Gorgeous and Fun

Seasons Greetings

Time for seasons greetings! I made this card with a pink watercolor wash. This card is going out to a dear friend (who is hopefully not going to see this post before she gets it).

To see more pink go on over to Beverly's blog.

 

Buzz of the Week: Shimmery Watercolors

This week's buzz of the week is shimmery watercolors. Watercolors that have sparkle! You know I like 'em sparkles. Above is one of the cards I painted. I used a brand of shiny watercolors called Twinkling H2Os. So if you like watercolors and would like some shimmer, try these out. These are really, really fun to paint with.

Earlier in the year it looked like Luminarte, the company that makes Twinkling H20s, might have been shutting down, but they didn't!  Here is a link to luminarte site. There are other brands too but I've only tried Twinkling H2Os.

 

Christian Lacroix

 

Aren't these color combinations just enchanting? For more color and texture inspiration take a peek at the book "Christian Lacroix On Fashion" by Thames & Hudson. These images are from the book.

I am quoting something Christian Lacroix says about colour in the book:

"One of my favourite things to do when I discovered Yves Saint Laurent's designs in the magazines in 1975 was to find combinations that I loved, like red and orange and green and brown, which were considered taboo at the time.

My 'talent' as a colourist comes purely from from research and hard work, collection after collection. It is born from a desire to reconcile the irreconcilable on a palette, even though some colours have very specific sources and identities. From my experience with Guy Paulin, who was a wonderful colourist, I have retained a taste for some quite specific colours, including chartreuse yellow, sang-de-boeuf red, sage green with a hint of yellow, paprika, saffron..."

I find this quote inspiring because it reminds me that hard work and practice are so important. And the last few pages of book have his color sketches, which are absolutely stunning! I really like this book for color inspiration.

A Pink Cake Card

A pink birthday cake card that I made a while back.

Go on over to Beverly's blog to enjoy more of pink. 

A Jane Davies Class Collage

 

This is one of the collages that I made in Jane Davies' class. We made five collages each but I think this one is my favorite. Jane had brought an amazing array of papers, materials and supplies. And each and every piece of art created in this class was unique, absolutely no two pieces were similar. It was fantastic!

Buzz of the Week: Claudine Hellmuth Acrylic Paints

Stunning, luscious acrylic colors from the Claudine Hellmuth Ranger line have been on my mind this week. They have an interesting catch line - "51 colors from 15 colors". Very, very fun! The colors are bright and look fantastic. Also in the same line, Ranger sells sticky back canvases. I haven't tried these canvas but I can think of several ways of putting these to use. Image is from the Claudine Hellmuth website.

Buzz of the Week: Sketch Saturday

Today's Buzz of the Week is a blog called Sketch Saturday. It is another fun place to visit for inspiration/ideas. They publish templates every week and you can make a card with their template and then share it with them. If you are running low on ideas, need some inspiration or you just want to see some beautiful cards - take a stroll through Sketch Saturday. The template image above is from their site. Do you have any places or things that inspire you that you would like to share?

Silk Scarf

More Happy Mail !!! This was a silk scarf I painted for the lovely Susannah of Ink on my fingers. Susannah is fantastic photographer, blogger and the teacher of "Unravelling". She is the kindest and nicest and I couldn't resist sending her something fun. But there was a bit of a twist to this story. I put it in registered mail just to ensure that it got there. And guess what? It vanished. Two weeks and I hadn't heard about it. So I asked Susannah (and ruined the surprise in doing so) and it hadn't made it to her. I was heartbroken and then I sent over pictures to her (ruining the surprise even more!) and guess what? It reached!!!! Two days after !!! So I am so glad that it made it to her even though it wasn't a surprise anymore. 

Buzz of the Week: Grunge Paper

This is what Grunge paper looks like. Now I know it looks like something meant for building construction. But do you want to see what you can do with it? Take a look below.

This was a collage that I made in a class with Tim Holtz. This class was appropriately called the "Patchwork Pandemonium". It is entirely made out of grunge paper. We did all kinds of things to it, distressed it, stamped it, some of it was dry embossed and then painted with acrylics and then distressed. And this is just one of the things that can be done with grunge paper. You can make flowers like roses, grunge paper will hold shape!

And grunge board, which is thicker than grunge paper, is much easier to work with than chipboard. There are loads of ways to use grunge paper. Take a look at the patchwork collage closeups below.

Magenta Pendants

These are the mostly magenta pendants that I made for Karen P. I think these colors worked well together. Simple and colorful.