Watercolor

Freshly Made Sketches #596

July 26, 2023 Jentimko 5 Comments

A cool new sketch idea at Freshly Made Sketches! Judy has us doing halfsies! Designs only on the top half of the card and the bottom is clean. I found it a bit of a challenge but happy with the final result.

Along with the new set from WPlus9 that I used last week, I ordered another set called Joyful Poinsettias. I like the background style design along with the single flower and sentiments in the set. Again with the watercoloring (because I know Dawn designs like a water colorist). I stamped the image in black then heat embossed with clear embossing powder. I colored the flowers and leaves and tried to keep to a more vintage palette. After it was dry, I added a little Vintage Photo Distress Ink with a light hand to “age” the white spaces.

I waited until I was done coloring to choose the base and I went with Artichoke by Concord and 9th. I stamped and embossed the sentiment, going with a small one to keep it on the top half of the card. Finally I added some champagne colored pearls as accents.

I hope you find a bit of inspiration in this card. I had lots of fun spending a little time on the watercoloring. Thanks so much for stopping in. See you soon!

Hand painted tree with music

December 13, 2022 Jentimko 2 Comments

One more tree. Because the live from Dawn Woleslagle taught three styles and I had to try them all. You can find the links to her page on my post from last week. I hope you will bear with me because this has brought me so much joy in finding success in painting. I may even venture into some tags if I have any time to spend on them over the next couple of weeks.

I will say that I cannot pick a favorite tree to paint but I find this one and the first one I made a little more intuitive. Again, I left the tree simple (mostly for fear of messing it up by adding container) but I like the look. A bit more stitching since I feel it adds the right touch on this.

You can see in this closeup that I also added some white and gold splatters. For the background I chose an old, really old, music print from my stash. I inked it up with Distress Inks to give it a vintage look and added stitching to it too. I knew it needed a bit more shine so I started with the sentiment being gold embossed (and the gold splatters). But it still needed something else. It it hard to see in the photos, but right under the image layer is a layer of gold glitter paper. In person it really adds so much! A button and more gold twine to finish.

Again, thank you for those of you who have left kind words. Let’s face it, trying new things can be a bit intimidating and I’m glad you encourage me with your sweet comments. I’m actually out flying today and will likely be out in the system A LOT over the next couple of weeks. If you are flying for your traveling, please get to the airport early. I mean seriously early. I have already been seeing families completely devastated by the long security lines and the extra stress of risking their flights. Well, I’m off to get ready for another day. I’ll be back tomorrow with a new sketch from FMS (and something other than a tree). See you then!

Freshly Made Sketches #565

December 7, 2022 Jentimko 5 Comments

Happy Wednesday! I am back today with the latest sketch from Freshly Made Sketches and another watercolor tree. Truly, I’m obsessed. I did get a question on the tutorial on the watercolor trees. Dawn has a group on Facebook called WPlus9 Encourage Creativity where she has lives twice a week or so. The tree painting was on November 15th. Now, on to the latest sketch from the incredible Karren Johnson.

Armed with my confidence from the last watercolor tree, I attempted another style and, oh my word, it worked! I wanted to use it with the sketch this week and had to play around with backgrounds that worked. I finally settled on some patterned paper from Honey Bee Stamps.

I love this traditional plaid behind the tree and thought the dark wood print grounded the card nicely. In keeping with the sketch (loosely, at least) I chose a sentiment from Inside: Holiday Sentiments (Honey Bee Stamps). I had added a few gouache splatters to the tree after painting but still thought it needed a little something extra. A twine bow seemed to be just the right amount of detail.

I hope you’ll come over to join us for this week’s challenge. This sketch is perfect for those last minute holiday cards! I appreciate you dropping by. See you again soon!

Hand painted tree for Christmas

December 2, 2022 Jentimko 4 Comments

My crafting lately has been a bit hit and miss. In order to preserve some of my days off needed, I have been on reserve (on call) for flying. It makes for a chaotic pattern and I have a hard time creating without a good schedule. Some days, I just watch videos of my talented friends and learn. Recently, the incredible Dawn Woleslagle (WPlus9) showed how to paint trees. And I don’t just mean color, but actually paint. Now I like to pretend I’m a painter sometimes but this is next level. I like to color OTHER people’s art! But she made this look easy so I gave it a go.

