Card Set by Karen Day

 Hello Ai Watercolour Fans!

I am kicking off the Watercolour Weekend posts for 2024 with a set of five cards.  I have a brother-in-law who is a 'birder', so when Ai first came out with all of the bird freebie stamps, I knew what I'd be doing with them!  He's also a big fan of my cards, so here's what I've made for him (scroll down to see them individually):

I started by die cutting my Canson XL Watercolour paper using the 5061 - Square Double Stitched Dies, and the 5064 - Circle Double Stitched Dies, keeping in mind that some of the birds are larger than others, and I wanted a variety of shapes to keep the set interesting.  All of the birds were coloured with Tombow Dual Brush markers in #969/565, and then filled in with various other colours.  *In order to colour them up accurately, I Googled each bird so that I would have a photo to follow!  For each one, I added a little greenery/foliage - several using stamps, and some were hand drawn (the chickadee's leaves).  I kept everything really simple, as I wanted to keep the focus on the birds - so I used a wash of #565 on each, to suggest the sky.

When assembling them into cards, I matted each image with a darker colour to frame it, then chose some subtly patterned papers from my stash as my card bases.  Since they're all for a fella to hand out to friends and family, the card designs were fairly plain, without a lot of extras.  I stamped sentiments from 5735 - Birthday Sentiments Set onto the Canson paper, or right onto the backgrounds using Versafine Onyx Black ink.

And now for a last minute addition to my post... I'd painted a 6th image, and no matter what I tried, I couldn't make this one 'blend' in with the other cards to be part of the set... it honestly had a life of it's own.  You'll see what I mean - here is the sweet little hummingbird:

I persevered, and made it into a card that was a little more vibrant than the others!

*Don't forget that the Watercolour Design Team will be sharing here on the blog and other social media every Sunday, all year long!  We look forward to bringing you new inspiration each week.