Blessings my dear friends, and welcome to my second edition of "Focus on Faith" for the month of June.
As many of you know, June is usually a time of graduation for children from high school, so I thought I would try to create a faith inspired card that could be used as a graduation card, so I dug out the two new "Wisdom" stamp sets. I didn't really have any idea of what I wanted to do, so I just pulled out the stamp set and decided to play around.
I started by creating a 4 1/2" x 4 1/2" square out of Canson XL Bristol smooth cardstock. I placed the square into my MISTI stamping tool, and took out the florals from the "Wisdom set 1". I positioned them on my card stock in the top center, and decided I would try to create a wreath. I inked them up with black Versafine ink and stamped them down. I then turned my cardstock 1/4 turn, and inked, and stamped them again. I did this 2 more times until I had created a circle wreath. I then positioned the owl from the same set, and the "SEEK wisdom" sentiment from the "Wisdom Set 2", in the center of my wreath. I inked them in the black Versafine ink and stamped them. I wanted the owl to be holding a "diploma", so I inked up just the very top of the large scroll from the "Wisdom set 1" with a very light gray dye ink marker. I stamped it so that the owl appeared to be sitting on or holding the scroll.
At this point, I still had no idea what I was going to use as my coloring medium. I had originally planned to watercolor it, but thought I would try a little experiment! So, I waited till the Verksafine ink was completely dry, and did a test sample to see if I could actually use my alcohol inks to color them. Now, they say that you can only use Memento black ink as your base medium for alcohol markers, but I found that the Versafine ink was fine, as long as it was completely dry. I just made sure to not touch the lines too much with my alcohol markers! So, I went about coloring the florals with three shades of purple alcohol ink markers; a light, a medium, and a dark. I colored the whole flower in the lightest color of purple, then I added in the medium purple up to about the middle of the flower. Then, I went back in and added lines of the darkest purple with a light flicking motion. Lastly, I went back in with the lightest purple to blend out all three. I proceeded to color the green leaves with two shades of green alcohol ink markers. I colored each leaf base in the light green, and then added in a dark green just in the center base of the leaf.
At this point, I decided that my wreath needed some filler so I added in the little berry sprigs from the "Wisdom set 1", here and there, randomly around my wreath with the black Versafine ink. I colored the berries with a very dark purple alcohol marker.
My wreath still wasn't quite full enough, so I inked up just the very top of the leafy vine stamp from the same set with a dark green dye ink marker, and stamped it in three sets in each little section so I had a dark, medium, and light variation of color. I continued stamping this way all the way around the entire wreath inking the vine, and then stamping off three individual times to give me a nice full wreath. I then decided to add some of those vines coming off from behind, and to the side of my owl and the scroll in the center of the wreath. To blend things out a bit, and give a sort of watercolor look, I used two very light shades of green alcohol ink markers, and blended around the inside and outer edges of the florals. I then took two shades of a very light greenish blue alcohol ink marker, and did the same around the very edges of the outside of the wreath where the vines are, to create a sort of watercolory sky.
I then worked on coloring my owl with alcohol markers in shades of tan, and brown, and bright green for his eyes. I felt that the owl and the flowers both needed a lot more detail, so I broke out my Polychromos colored pencils, and I decided to add in all my details on my owl and in my florals and leaves. For the flowers, I used a very sharp purple pencil to very gently draw in the leaf veins, and then I took a black pencil and darkened along the edges of each petal, and the very middle of the flower, leaving the centers of the flowers white. This added a lot of depth and shading to give my florals a lot more dimension.
I added gentle lines horizontally across my owl's chest and wings so that it resembled layers of feathers. While I had the pencils out, I decided to add a couple more details in the center of my wreath where the vines are sprouting from behind the scroll, and I did more blending with the light green alcohol markers, and then added in more details with a light and darker green pencil. I then decided to take those two green pencils and add in more details on my leaves. I left the vine leaves alone. I did not add any details to them at all. I very lightly colored the scroll with a soft tan to give it a vintage scroll look.
When I was happy with my focal piece, I distressed the edges of it with the edge of a scissors. I created a white mat for behind my focal piece, and distressed the edges of that as well. I then added foam tape behind that whole focal piece.
I then created another white mat for my 6x6 card base that I embossed with a dotted circle motif embossing folder. This embossed detail helped bring my whole card together by adding more texture, and repeating the circle motif as from my wreath. I adhered that whole piece to my card base with my focal piece popped up in the center.
To create the inside of my card, I cut two mats of a light and very dark purple for my center focal piece. I used another 4 1/2" x 4 1/2" square made from Canson XL Bristol smooth cardstock and placed it into my MISTI. I chose two sentiments, the jewels, and the two floral pieces , and positioned them in my MISTI to create a cross in the center of my focal piece. I only colored the florals. I followed the exact same coloring as previously described on the front.
I thank you so much for joining me today! I hope that you liked my project, and got inspired to create some Faith inspiring artwork.
God bless you all my crafty friends,
Sara Furr- The Crafty Farm Chick
Art Impressions products
6203- Wisdom set 1
6204- Wisdom set 2
Other products:
Canson XL Bristol Smooth cardstock
Versafine Black ink pad
Alcohol ink markers
Faber-Castell Polychromos colored pencils and a pencil sharpener
Green dye ink marker
Sand color dye ink marker
Scissors
Embossing folder
Die cutting machine
Paper cutter
MISTI stamping tool
