davebrethauer

Nesting Birds

From where I sit in my studio, I can see birds in trees in almost every direction. I keep a camera nearby so that I can snap a quick picture of a bird perched on a cedar branch - a great aid when I'm drawing out designs for the catalog.

I designed the Nesting Birds D1315 to be part of the Valentine's Studio release, but I knew that it would work with any color scheme and it would evoke a theme of closeness and togetherness, even beyond Valentine's Day. You could send this to a friend, a daughter, a son, a grandmother - anyone who you have an important connection to.

Begin by stamping the image onto 140 lb hot press (smooth) watercolor paper with a waterproof ink. I used Brilliance Pearlescent Chocolate, and heat set it with a heat gun before beginning.

Wet the area inside the bird with plain water, avoiding the nest. Adding plain water will help paint flow nicely in the wet area. I used a small, #2 round brush to get into such a small area.

While the brush is still wet, rub the tip of a watercolor pencil with it to pull some color onto the brush. For todays project, I used Watercolor Pencils (Faber Castell Albrecht Durer Series) in Light Ultramarine (#140), Cream (#102), Orange Glaze (#113) and Van Dyck Brown (#176) - and you can see above that I began painting the birds in with Light Ultramarine.

Once you've added the blue color, rinse your brush, dry it and then pull some of the blue color across the bird, so that it is deeper on one side and lighter on the other.

Repeat with the other bird. If the color seems solid across the bird and doesn't get lighter, dab one side of the bird with a paper towel to "lift" some color off and lighten that area.

Rinse your brush and pull some color off the tip of the Cream watercolor pencil. Paint in the lighter areas with the cream - don't go too far into the blue area, you'll want it to remain blue!

 

Rinse your brush - and then add some plain water to the nest area. Make sure you avoid the painted areas on the birds.

Pull some color off the tip of the Van Duck Brown pencil and paint in the next. No need to worry about shading - just an even brown color.

I added a little bit of Orange Glaze to make the nest a little more interesting than just plain old brown. Not a lot - just add some at one end and then work it in.

 

To add some color around the image, I drew a rectangle with the Light Ultramarine Watercolor Pencil that framed the image. I used medium pressure - if you use heavy pressure, it's hard to dissolve that line away later on when you add water to it.

Color in the corners of the rectangle with the Light Ultramarine pencil. I recommend a circular stroke, light pressure, that overlaps to make the color even and soft. Leave a little space around the image, so that the color becomes heavier as you get further from the image.

 

With a wet brush (#6 round), add water to the areas you shaded in blue. As you dissolve the blue color, just continue on around the image, until you've dissolved all of the blue pencil.

 

I cut out some really tiny leaves from a scrap of Meadow cardstock to use on the branches. To adhere, add a dot of white glue to the branches and stick the leaves into the glue at an angle - they will dry slightly dimensional off the page. Top off the leaves with a Frost Blue Pearl Sticker (it also helps hide the glue!).

The dimensional leaves make nice little shadows on the front of the greeting card - and gives the idea that the branches are coming off the page.

Layer the watercolor piece with a slightly larger piece of Iris cardstock, a strip of our new 12x12 Epiphany striped paper, a layer of Eggshell cardstock, some ribbon trim - and then adhere everything to an Iris notecard.

So look around you for some inspiration - maybe your bluebirds will look better as red cardinals with layers of red, cream and oranges. Or maybe brown - with layers of Mocha, Chocolate brown and Dove Gray? Then, send the greeting to someone special!
 
  
   
   

  
 

 

Watercolor Chalk Technique

 

Does the weather effect the creative process? I think so. The heavy winter rains in Seattle have sent me towards my drawers of watercolor supplies in the last couple of weeks - the way the water mixes all the outdoors together when you're looking out a window certainly inspires me to blend color across some images.

But a dry technique that gives a watercolor look was what I was searching for as I got my plans together for a Valentine's demonstration at Rubber Soul and Impress last week. I remembered that fun technique where you stamp with Versamark clear ink and rub chalk powder over the image. The powder sticks to the stamped image, but not to the surrounding paper.

Could you do the same technique with a colored inkpad - instead of a clear Versamark? Yes, as it turns out, you can.

The key is to use a pigment ink - and I chose a Versamagic Pixie Dust inkpad for my project. The ink that you use for this project needs to dry slowly (so it's a little sticky) - if the ink was dye based, it would dry too quickly and the powder would not stick.

 

I used pearlescent chalks (any chalks will work fine) and a dry paint brush. I have lots of well worn paintbrushes from all of the classes that I teach - and I save the old ones for applying chalk gently to images like this.

Stamp the Batik Birds D1313 image in the Pixie Dust ink onto white paper. The advantage of stamping in a color, rather than a clear ink, is that you begin with a base color and can accent it with just a few colors - rather than having to fill in the whole image.

Rub the dry brush into the palette. Can you see the powder developing as the brush swirls around on the surface? Your brush will be full of this powder - carefully move it over to the stamped image.

Now apply the chalk to the image - right around the silhouettes of the birds especially. This will darken the ink around the birds - creating a deeper hue. Use chalk colors in pinks, browns and pale purples - so that the shading coordinates with the Pixie Dust color. Apply the chalk as gently as you can, swirling the powder over the image. Any excess chalk can be removed with a Swiffer cloth (those cloths you use for cleaning) because they take the dust off the paper, but leave the chalk on the ink - it works like magic!

Once you are done, this subtle effect mimics the highlights and color variation of a watercolor wash. It's really quite beautiful - and works with any shade of pigment inks, even darker colors!

My year, so far, has offered lots of opportunities to learn lessons - about family, business, balance and creativity. Our household includes my father in law, my wife and I and my two great kids. In the same week we were talking to our 11 year old about texting to his girlfriend, we were trying to plan the logistics of stairs and aftercare for an upcoming surgery for my father in law - multigenerational themes were keeping us busy!

