A blog devoted to the cards I make in my tiny upstairs space. When my sister stays there, she calls it an "artist's garret". I'm not an artist, but am an enthusiastic cardmaker - hence the title "Cardmaker's Garret".
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Friday 23 December 2016

Mixing Sponging and Watercolouring

I needed a couple of Christmas-themed cards that didn't actually say "Merry Christmas" on them, to send to friends who won't be feeling very merry this Christmas because of losing loved ones recently.

I'm linking this first one to the CAS Mix Up challenge.


This month the challenge is sponging.  Because I'm not very good at watercolour wash backgrounds, I thought I'd try watercolouring the image and sponging the background.


I stamped and watercoloured the image, then masked it, and sponged the background with a couple of shades of blue Distress ink.  I splattered with watered-down white acrylic paint but I'd watered it down too much so wasn't happy with the splatter I got, so added some white Frantage and heated from underneath.  I die cut the focal image and added it to a dry embossed background.

So for CAS Mix Up, I have sponging and stamping, and for my choice, I have watercolouring, splatter, die cut, heat embossing (the Frantage), and an embossing folder.

Because I'd fussy cut the mask, I decided to use the same image and technique for the second card but didn't add as many options to it.


I used slightly different colours for both my watercolouring and sponging, and added a less diluted acrylic paint splatter and a few die-cut snowflakes.

I love this new stamp!  I didn't do anything fancy with the snow on the leaves and branches, but want to use it for future cards and add glitter or Flower Soft to the snow.





Supplies:
Stamps - Penny Black
Ink - Ranger Archival Jet Black, various blue Distress inks
Paper - watercolour paper, white cs, black cs (for border in card 2)
Size - A2
Accessories - white acrylic paint, Gansai Tambi watercolour paints;  Card 1 - Stampendous Frantage chunky white embossing enamel, Cuttlebug embossing folder, Sizzix framelit die;  Card 2 - small snowflake die



5 comments:

  1. Great job of combining watercolouring with a sponged background Susan. This is really a beautiful image and love it done in the different colours. The frantage adds lots of dimension and texture for your falling snow. xx

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  2. Extraordinary, Susan! Really extraordinary sponging and coloring on these bright and beautiful cards!! Happy Holiday Hugs, Darnell

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  3. This is such a sweet bird, Susan! I love both backgrounds! The snowfall is amazing! I hope you have a lovely Christmas, my dear friend!

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  4. love the sponged background it looks so pretty with the watercoloured bird.

    Susan have a great Christmas and we will catch up next week :)

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  5. Such a good job of coloring and designing cards for this wonderful stamp. Interesting details. Soft and pretty result. Nice to think of birds in the winter time, too.

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