Adventures with Stampin' Up!

For more of my artful musings...head on over to my Stampin' Up! blog at www.stampinartfully.com

Artfully Yours,
Kim

New Face

Worked on this piece this morning. Combination of charcoal, graphite, gouache & watercolor. 

French Ball Gown

Again, completely inspired by an illustration I saw on paperfashion.net. After I sketched it, I stamped on it with a French script rubber stamp and a small floral stamp. I painted it with a combination of gouache & regular watercolor. Didn't quite get the glove right, but I was happy with the dress. It's a trial and error kind of thing.

black ball gown

I took my inspiration from here. I used gouache, watercolor, fine ebony glitter, black sequins and rhinestones. I drew the image with a combination of 6b graphite and medium charcoal.

Fashion Illustration: black and gold ball gown

My inspiration can be found here. Please pardon my less than white paper. Scanning it doesn't do the dress justice and taking photos of this piece is quite challenging. I assure you that the actual paper is white.

This was my initial sketch. 

This was my first addition of paint and skin tone. The paint is lamp black and raw umber. The skintone was achieved with a caramel shade of ink. 

I have accented this dress with QOR metallic gold paint by Golden. It is absolutely amazing. 

Skirt detail. 

New Unity Stamp: Whitney Girl

Just love this stamp by artist extraordinaire Angie Blom. I stamped with Distress Pumice Stone ink. I used various watercolors and markers. Went over the image with graphite to give it more of a sketched look.

New Unity Stamp: Harmony Girl...drawn by artist Angie Blom

I haven't had near enough time to play with this stamp, but I think it is gorgeous!

This takes practice.

Can't wait to get my drawing pencils today. It will be so much easier to try to shade areas with some softer lead. 

Lips...

These aren't perfect by any means, but I am feeling more comfortable looking for the light and dark spaces in objects. My drawing pencils will be delivered tomorrow and I can't wait to try sketching with some of those, instead of my regular mechanical pencil. It's tough to shade with.

My first face sketch.

This drawing thing is becoming addictive. Seriously addictive. I found the hair to be the hardest part, even harder than the eyes. (and they are tough) All in all, happy with the face, not happy with the hair. The video I watched on youtube for instruction is here.

Unity KOM arrived!

Couldn't resist playing with the dress stamp a bit...

More sketch lessons this evening...

This is my first ever attempt at sketching a shoe. The lesson was supposed to teach you how to use watercolor to achieve a patent leather look on the sketch. Not perfect, but it was fun and I feel like I learned something new.

An attempt at sketching...

My son can draw just about anything. He is amazingly talented and I have always wished I could master it or at least be good enough at it to use some in my art. It has always scared me in the past, but I have decided it is something I want to get better at. There are some amazing youtube videos out there that teach the concept of drawing faces, which is the first thing I would like to learn. This is an attempt I made this morning. I do not have good paper (this was a notepad) or a good pencil & eraser, but I was happy with how it turned out.

This one was harder. Trying to somewhat match the size of the eye socket and pupil was a challenge I didn't quite achieve. 

Artist Skyline

Imagine it, achieve it.

I used the Penny Black Skyline stamp and a word stamp from Unity Stamp Company. Also used Weathered Wood and Pumice Stone Distress inks, along with Adirondack Mushroom ink. I went on a sequin hunt last weekend and found some matte silver sequins. Love the matte finish with this artwork.

Skyline Exploration

I've said it before, I'll say it again. I love this Penny Black stamp. Something about it begs me to experiment with the variations in the building heights and the shading, windows, etc. I used Distress Walnut Ink, Evergreen Bough & Pumice Stone for this, along with a brown colored pencil for some light outlines.

My first Unity Stamp Company order arrived.

I thought this set would make great note cards and I wasn't disappointed. I was very impressed with the quality of the stamps and the packaging was very nice.  Find this set called Triple Tree Line here. I stamped the image on 140lb watercolor paper with Staz On (cut with a Spellbinders die) and colored it in with Distress Inks.

Daring Adventure

This is another piece inspired by the day 1 lesson from the Watercolor for Card Makers class I've been taking. I used black Distress ink and Distress stain in Brushed Pewter. The stamp is from Stampin Up and the stencil I used is from Mister Huey's. Thought about finishing it off with some sequins and rhinestones, but decided to use this as a graduation card for a young man instead. I thought simple worked better in that case.

Modern Art

Those who know me, would know this is completely different than what I would normally do. This piece was inspired by a lesson from day 1 of the Watercolor for Card Makers class I've been taking. I used Distress inks in Black & Fired Brick and Distress stain in Brushed Pewter for this piece. The word stamp is from Stampin Up.

Bonus Day lesson from Watercolor for Card Makers