cowboy

Good morning! Today is an exciting event in the Hero Arts family… we are officially debuting the new 2018 Summer Catalog with a fantastic Blog Hop featuring the Creative Team and some utterly fantastical guests! You should have arrived here from Clare’s blog and your next stop is Ilina’s blog. You can find the full hop list here. We have some amazing inspiration for you today using new products that can be found in this beautiful catalog (which you can peruse here in PDF form), as well as two $50 Hero Arts shopping sprees up for grabs!

For my first project, I wanted to use the darling new Cowboy Life stamp and frame cuts set. When I first met my husband, he fancied himself a cowboy…. boots, belt buckle, tight cowboy jeans, multiple hats, weird caped duster thing… (Did I mention we live in Illinois? Not exactly cowboy territory. Anyway.) The new Cowboy Life and Cowboy Adventure sets called to me, which I found interesting since these sets are not my usual style! I’m blaming my 19 year old self, the one who fell in love with a cowboy. 😉 I particularly liked the Cowboy Life set, because it includes some sweet little floral bouquets…. Flowers=instant Emily magnet.

I started by black heat embossing the cow skull and some flowers onto Arches watercolor paper using black embossing powder, then used the Hero Arts Liquid Watercolors to do some soft watercoloring. (Can you believe how soft and subtle you can make those super pigmented colors?? Amazing.) I die cut all of the pieces using the coordinating Frame Cuts and black embossed a greeting from the Cowboy Life stamp set onto a flagged strip of card stock. For the card base, I did some soft tone-on-tone blending using the new Scrollwork Stencil and Soft Purple ink onto some Floral Mix Layering Papers. I popped up all of the components with dimensional adhesive.

For my second project today, you knew I wouldn’t be able to resist the absolutely stunning new Peonies stamp set. It’s unbelievably beautiful… and so big. Gah. I love it. One of my favorite things about watercoloring flowers is that you can get so many different looks with them, depending on which mediums and colors you decide to use. Here, I’ve paired white heat embossing with mauve watercoloring, but I created another project (which I’ll share soon! ;)) using no line pencil coloring and it looks totally different.

I started by white heat embossing one of the new Peonies stamps in the corner of an A2 panel of Arches card stock. I then taped it down to a cutting board, because I knew that I wanted to do a heavy watercolor wash around my peony, and I wanted the panel to stay nice and flat. I watercolored the peony using a combination of Purple, Moss, Black, Dandelion, and Strawberry Liquid Watercolors. I began by watercoloring the peony using only the Strawberry shade, then adding layers of Purple and a Strawberry/Purple/Black mixture to get lots of depth and dimension. I love that you can see undertones of the bright Strawberry but still have the cool, mauve-y overall look from the additions of the Purple and Black watercolors.

After I’d finished coloring the peony, I added some more washi tape to the top so that I could add my black watercolor wash around the edges. I did a “wet-on-wet” technique, first wetting the card stock, then dropped the color in and letting it bloom organically. I did go back in and manipulate the color a bit to cover bare spots, as well as dissipate out into a nice fade. The final step was to add the greeting from the Love Stamp and Cut.

Well, that’s all for my projects today! We have a stellar lineup of inspiration for you today. Here’s the full hop list:

The Hero Arts Blog
Amy Tsuruta
Clare Prezzia
Emily Midgett
Ilina Crouse
Janette Kausen
Jessica Frost-Ballas
May Sukyong Park
Michelle Short
Yana Smakula
Kathy Racoosin
Kelly Latevola
Lydia Fiedler
Wanda Guess
Cynde Whitlow
Ericka Strange
Jeanne Jachna
Juhi Khanna
Karen Bull
Kim Hamilton
Lisa Stein
Meghan Peterson
Michelle Yuen
Libby Hickson
Jennifer McGuire

Now, for the GIVEAWAY. Hero Arts is giving away two $50 shopping sprees to the Hero Arts Store! All you have to do to be entered win is leave comments on the blog hop stops. The more comments you leave, the more chances you have to win! You have until 11:59 P.M. PST on Sunday, May 20 to leave your comments. The winners will be chosen the following day! Thanks for dropping by, and have a marvelous day!