Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Today was a 'Sketchy' One

I did some Spring cleaning this morning and to reward myself for being such a good girl I spent the afternoon making cards. Somehow it makes me feel less guilty that way and besides, a WHOLE day of Spring Cleaning might kill me! LOL Both of the cards I made today follow the sketch challenge over on Splitcoast Stampers. I really liked this sketch because alot of embellishment is unnecessary...which leaves me alot of room to do what I love best...COLOR!



The first card uses the new AI Greek Gardens stamp set. I did alot of coloring on this one and I tried my best to make the columns and the fountain look like they are made from aged copper. I did this using Copic markers in BG13 and BG11, with a bit of patina added using E55. I actually stamped the column 4 times since it isnt tall enough to cover an A2 card's background and I cut them to make them look a bit taller. For the focal point I double layered it, added some square clips because they look kinda like a Greek key and beaded the foliage in the front, because I like tedious work, lol! It took a long time but it was time I enjoyed. Here is a close-up of the beaded area.
The second card didnt take me nearly as long but it was equally enjoyable because I had fun making the intended images into something else. I used our new Three Wishes set which has sort of an Arabian Knights theme and gave a couple of the images a different flavor. I made the genie's bottle into a vase and the sun image was stamped 3 times to create flowers. Coloring this was easy, I just used a deep yellow maker over all the image, and outlined it with a darker mustard color. Then I added mustard dots in the center, outlined a bit closer to the edge in dark grey and added more dots. Then to pull it all together, I used a lighter mustard around the petals, so it looks like they are part of the center. I drew my own stems and added some shadow, then Voila...a vase of sunflowers!



For the background, I just cut up some Marrakech paper by Basic Grey and glued it on the back layer with spaces in between to give it a grout-like look. To finish it off, I corner punched the mustard paper and added some orange and yellow jewels.

Oh and one more thing...the Blog Hop Candy winner has been announced over on Kerri's blog. Congratulations to #30~Marie/bat3!

5 comments:

velta said...

Now...THIS is what I call 'art!' Kristin...you have SOOO got my attention...WOW! I would love to come and learn from you...your work is amazing...and your ideas are endless! i STILL think you are the best designer on the web as far as stamps are concerned...

Jessie Lubyk said...

Very nice Kristin. Love your coloring and images that you used: the colors are awesome too. TFS

Michele Kovack said...

This is one amazing card!!! The image is colored perfectly and the mosaic background is incredible!

toners said...

Absolutely stunning! Wow! Your coloring is amazing, and I love all the details you add to your cards :)

Elena said...

Wow! Kristin! Both of the cards are AWEsome! I mean FABULOUS! One sketch and two different card!!!
Love the stamped background you created and beaded ares!!!
And your flowers with the vase... So CREATIVE!!! Love the mosaic you created too!
Your ideas are always the best! Love them!