Business has been quite brisk, as we launched our new design team for Memory Box and have had 2 releases on top of each other - Valentines Studio and Whats in the Box. We are thankful to all of the Memory Box fans out there for your business - and have lots in store for 2010. 

I was lucky enough to meet a lot of Memory Box fans this last weekend, when I traveled to my demos. I saw lots of familiar faces - and was happy to see a customer who came to my demonstration at Rubber Soul in Poulsbo, WA on Friday and then see her again at my Valentine's event in Tukwila, WA at Impress on Saturday (a 2 hour trip by ferry!). 

 

At one of the events, a middle school teacher named Jessica, told me about her 90 students (3 classes of 30 each). She rewards them for filling out their weekly homework planners by stamping a Memory Box Penguin stamp in their books every Friday - if they have it all filled in completely. She was proud to say that she had 100% participation - because the kids can't wait to see what penguin stamp they will get next! We realized that there weren't enough penguin designs to fill in weekly journals for an entire school year (I think she had 20 in her collection so far) - so I may have to design a few more, so that we can keep the peace at the middle school.

She brought some of the planners for me to sign - and I was honored to be a part of the learning process. Maybe one day, one of them will grab hold of their creative side, start a business and end up inspiring a whole new group of people. I have always been surprised at how a rubber stamp can add such value to the everyday - and I am grateful to be a part of the process.
     
 
 

 

Valentines Project of the Month

A long time ago, someone said to me, "A Valentine should be handmade."

That seems more true than ever now - to send someone a greeting that you crafted by hand, to let those people in your life that mean a lot to you know that you really appreciate them. 

So here's the time of year when you can make a card that takes a little more time than an everyday greeting card. Maybe you'll even make each one a little different, to suit the person who will receive it.

The Project of the Month Card for January uses the new stamps and papers from the Valentine's Studio release - in shades of pinks, soft greens and rich browns.

 

The Lovey Dovey Tree (E1308) is stamped in Brilliance Pearlescent Chocolate onto Cherry Blossom paper and also onto a patterned paper from the 6x6 Gossamer Collection. You can see how the hearts on the patterned paper are cut out and mounted onto the Cherry Blossom paper. A little bling in the way of Diamond Jewels provides a little sparkle.

 

Here's a little close-up, notice that the jewel is positioned at the center of the spirals on the hearts.

 

I glued to pieces of pink ric rac onto the Cotton Candy notecard, leaving about 1/2 inch of space between them. A strip of striped paper (12x12 Gossamer Collection "Cool Beans") mounted on a layer of truffle is glued down the middle, which makes the narrow 1/4 inch ric rac appear extra wide.

We hope this project inspires you to make something special for those you love.

Valentine Studio

Happy New Year everyone! I just returned from a much needed two week vacation with my wife and children down in sunny California and I am anxious to get all of the new products we have planned for 2010 launched and out the door. Our trip, this time by road because we decided to take our two Cairn Terriers, was terrific fun. For some reason, our most memorable trips are road trips - and the drive from Seattle to Anaheim was long, but quite scenic and a grand way to explore the West Coast. 

When we decided to do this trip, we knew that we would need to be stopping frequently to exercise the dogs, so we had in mind that we would explore as many cities and parks along the way as possible. One terrific phone app that we found along the way, was a dog park finder - which let us know where to go within a 50 mile radius, to find an off leash dog park!

As we always do on trips, we wanted to see what we could as we went - sometimes it will be historic or important locations (like the Mark Twain House in Connecticut or the Capitol in Washington, DC). Sometimes it's a natural wonder (like the Matanuska Glacier in Alaska, or the Grand Canyon). But this time, by consensus, we decided to "explore" as many bakeries as we could find. My friends on Twitter and Facebook suggested dozens of locations along the way - you can check out some of our experiences in my Twitter entries - and so we tried to get to as many recommended bakeries as we could.

Our favorites, after sampling something from every city we stopped in, included Ettores in Sacramento, California. Hands down, the 4 pieces of Chocolate cake we ate there, were to die for. Another favorite, Miette, in San Francisco, was bursting with French Macarons, unique candies and the most gorgeous little cakes you've EVER seen (no wonder they are opening another store, despite the economy!). There were new finds along the way too! For example, a Gibassier, made at the Pearl Bakery in Portland, was a wonderful little bun made with orange peel and anise seed. At Boulange in San Francisco were some round, little Brioche, able to sit in the palm of your hand, decorated with large, crunchy sugar crystals (I hadn't seen that size or that kind of sugar crystal before - the sugar was white, and opaque, almost like large salt crystals). Susina, down near Hollywood, is a great stop for tarts and cakes - and we picked up a small load of desserts to last us a few days drive up the coast! 

We came home satisfied, having tried no less than 30 fabulous desserts. 

I feel inspired to try a few new things with cake baking and I want to re-create the luscious Chocolate Orange Macarons we had from Miette's. The experience was also good for my creative side - I took lots of pictures of frosting colors, and of the gorgeous dishes that held cookies and petit fours - and even pictures of the glass jars filled with hand dipped chocolate hazelnuts and handmade lollipops. You'll probably be seeing some of this inspiration in the spring!

I did want to start sharing some of the wonderful new products we are releasing - and first up is the beautiful new Gossamer Paper Collection. Our 6x6 packs contain 3 each of 10 designs, shown below. We are thrilled with the number of stores that have ordered this new collection - hopefully you can see it, in person, at a store near you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last three patterns above are available in 12x12 sheets as well - and as always, our papers are made in the USA from certified sustainable paper programs. We hope you like them as much as we do!