Winter Memories Watercolour

Considering that I'm not that enamoured with cold weather, leafless trees, slush, and ice, it might seem surprising that I get all nostalgic about the 'magic of winter'.

But the winters I remember were magic! Beautiful snowfalls, piles of snow to play in, flying across the fields in a one-horse-open-sleigh (yes, I actually did that once!) It was cold, but it was beautiful!

Anyway, that's my lead in to today's card - an image from the stamp set "Winter Memories".

 

When I was small I had a sled much like this one (yes, I am that old!!) And there was a long, snow-covered lane just across the way from our house - wonderful to sled on! So this image really brought back memories.

The base of the card is Basic Black (8 1/2" x 5 1/2"). The Whisper White front is cut at 4" x 4 3/4" and embossed using the new "Lacy Brocade" embossing folder found in the Holiday Mini Catalogue. The eyelet strip below is made using one of the Finishing Touches Edgelits (p. 190 of the Annual Catalogue) and attaching to the bottom of the embossed sheet.

The Basic Black mat under the image is 2 1/2" x 4", and the water colour paper on which I stamped the image is 2 1/4" x 3 3/4".

The ribbon is Raspberry Ripple 3/8" stitched satin ribbon.

Although I'm not a super watercolourer, I want to share some tips on how I did it.

I used a piece of sturdy plastic cut from an overpackaged package for a base to hold my palate of colours. Then I used our Marvelous Markers to scribble some colour on the plastic. The image is stamped with Stazon Black Ink that won't run when you watercolour:

The colours are Raspberry Ripple, Certainly Celery, Gumball Green, Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, Tempting Turquoise, and Primrose Petals.

A Blender Pen was used to pick up the colour 

And add it to the image

When you are finished with a colour simply scribble lightly on scrap paper until the colour is gone, and then pick up a new colour.

After colouring the shed, I used Primrose Petals to colour in the cardinals.

Then I went over the cardinals with the Raspberry Ripple leaving the stomach of the cardinal slightly lighter.

Next I coloured in the sled's metal parts with Raspberry Ripple. As you can see the colouring is by no means perfect! But you can go back and fill in things as you notice them, or with the magic of the blender pen you can lighten areas by using a clean pen (after you have scribbled out all the colour) to pick up colour. Plus part of the charm of watercolour are its imperfections. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it!!)

The wooden parts of the sled were coloured in with Crumb Cake - in this case I used the actual marker as it is such a light colour.

Then using the Blender Pen and Early Espresso I added shading/dimension to the wood.

The bow was coloured first with Primrose Petals.

Then I added Raspberry Ripple to the outsides and centre of the bow as well as the ribbons.

And then using the blender pens moving in small circles I blended the two together, making sure to leave light areas (remember you can pick up colour if it gets too dark by using a 'clean' blender pen.) You really need good quality watercolour paper to do this as other types of paper will pill and eventually tear.

The wreath was coloured in two shades of green - first of all I used the Certainly Celery marker to colour the whole wreath.

And then coloured in leaves here and there with the Gumball Green to give it texture. I also used the Raspberry Ripple to colour in the berries scattered among the leaves.

After finishing the rest of the image I added glitter (Two-way Glue Pen and Dazzling Diamonds) to the snow.

There you have it!

I hope you like the card and found the tutorial helpful. And I also hope you have wonderful Winter Memories to enjoy!

Happy Stamping!

Carol