August 11 Watercolor Fest with Grace

Grace and I had our second Watercolor Fest yesterday.

She treated me to lunch at Portillo's. Later we had a blast playing with watercolors.

She created this gift tag for a watercolor gift set she's giving to a friend.

Grace gave me this 18 pan set of Superior brand watercolors.

We had fun trying them out.

Grace made this lovely landscape with the Superior watercolors. I love the fence in it!

Grace also painted this scene. Aren't the colors dreamy!

I think Grace added some accent lines with a Sakura black marker in both paintings.

I made this lady sketching it first with pencil, then used watercolors. 

When dry, added accent lines with a Faber-Castell PITT black fine marker pen.

Was inspired to make these flowers after seeing this PIN

which goes to this  YouTube

After painting, I splattered paint with the paintbrust

and added accent lines with the Pitt marker.

Also added white accents with the Jane Davenport white paint pen.

I'm not good at adding the accent lines. 

Added white with the Jane Davenport white paint pen here also.

Grace and I were inspired by images found online via google searches and Pinterest.

Thanks for visiting!

Michael Strong Black & White Blog Hop

Hello friends and welcome to the Michael Strong Black & White Blog Hop.
I hope you came hear after visiting Jill's beautiful artwork on her blog, Jill P's Place.

Today's card features Michael Strong's sweet Penguin Pals stamp set.
I think these 2 penguins are perfect for a Black & White themed card.
You can see Mike's penguin set and all of his wonderful stamps in his online catalog HERE. 

Be sure to visit Michael Strong's blog and leave a comment for a chance to win some Blog Candy!

Back to my torn paper pocket card...
I stamped Mike's penguins on white cardstock using Versafine black onyx ink,
 heat embossed with clear embossing powder and fussy cut.
I cut 2 pieces of white cardstock 5-1/4 inches wide. 
Then I cut them long enough to fit in the dry embossing folder 
that came with Tim Holtz's Bird Talk 2 stamp set,
dry embossed them and tore them into 3 pieces as shown.
With a tiny amount of white glue, I attached the torn pieces on the sides and bottom,
to keep them together. 
Then I placed this on the card base and punched 6 small holes 
and added black mini brads to secure the pockets to the card as shown. 

The penguin on the left is slipped into the pocket and can be removed.
The penguin on the right is attached with dimensional foam adhesive.
I wrote my own sentiment with a Jane Davenport "Inkredible" cartridge fountain pen
that has wonderful dark black ink and writes like a charm.
Added a few clear plastic sequins with white glue for some bling.

I have 2 other torn paper cards posted here and here 
which show variations of this torn paper card idea. 
My friend, Lynette, introduced me to this technique.
She saw Beth Cote demo it on the Carol Duvall Show some years ago! 

Now for more fun and creative ideas,
please hop on over to Shelly's Creative Rumblings blog.
Enjoy her beautiful artwork and be sure to leave some blog love/comments!

If you landed here in the middle of the blog hop and don't want to miss any of the fun,
you can visit Hetty's Craft Chaos blog to see the entire list of the participants. 

Remember, be sure to leave a comment on Michael Strong's blog
for the chance of winning some blog candy!

Thanks so much for visiting!

July 16 Watercolor Fest with Grace

My sister, Grace, and I had so much fun playing with watercolors last Sunday. I had been showing her some of my watercolor painted faces lately. We christened Grace's new set of 18 Sakura Koi watercolor pans, using aqua brushes and 140 pound cold press watercolor paper.

Grace said she wanted to try and draw a stormy sky. The scene above is Grace's artwork.

I'm still trying to draw lady faces.  I added the pink background at home, using the color called "Best Friend" from Jane Davenport's Petite Palette Brights. I used Jane's Inkredible pen to add detail to the eyes and the neckline trim. It writes beautifully-rich, opaque, dark black ink.

I was inspired to draw and paint these cat faces after seeing Cindi Banach's wonderful cat faces. She made 8 of them sharing on the Jane Davenport Mixed Media Facebook Group. Again, used JD's Inkredible pen for the black accents.

Grace and I had  so much fun watercoloring! Looking forward to our next watercolor fest!

Thanks for visiting!