Hi everyone - nice to see you again & thank you for paying me a visit :-)
A lovely bright day here in West London - lots of sunshine forecast for the day, (and the weekend - whoopee!), just the thought of sunshine makes it a happier day for me!
A new month and a new type of Challenge for you this time using the "masking technique."
The rose I've used for my artwork this month, although it's one of Clarity's older stamps, I only recently added it to my Clarity collection, so I thought I'd give it an airing for our masking challenge.
I love to colour, and this is a substantial size for a focal point on a card and great to colour in! I particularly like this sentiment too....must be the sunshine element of it that drew me to use it with the beautiful roses!
So the ingredients for my card are as follows:
Heart Rose Stamp & 2 masks cut from post-its
Leafy Swirl Stamp
May Flowers Verse
Landscape Masks
Stencil brushes & blending tool
Black & Olive Archival Inks
Mountain Rose Adirondack Ink
Tumbled Glass & Squeezed Lemonade Distress Inks
Clear Embossing Powder (& talcum powder)
Watercolour card, contrasting backing card & an 8x8 blank greeting card
Spectrum Noir Sparkle pens & a grey Promarker
Masking tape, ruler & a black Micron pen
(links for elements available from Claritystamp are shown below)
Start by cutting a piece of watercolour paper to 7"x7" and dust with talc before starting to prevent any wayward embossing granules sticking where you don't want them! Stamp the first rose in place using black archival ink - Sprinkle with embossing powder & heat-set . Next, stamp the verse and emboss. Mask the first rose image, then stamp the next flower in place, remove the mask before sprinkling the powder, and heat-set.
Mask off both roses and stamp the Leafy Swirl to add foliage using the Olive Archival ink. I found it easier to stamp one swirl at a time, remove the masks then sprinkle on the embossing powder and heat-set individually. Continue to add a few more swirls in the same way, masking the roses again each time before stamping.
Once you've finished with the greenery, replace the rose masks ready for the background & use masking tape round the edge to create a border before adding any colour.
Place the sun mask over the verse and the cloud mask as shown. Brush Tumbled Glass ink over the sun & upper cloud area and gradually move the cloud mask down the artwork to create layers of cloud with your brush.
Once that's done, remove the sun & cloud masks and position the outie around the sun. Use the blending tool to add colour, first Squeezed Lemonade then go lightly over part of it with Mountain Rose.
Remove the mask and tape and colour in the roses - the new Spectrum Noir Sparkle pens are fab, but colouring pencils or watercolour pencils/paints would look just as good. Draw a thin line with the Micron pen round the artwork and use the grey Promarker to add shadow to the rose petals to give a 3D effect.
Mount on contrasting backing card then onto the greeting card.
A pretty card - perfect for many occasions with such a lovely sentiment!
I hope you'll be inspired by mine, and the other Clarity Design Team's artwork. Remember to visit their blogs to have a peek at their masking ideas too - there's some fab artwork to give you lots of ideas.
Come on in and have a go at winning a £50 Claritystamp Voucher.
Everyone's welcome to join in with us! The competition starts today and you can enter by email or via your blog up to 30th April.
I look forward to seeing all your entries.......
Have a wonderful sunny day.
See you again soon xxx
