Wednesday, June 6, 2018

Pretty Peonies

It's been a few years since we planted a few peony bushes at our house.  Each year they get bigger and prettier, and this year was no exception.  Was.  I can say was.  These deep fuchsia peonies were gorgeous on Saturday and there were lots of blooms in progress.


By last night, they had grown enough to pick some of the huge amazing blooms!


I'm sure glad I did, because overnight a thunderstorm with high winds came through and really beat up the remaining flowers.

Today I decided to attempt to paint them for Day 6 of Kathy Racoosin's 30 Day Coloring Challenge.

I began with my original MISTI, a panel of Arches 300# watercolor paper, and one of the peonies from Loose Peonies from The Ton Stamps.


I stamped it with The Ton's Grand Fuschia ink, then leaving the stamp in place in my MISTI, cleaned the stamp, and then stamped it again right over the top with Wow Embossing ink and heat embossed the flower with clear embossing powder.  

I then masked a portion of the flower and stamped a second flower in the same manner, this time using Peony 


I removed the mask before adding the embossing powder and heating.

I added the third flower, Large Peony 1, in the same manner, this time masking parts of both of the stamped and embossed Large Peony 3.


Rather than stamp the leaves that I wanted to be not the focus anyway, I just penciled in a rough sketch of the vase and leaves.

I then brought out a palette and some Color Burst powders to do some quick painting.


 I wet the area on my watercolor panel, then add the color by picking up powder with my wet brush.


As it is drying, I dropped a variety of additional colors in.


I let the first bloom dry while I added a light color to the vase.


I then worked on the second bloom, then was able to go back to the vase for a darker coat, even adding a bit of shine by adding a drop of Liquid Metals into my paint layers as well.


I continued to the third bloom, allowing it to dry, then I worked on the leaves and eventually added the background. 


I now need to let the panel dry completely before I can erase any visible pencil marks and add my greeting.

Once it was dry and I had removed any pencil marks, I used my MISTI to stamp the greeting from The New Pretty with embossing ink and heat embossed in pewter.





 Thanks for stopping by today! 
Enjoy the spring flowers while you can!



3 comments:

  1. Just gorgeous; my peonies were damaged in a storm here in Michigan, too, only 2 days after blooming. Bummer! Didn't know you could actually paint with the Brushes on an image; looks so nice.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow...beautiful coloring on great flower card and beautiful real flowers too.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I LOVE peonies, they smell so good. Yours are so vibrant. Your card is so lifelike. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete