technique I’m still learning to master), but using the detail stamp for the layering was recommended. Actually, the “Build a Flower” Magnolia” worked out pretty well for this technique.

I actually had a lot more trouble turning the piece into a card than I did executing the watercolored flower. I added some black and gold splatters after stamping the sentiment (from Altenew’s “Floral Frame” stamp set) and let them dry for over three hours. When I went to adhere the watercolor piece to a card I weighted it down and when I picked it up, some of the black splatters had smeared in the upper left-hand corner! I finally found a Spellbinders die that was the right size to incorporate the flower, the sentiment, and eliminate the smeared splatters. What a pain! I added a gold border and used a Memory Box licorice card. Here’s a closer look at the gold border and splatters.

I’m halfway through the videos for the class, and hope to finish it before the weekend. The next technique we learned was watercoloring an embossed sentiment. Looks easy, probably should be easy, but three attempts have hit the circular file. I’m moving on, although I’ll probably come back later and try again.

On a whim, I enrolled in Altenew’s “Watercolor Basics and Beyond” class this week. It’s designed to showcase Altenew’s new set of 36 watercolors which look lovely, but I don’t own them (yet). It doesn’t matter, as I’m already enjoying the class, and have several sets of watercolors to choose from. In lesson 2, Jennifer Raza introduced watercolor washes. I’ve done these for a variety of card backgrounds, but she added a twist I would never have thought of on my own: pressing a stencil into the watercolor wash and letting it dry. I can tell you when I set it aside to dry overnight, I did not have high hopes for it. It appeared to be a hot mess. It’s weighted down with an acrylic block.

Much to my surprise the next morning, I discovered quite a lovely background which was fun to use in creating this card. 

As I often do, I die cut the watercolored piece with the largest of Simon Says “Stitched Rectangles.” The die cut sentiment is from Mama Elephant, and the white embossed sentiment is from Papertrey Ink’s “Blue Skies.” After they were added to the background, I mounted it all on a True Black  top-folded card.

It’s definitely a technique I’ll try again, although I didn’t seem to have many stencils that I thought would work for this technique. 

Day 2 of the Online Card Class focused on heat embossing techniques. Who knew you could emboss with a Quickie Glue pen? Not I, but I decided to give it a try.

I stamped the image from Penny Black’s “Blooming Garden,” and colored it with Copic markers. Then I added the gold dots by applying tiny dots with the Quickie Glue pen and sprinkling them with gold embossing powder. Worked like a charm. I didn’t intend to cut the stamped panel, but made a mess of the sentiment, and decided that the design technique I used for Day 1 would work here as well. It’s actually a better design all the way around. Sometimes a mistake turns out for the best! I added a strip of 1/8″ Scor-tape to the edge and embossed it as well. It’s a technique I’d totally forgotten about and added just the right touch.

The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink’s “Friendship Jar Flowers.” I love the script font in this one. I have at least one more technique I want to try, so likely I’ll be back with another card over the weekend.