More watercolor practice

I worked a little more on my watercoloring today, this time on a female cardinal.

Watercolor cardinal & life intrusions

It's seems that life tends to get in the way of my card making.  I've been trying to develop my skills in using my Peerless watercolor papers to color stamped images for cards.  It takes me several days for each one.  Details are hard to create with watercolors and I really shouldn't spend too much more time learning this technique, but it is enjoyable.  I finally finished this card yesterday.

This stamp is by Heartfelt Creations.  This is a male cardinal.  I have the female from the same set stamped on watercolor paper and hope to create a card with it also.

I've been a bit distracted by life.  Yesterday, I saw my eye doctor for a follow-up exam after my laser surgery for glaucoma.  Dr. was pleased because my eye pressure had been reduced by 50%.  Now, to wait another 4 months to see how this turns out in that time frame.

I have also been distracted by the Decorah Eagles.  I've watched the eagle camera since the eggs were laid, eaglets hatched and grew up and flew away from the nest.  Unfortunately, heavy rain created many problems for them.  2 of the 3 fledglings have been located so far.  One was found in the middle of street and checked for injuries by Raptor Resource Project and given food.  The next day, it was determined to be okay to return to care of parents.  They are feeding it and teaching it to be an eagle.

Another of the siblings was found in a stream with an injured wing.  It was taken to SOAR (Saving Our Avian Resources) for care.  It was x-rayed yesterday and found to have a broken wing.  Surgery will be done tomorrow to pin the broken humerus.  Hopefully, it can be rehabilitated in time for return to wild.

One more sibling has not been spotted, but hopefully is being cared for by it's parents.

Another watercolor card

After trying out my Peerless Watercolor Papers to color a flower on regular white cardstock, I decided to try it on watercolor paper.  I stamped this sparrow from Our Daily Bread Designs onto watercolor paper with Memories black ink.  I used a die to cut it out and didn't get it even, so I trimmed a bit more of the white edge off with scissors.

I used a waterbrush and picked up color from the Peerless watercolor papers to add color to bird and thistle.  I adhered the colored sparrow to this patterned paper from Ki Creations, then stamped the sentiments in Memento Rich Cocoa ink.  I framed it in the green cardstock, then mounted it on a white card base.

Naturally, I got an ink smudge on finished card, so I added some bling from Doodlebug Designs.

Practice watercoloring

I had to laugh as I received sales emails about products and techniques that were popular many years ago.  One of them was Peerless watercolor papers.  I had bought these many years ago at a convention and never really used them much.  I was about ready to discard them.  I had mounted half of each sheet of intensely pigments watercolor papers onto cardstock with labels.

I have 7 pages like this in different colors.  I mailed the half that I hadn't mounted to a friend.  We're both trying to learn to use them.  My first attempt was very dark, so my friend suggested I use wet brush to pick up color and put it on a 'pallet' (plastic lid for me) and color from that swatch.  This is my first acceptable card using this technique.

I have a lot of practicing to do before I consider myself good enough to color with these papers.  I just used plain white cardstock.  I need to try this on watercolor paper to see how that turns out.

Embossed Hearts

My shopping last week brought me new supplies for the first time in a year.  These papers are from DCWV - a pad called dots, stripes & plaids.  The embossing folder is from Darice, sentiment die from Memory Box and the dimensional heart stickers by Sticko.

I did add ink to the embossed hearts & dots with a Memento dew drop pad, creating a very distressed look to the background.  I must remember to only use large dry ink pads for this in the future.

Playing with ideas

One of my habits is to try to improve things I didn't like in the cards I make.  I used a shim to make my embossing a bit deeper, then masked the tree trunks and used a torn paper mask to add some grass to the ground under the trees.  I also added chalk to trees and then used a stencil to sponge on some clouds.

Catching up

I'm trying to catch up after a couple of frustrating weeks.  During this period, I've had 2 laser procedures on my eyes for treatment of glaucoma.  In a few weeks, I'll see the doctor for testing to see if it helped.  I also have new glasses.  If that isn't enough, I also had a basal cell carcinoma (skin cancer) removed from my scalp.

In an effort to help find some positive things in life, here's a photo this morning of my dog Tex checking out a new flower on a cactus.

This is a tiny little plant container with tiny cacti.  It blooms at night and will be gone by noon.  The flower is nearly closed now by 10 AM.

While in the big city for my eye surgeries, I did some shopping for new card making tools.  I found a good sale on embossing folders and I'm trying to create cards with them.

 

I used a white core cardstock for this card and sanded the embossed tree to show the white core, then added a little colored pencil to give it a bit of color.  The sentiment is a very old Cuttlebug die.

This card didn't emboss as deeply as I'd hoped and is a bit hard to see, so I added a bit of chalk to show the trees a bit better.  This sentiment is from Hero Arts - a fund raiser set for Operation Write Home.

Any Hero cards

My mojo is still MIA.  I have vision problems and I'm going through laser procedures for glaucoma.  One more treatment and then I'll find out what is in my future.

I did manage to make a few Any Hero cards for OWH.  These are sent to our deployed troops to let them know we are rooting for them.

The blue cardstock has white core, so I embossed it with the stars and sanded it to allow white stars to show, the added the some red for contrast.  The sentiment is a digi that I had printed years ago and didn't use.  I cut them out with Spellbinder's dies and framed them.  I just punched the stars and added some Glossy Accents.  I stamped this sentiment on the inside, then will wrote a personal note in each card.