Hi there! Today, Hero Arts is releasing their Summer Catalog for 2021, and we are celebrating all things summer with a blog hop! You should have arrived here from Debi Adams, and your next stop is Ilina Crouse. You can also check out all of the links to the hop at the Hero Arts Blog. I have two projects to share with you today, one featured in the new catalog, one not, so let’s get started with the details!
This first project was such fun to watercolor! Hero Arts has released their no-line coloring ink, called Contour Ink, and I used this ink to do some no-line watercoloring with the stamp and Hero Arts’s Liquid Watercolors! I stamped their new Succulent Bouquet stamp on some cold press watercolor paper using the new Contour Ink. I then taped my stamped watercolor A2 card panel down on a watercolor board using some washi tape and began watercoloring.
Succulents are so gorgeous; they’re like flowers, but green, which I find to be so much fun and so different! I used a variety of the Hero Arts Liquid Watercolors in shades of green, brown, and the super versatile Mulled Wine, which can be used on its own as a pretty, muted raspberry shade, or added to green or brown to created your own custom shades, perfect for creating shadows. I watercolored the entire image, gave it some time to dry, then while my watercolor paper was still taped to the board on all four sides, added kind of a reverse halo of Mulled Wine, laying color down at the taped edges, then cleaning my brush and using the clean brush to pull the color in towards the center of the card front, allowing just the tiniest hint of color to get near the watercolored image, leaving the halo around the image almost completely white.
Once my image had dried completely (I like to leave panels that have had a lot of water added to them taped down overnight to reduce warping), I removed the tape and splattered some concentrated Mulled Wine all over the panel to embrace the “artistic” look of the card front! I added a heat embossed greeting from the Succulent Bouquet stamp set, which I heat embossed in silver on a small square of Plum cardstock, then popped up with some foam adhesive for extra dimension.
My next card features the new Hero Florals Strawberries Line Art stamps and dies. This little set packs a big punch. Strawberries are my favorite fruit, so I couldn’t wait to color these beauties up! I stamped them a few times on some white cardstock using Intens-ified Black ink, then used my Copic markers to color the images ink bright red and green, leaving the little flowers white with just a touch of yellow to the centers. I cut out the images with their coordinating Frame Cuts.
For the card base, I trimmed down an A2 panel of Cherry cardstock, then placed the Graphic Deco Stencil over the top and blended some Unicorn white pigment ink over the top. I love the look of the white stenciled background on the bright red card base! I also splattered a bit of White Liquid Watercolor on the background to add some more fun texture.
I layered the die cuts over the stenciled and splattered card base, adhering them with foam adhesive, and added some sentiment strips stamped using the new Message Strips Stamp & Cut XL, then die cut them with the coordinating Frame Cuts. (These are SO handy.) The final touch was to add some white enamel dots to tie in to the white stenciling and white splatters in the background!
Well, that’s all for my projects today. Now for some fun giveaway information!
We will give away THREE $50 gift cards, drawn from the comments left across the hop. Enter by Sunday, May 30th at 11:59pm pacific, and the winner will be announced on the Hero Arts blog the following week.
Your next stop on the hop is Ilina Crouse. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and happy hopping!
