Art Impressions Blog: Watercolor Weekend June 17, 2023

Hello Ai Watercolor fans!

It's another Watercolor Weekend here on the Art Impressions blog and

I was blown away when I saw this week's cards!

Diane, Tricia and Karen never disappoint and this week,
went above and beyond. Wait until you see what they've made.

This week, Diane is up first, with her adorable puppy wagon!

Hello, Ai Watercolor Weekend fans! With 4th of July just around the corner, I decided to create a Patriotic Celebration card. In addition to being a great “Happy 4th of July!” card, it could also make a nice July birthday card!

To create this scene, I inked the wagon stamp from 5597 – Harvest Wheelbarrow Set in 565/969 and stamped off once before stamping onto my Canson XL watercolor paper. Next, I masked off the top edge of the wagon with some Post-It tape. I inked the puppy from 5722 – Birthday Journal Set with 969 leaving off the birthday hat and stamped to the left in the wagon. With a pencil, I sketched in the top of the puppy’s head and drew in a bandana. For the pot to the right, I inked just the pot from the stack of presents from the same set and placed into the wagon. I knew I would be cutting out this image later, so I traced an oval die from 5727 – Nested Oval Dies to frame my scene. Next I added a trio of overlapping balloons from 5722. With my scene complete, I used a damp brush and pulled out the stamped lines of the image to create shadows and contours.

Before adding any color to the images, I brushed in a watery sky with 526. I wanted to keep the wagon white, so I used 565 to add shadows. The color palette for this scene is fairly simple. I chose 856 for the red and 555 blue. The greens are 177 and 249. For the wheels I used N25 black. For the puppy and the underside of the wagon I used 969. For the clay pot I selected 947. For all the white details I used Dr. Ph. Martin’s Bleed Proof White.

The flowers in the pot were stamped in using the rounded double flower from 5475 – WC Flower Set 6. For the greenery, I inked the vine from 4051 – Foliage Set 1 in 177. For the area under the wagon, I brushed in a watery base of 249. Grass and foliage was added with 177. To keep the center balloon white, I added a light shadow with 565. To make the red and blue balloons appear to be behind the white balloon, I added a very diluted mix of red and blue in the overlapping areas. For the exposed areas of the balloons, I applied multiply layers of red and blue. When adding the details to the balloons with white, I used it full stength on the outside edges. Where the white balloon overlaps, I diluted the white. I dotted in some tiny white flowers and added polka dots to the bandana. Using a gray Twintone marker, I added strings to the balloons. I added back details where needed with a brown Twintone. I die cut the flag banner from 5719 – FB Fence and Window Set, and painted the flags in blue and red. The banner was then popped up with foam squares. For the interior of the card, I die cut “Celebrate” from 5722.

Thank you for joining us for another Watercolor Weekend, until next time – Happy Painting!

Next up is Tricia with a gorgeous floral birdhouse card.

Hey watercolor fans! Today I have an oldie but goodie. I love this older stamp set. It is a perfect non-gender all occasion show stopper! Let me tell you how I created this card.

I started out by inking the large birdhouse with brown and blue. I stamped it off and then stamped it into the middle of my watercolor paper. I didn't pull the color out of the lines because I wanted the leaves to be really soft and I wasn't sure how much of the pole would show. Glad I did because I love how the flowers came out. I left off a little of the top right of the roof so I could place the bird there.

Next I used the Cardinal stamp, without my positioner, inked up with brown, stamped it off, then stamped it onto the roof of the birdhouse. Using the small vine inked with green and stamped a few bunches around the base sides and right of the house. I used a bit more water to soften just the ends of the leaves. Once that was dry, I inked it up again with the bright green and stamped a couple of times over the soften leaves. This brightened them up.

I pulled the color out of the lines of the birdhouse and then added some additional color from my palette. I added some turquoise to the roof, making sure that sides are darker than the center. I also added some pink to the house, keeping the left and right dark.

For the bird, I added red, keeping the face light and building the color slowly, drying between each layer to get darker shadows. I used the N25 nib to draw in the cardinals face.

Using the daisy bunch, inked with purple, I stamped it a couple of times next to each foliage bunch. I added water to the purple and then once it was dry, added a detail darker layer to enhance the flowers. Once that was dry I added yellow to the centers.

I also darkened the wood on the stand and to ground the birdhouse. I used my marker direct to paper to darken in those shadows. Lastly, I added some blue for the sky. Don't overthink it, lots of water, drop in color, let it dry, there are no perfect clouds only beautiful organic ones!

Sign and date! This was a quick and easy project that I had fun making. I hope you tag us so we can see your work. Head over to Instagram we can see what you create!

Thank you so much for stopping by and I hope you have a crafty day!

Our last watercolor artist this week is Karen.

You don't see popped up images too often in watercolor and I'm

not sure why because Karen showed us that it looks AMAZING!

Hello Ai Watercolour fans!

I'm using several sets for the first time, that were released a little while ago. I wanted to create a scene where the sweet little gal is selling flowers, so this is what I came up with:

I started by stamping the 5569 - Handcart Set onto my Canson XL Watercolour paper with Tombow #969/565, and separately stamped 5717 - Little Girl FB. After pulling the colour out from the lines, I picked a warm summer palette of colours, and started adding my flowers & foliage. Using the Daisy bunch from 4052 - Flower Set, I added them in #925 and #407. With the smallest image from 4868 - WC Flower Set 2 and #725, and the tall stems from 4052 in #565, I filled in all the flowers. The tiny sprig image from 5009 - WC Mini Flower Set was stamped in both #126 and #312 as the foliage in both the cart and her basket. Tones of browns #969/947/992 were painted on the cart trim & wheels, her basket, hat and shoes. I wanted to add a sign to my scene, so I used the signpost from 5131 - Stone Path Set, altering it a little, and painting it in the same brown tones. I used my Twintone Chocolate marker to write on the sign, and then cut it out.

N65 was painted onto the watering can, and as the white shadows on the cart, and #947 created the look of a terracotta pot. The yellow of her dress and the banner on the cart are shades of #991, with some #992 shadows, and her skirt is #407. I used the tiny grass from 4051 - Foliage set in #126 to add grass around the cart and sign, painting it out as a wash, and added a wash of #493 as the sky.

The background was cut out with 5061 Square Double Stitched Dies. I cut the Little Girl out with her matching die, and fussy cut out my sign. I attached them both to my base painting with foam adhesive, to make them both appear as if they are in the foreground.