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Good afternoon, 

It is a beautiful Sunday here in Oz, and I am relaxing on the couch and doing some of the washing.  I should probably be outside in the sunshine, but I have already got some sunburn from Friday at work, so don't want to push my luck.

So after 5 weeks off of work over Christmas to say starting back has been nuts is nothing short of an understatement!! We have now hit March and time is just flying.  So by the time I get home at night all i have been doing is dinner and lying on the couch, after spending 8+ hours behind the computer at work each day my eyes are just too tired too paint.  

Whilst I was off, there were many days spent looking at all sorts of different ideas and techniques on the internet.  Something I have wanted to try my hand at is colouring with pencils, and this was something I could do lying on the couch rather than sit at my craft table which I was unable to do at that stage.  So I stamped my Summer Flower Tilda from the Summer Memories collection and had a go.

When I was at my art supplies store late last year buying some more watercolour paper the cashier and I were talking, and she asked me what I watercolour.  When I said about Distress Inks, she asked me if I had seen the new(ish) Derwent Inktense pencils.....ummm no!!  These are amazing, such beautiful, bold, intense colours.  I did my research, then back to the shop and home with a 24 set.  I decided to try them on my Summer Flower Tilda and see if I couldn't blend out the colour a bit, and increase the intensity even more.  She was just stamped on plain white card, so not the best painting medium, but I think it worked really well....

Another little something I started with the Derwent Inktense, as you can see she is not yet complete - but she will be in time for Christmas!! This is my first real practice piece starting with the Inktense from scratch - they are a unique medium and I am having fun learning to colour with them.  I love that you can do all your colours at once and then activate with the water and it blends right in!!

So the other problem of being stuck home sick and a computer to entertain me was that with the internet you have the ability to shop anytime you like, without having to get showered or dressed, so even if you feel crappy you can still shop to your hearts content ;o)

I ended up at the Little Darlings Rubber Stamps store, I fell in love with Saturated Canary stamps a few months back, but wasn't a huge fan of the initial release in rubber, and being a distress ink painter makes it difficult to work with digi's.  It can be done, but rubber stamps are just soooo much more user friendly ;o)

So off went another order and I began haunting the mailbox ;o)  First up was the stamp Nevaeh, I just love the hair and eyes, and I was sooo excited to colour her up

Her clothing is a bit of a mixture of colours, but as I just wanted to paint and had no card in mind yet I decided to add in a few more colours to keep my options open for when I did get around to putting her on a card.  I painted everything but the hair, I was so scared I was going to muck it up, but I was so so happy with the end product.  I also tried out new colours for my skin.  Antique linen first, then a blend of Tattered Rose and Vintage Photo, these two are pre-blended before painting.  As you will see a little further down the post, it is hard to get the right colour, and can come off a little dark if you are not careful.

Next up Little Ladybug, love, love, LOVE this stamp.  Ladybugs are so cute, I have always liked my Ladybug Tilda, and now more to play with :o)

Another thing that got delivered recently was some UTEE, Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel.  I love the 'glass' finish this can give when multiple layers are applied, so this little lady got the UTEE treatment :o)

Look at that shine!!  Love it!  So this next little lady called Thank You ended up a little too brown for my liking... Once again some different colours used as I am not sure what kind of card she will be on, but really I was just having fun painting.

The hardest thing I find to paint is flowers, especially bunches of them where they all seem to blend together, and even more so when my eyes get tired.  I wear glasses because when my eyes get tired they have trouble focusing, and they slip really easily into double vision, however there comes a point when even the glasses can't help me.  Something I do to try and assist with this is plan my colours before I start, this way I don't have to concentrate so hard to pick out the different parts of the stamp when I come back.  I use the base colour in a light wash to plan out the different areas and what they should be.  Currently I am working on a project for a friends mum, and I am using the Penny Black Spring Beauty stamp.  Using two different greens, Shabby Shutters and Bundled Sage I have picked out the two different leaves/stems and then the tulips have been started with Spun Sugar and the other flowers with Milled Lavender.  From here I will go back in and complete the shading. 

I hope you have enjoyed looking at some of my colouring today, and I will be back later in the week to show you the card I made yesterday using a cute stamp set from Annabelle stamps.

Thanks for looking xx