Using my Daniel Smith watercolors, I followed along with Dawn basically mimicking her every move. And you know what, I got a tree! I’m pretty excited about this tree, not going to lie. Enough that I’m going to try some more. We’ll see how that goes. I cut down the panel, in retrospect I wish I had left it longer for the sentiment, to create a card. In keeping with Dawn’s unique and truly special style, I even pulled out my sewing machine. I stitched around the edges of the colored panel and a paper print panel (from Honey Bee Stamps). My sewing is intentionally a bit wonky but if I tried to make it perfect, it would be wonky anyway.

I thought it needed a bit more so I added gold splatters to the back panel and a layer of vellum underneath. The sentiment is gold embossed (Honey Bee Stamps) and I pulled a gold button and thread from my stash.

So the lesson here is never say never. It takes a bit of courage to make art. A little of yourself is in every piece and you have to face “messing up”. I hope this encourages you to take a chance and try something new. And please go follow Dawn on all her social platforms. She is generous with her talents and a skilled instructor! Thanks so much for stopping in today. Wishing you a wonderful rest of your week.

Wild Rose Birthday for Picket Fence Studios

March 22, 2019 Jentimko 1 Comment

Happy Friday!! A quick share today of my card I created for the Picket Fence Studios blog today. I tried something a bit new for me and did a whole big image using no line watercolor. I find it intimidating but thought this gorgeous image was worth the risk.

I stamped in an ink specially made for no line coloring called Fadeout Ink by Ink on 3. It is super cool to use for this! And then I just kept layering on color until I was happy. It isn’t perfect. I’d totally change things. But I’m happy over all and so glad I tried it. And I’ll keep on trying to perfect the technique over time.

I have a few more details over there and I hope you’ll visit the company blog for lots of inspiration! Thanks for stopping in today. See you soon!

Freshly Made Sketches #376

February 20, 2019 Jentimko 7 Comments

So you may have noticed (especially if you follow me in Instagram) that I have been trying hard to participate in the Daily Marker 30 Day Challenge as much as possible this month. I really am trying to eek out more coloring, even if only for a few minutes. So this card is a reflection of that as I found the perfect way to use the sketch by Karren Johnson for this week’s Freshly Made Sketches challenge. Karren is an amazing Copic colorist and this sketch lends itself to colored images, bold panels and word dies, among other things.

I chose to use this new Mondo Gerbera Daisy by Ellen Hutson as my focal image. I stamped in black ink and then colored it with my Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers. I chose a number of corals/reds/pinks to play with the shading on the flower. It didn’t take long and I love it. The flower reminds me of the Gerbera Daisies my dad would grow when I was little. There is something velvety and special about these flowers and I was thrilled that Ellen came out with this one.

A super quick post today. I’m back at work this week and it seems harder that usual after spending time at my mom’s last week. Off to bed to be ready for winter weather fun tomorrow! I hope you have a great day and will play along this week. See you soon.

Rose Bouquet

January 18, 2019 Jentimko 2 Comments

Happy Friday!! It is my week to share on the Picket Fence Studios blog and I’m so excited to share my card with you. And then there is tomorrow….the start of Creativation (a huge industry event). The January release has been timed to correspond with the start of all the fun there so make sure you come back tomorrow to see projects with the new products.

So for today, I used one of the first sets I got from Picket Fence called Rose Bouquet. It is gorgeous!! And it is meant for coloring of ALL kinds. I chose Zig Clean Color Markers. I love these pens for the precision tips and nice blending. I find that they work best on a Bristol paper so that is what I stamped the image on using the Black Hybrid Ink which I love for watercoloring. It doesn’t budge!

I layered on pinks and reds for the roses and then moved to olive greens for the leaves. To make the image pop more, I used a gray marker around the edges and blended it out. Once I had most of the coloring done, I went back and added the deepest of each color to get more depth and shadowing. While this takes a bit of time, I love coloring and I enjoy watching the project develop as I add shading. Since I didn’t want to cover up any of the image, I chose vellum for my sentiment. And you know what?? I found that I had this sentiment already stamped and heat embossed sitting right on my desk. It was left over from a design where I changed my mind but it was PERFECT for this card. So nice when that happens! I finished the card with some sequins from Pretty Pink Posh and found this pretty pink envelope from Simon Says Stamp to match.

