Nature Journal and a blog break

Hello friends and thanks for dropping by. Today I have another spread in my nature journal to share:

I keep hoping I can share more Spring like pages, but Spring still keeps us waiting here, so today another more wintry page to share, though I suppose the catkins are in a way little harbingers of spring.

We have had a lot of stormy weather and seagulls tend to come a bit more inland. There are a lot around where I live and I have tried to capture some in flight.

I love pussy willow and have several branches around our house, so here is one painted in watercolour.

I always like to decorate the empty corners of this journal with random collage elements, just to add a little more interest, on this spread I have used mostly washi tapes.

Once I had finished painting and drawing I did some stencilling across both pages to tie them together.

And that is pretty much it for today's page.

This will be the last time I am posting for quite a while as I am off to Australia on Wednesday with a stop over on the way. We will arrive on Saturday but there is no internet in the place we are staying...

I have a very few scheduled design team posts, but that will be it pretty much until I am back at the end of April. I will try and catch up whenever I can, but meanwhile wishing you all the best for the next few weeks and like always, thank you for your visits! They are always appreciated!

xxxxx

Watercolour page for A Vintage Journey

Hello lovely visitors! Today sees the start of a new challenge at A Vintage Journey and the lovely and talented Amanda has chosen Watercolours for her theme. Well the obvious choice for me was to make another page for my Nature Journal, so here it is:

I worked on 300 gms hotpress watercolour paper and started by stamping my image in Sepia Archival and then heatembossing it with clear powder.

The next step was to add some texture with one of Tim Holtz's layering stencil and texture paste. When that had dried it was time to start with the watercolours. I used Daniel Smith brand colours in  Quin. Deep Gold, Burnt Sienna and Raw Sienna first of all.

Next more drama was added with some Payne's Grey. In this brand the colour is almost black, so I had to go carefully.

Time to add some different effects, so I pulled out my Oxide inks and added some further layers, using mostly Antique Linen, Wild Honey and a little Peackock Feathers to add a Patina Effect over the raised bits.

I deepened the effect with going over it again in a Peackock Feather Distress Crayon and also added a tiny bit of Treasure Gold to add some shimmer.

Time to colour te butterfly, - I used water colour pencils in matching colours for that.

I added a few embellishments to finish it all off...

I added a bit of shadow here and there and that was pretty much it

Now all I had to do was to glue it into my Nature Journal and I was done.

I hope you will pop over to the Vintage Journey Blog, to see the amazing projects my teamies have created, - watercolour inspiration galore. We also have a wonderful sponsor this month, Craft Obsessions, so do head over to get all the details, and of course we all hope that you will decide to play along with us this month! Meanwhile, thanks for dropping by here like useual and stay creative!

xxxxx