Sunflowers with Horses

It's reminder time for CAS Watercolour!  This month the challenge is "sunflowers" - perfect for August when sunflowers are starting to bloom.   Check out the inspiration from the rest of the Design Team and our wonderful August Guest Designer, Izzy of Izzy Scrap.  The link up is open until August 24th.

I decided to stick with stamps for this challenge as otherwise I'd be using the same stencil some of the other DT members used.  And I only have two stamps with sunflowers, the one I used for my original card and this one:

I stamped it in brown ink on watercolour paper and then decided to colour in only the sunflowers and butterfly, thinking that would keep quite a busy image more CAS.  I used my Gansai Tambi paints and used this photo of a red sunflower as inspiration for my colours just to make a change from yellow sunflowers. 

I originally did the butterfly in mauve and it didn't show up enough so I restamped just the butterfly section on a scrap and painted it turquoise, then fussy cut it and popped it up with foam tape.  I trimmed the image down to its borders, popped it up on fun foam, and added a simple brown sentiment.

I'm also taking it to the AAA Cards "Friendship" challenge.  I truly believe friendship exists among animals.  I've seen it often amongst the dogs and horses in my life.  These two horses at the barn where I volunteer with therapeutic riding spent their off-time standing by each other, nuzzling and grooming each other, and when one went out for a lesson, the other fussed and whinnied till he came back.  The one on the left, Quincey, was one of our therapy horses and much older than his friend, Trio.  When Quincey passed away a couple of years ago, Trio was visibly bereft for awhile. 

And these two, Teddy and Sprite, are the mainstay of our therapeutic program.  Both are elderly (in their 20s) and as calm as can be with our riders, but they are such good friends and when they are turned out together, they act like two friendly youngsters, romping together, chasing each other, and enjoying their companionship so much.  They only do this with each other - if you turn either of them out with a different horse, they never play with that different horse.

Teddy is also friends with our little Shetland pony, Becca - their paddocks are side by side and they spend a lot of time interacting and grooming each other across the fence.

So, just like people, animals choose certain other animals to be their special friends - we can learn so much from observing the animal world.

Supplies:

Stamps - Impression Obsession horses, A Muse sentiment

Ink - Ranger Archival Potting Soil

Paper - watercolour paper, cream cs

Size - 4.25 x 6"

Accessories - Gansai Tambi watercolour paints, fun foam, foam tape