Thanks so much for stopping in today! I hope you have a great weekend and I’ll see you again tomorrow!

Freshly Made Sketches #371

January 16, 2019 Jentimko 9 Comments

Another week has flown by and it is time for the newest challenge from Freshly Made Sketches. The amazing Jen Mitchell is our sketch designer this week and her sketch is fantastic.

I thoughts I’d pull out my Daniel Smith watercolors for this one and create a bit of a wash for the rounded corner square. But what image to use as a focal point? After scanning through, I came upon the Little Lilies set from Newton’s Nook Designs and I thought it would be perfect for the job. I painted it and cut it out using the coordinating dies and then decided it would be nice to add a wash of color to the crossing panel too. So a little more painting (and waiting to dry). Finally, I found this sweet sentiment from Simon Says Stamp’s Beautiful Ride that seemed just right for the little flowers. A quick little card for a sweet sketch!

Short and sweet today. Out on a trip and then back to finish up some details for the big January/Creativation Release from Picket Fence Studios. Hop over and check out all the great cards from the DT this week at FMS and I hope you’ll join us. Have a great rest of your week and see you soon!

Freshly Made Sketches #357

October 3, 2018 Jentimko 6 Comments

And I’m back for my regular Wednesday post! Thanks for your patience as I caught up to life a bit. I started with creating a swatch paper for some new watercolors that I got for my birthday (THANKS MOM!!). The paints are from Daniel Smith and my friend Lydia puts together splits to share the cost and allow people to have more colors. Here is my first split….aren’t they pretty?!!

Swatching out the colors was a good way to get back in the groove a bit. And did I mention they are so pretty!!! Notice that the palette has room for another split….hmmm….. So after putting these paints down on paper, I decided to get real and actually color an image. I had ordered this Mondo Holly the second I saw it and thought it would be pretty for today’s sketch from Freshly Made Sketches. Cécile created this one and I love all the options for it. I thought this would go another way (with a spotlight vibe) but it didn’t work out quite like I had in my head. I stamped the holly onto watercolor paper using Gina K’s Amalgam ink. This is a new ink to me and I just had to give it a go. It stamped well onto the watercolor paper (always a challenge, don’t you think?). I did overstamp a few times with my Misti but the result was clear and crisp. It dried quickly and I was able to get right to watercoloring. I used colors from my split above (with the addition of one brown from a DS Dot Palette I have from Simon Says Stamp). I need to work on the shading of the leaves more but I love these colors! I added a sentiment from the same set and some black to make the image pop. Finally some sequins in a pretty Rose Gold.I hope you have fun with this sketch and will join in with us. The inspiration is always amazing from our design team and in the gallery too! Thanks for stopping in today. I’ll be back on Friday with a card featuring a new product and a new to me technique. Until then, have a wonderful week!

Freshly Made Sketches #354

September 12, 2018 Jentimko 9 Comments

I’m happy to be back with you today to share a fabulous sketch from Freshly Made Sketches. Our sketch hostess is the talented and oh so witty Linda Callahan. I love her whimsical takes on sketches and stamp sets!

Her sketch this week reminded me of this little stamp set from Pinkfresh Studios called Dream On. I love the little images and the sentiments in it and it had not gotten nearly enough use. I hope that I didn’t stray too far from the sketch but I’m sure Linda will forgive me if I did.

I stamped the image onto a Strathmore Watercolor Notecard (these are the fabulous watercolor paper all pre-cut and ready to go with envelopes). I used Versafine Onyx Black and then watercolored with a new product from Clearsnap called the Dyestress Blendable Dye Inks. These are beautiful distress style ink in gorgeous colors. I just got them so I used this card as a bit of a palette test. Pretty, aren’t they?! I thought this sentiment kind of fit my mood as I was creating it. I know I didn’t make my usual Sept. 11th post yesterday but, truthfully, there is a lot going on with our family and I just didn’t have it in me. So in a way, this is my tribute card. It is hard in the face of tragedy to be happy. But it is ok to try to own it and allow yourself to heal and find joy. So I have this card for just the right day and just the right person.

I hope that you have a wonderful and peaceful week. Take a moment to allow yourself to be happy! And for those of you who are facing hurricanes, fires and other tragedies, please know that I am thinking of you and your safety! Thanks for stopping in today. See you on Friday with lots of fun things!

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