Cheery Winter Birds

The card I have for you today uses one of my favorite techniques which is Watercolor using markers/pens.  I started with a piece of Canson Bristol 96# watercolor paper and the Stampendous Winter Birds Cling Stamp which I stamped and heat set using Simon Says Stamp Fine Detail Gold Embossing Powder.  I happen to buy this particular type of watercolor paper at Hobby Lobby using a coupon most of the time.

I started coloring the birds using a Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pen in Brown for the body and Mid Brown for the Belly.  Then I decided I should probably look at a picture so I googled "Winter Birds" to see some images.  My images are not lifelike at all, but it's okay.  I went ahead and colored them for my Mother-In-Law who just loves seeing the birds and flowers no matter what time of year it is and she won't care whether or not they are realistic.

I like this particular watercolor paper a lot because it is so smooth, yet affordable for card making. It costs me about 6 cents per panel if I get at least 6 panels out of one 11 x 14 sheet.  I also like the Canson XL 140# watercolor paper but it is more cream than white and sometimes I just want the nice soft white of the Bristol.  It's all a matter of personal preference.  However, it will pill up if you work it too much or with too much water so I grabbed a Distress Marker in "Pine Needles" and started working on the evergreen branches in the image between the layers of brown on the birds.  I tried to keep moving so I would not make the paper pill and just went back and forth to different areas each time.  It's very helpful if you aren't working on adjacent areas at the same time.

I wanted some fun color for the little birdie's winter gear so I just did each color layer back and forth on the two birds until I had them all colored with the red, blue and green. One of the particularly nice things about the Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens is that they have a super fine brush tip so they can be skinny mini or quite a bit thicker depending on how soft or hard you press with the brush. You don't need to have all 80 colors of these pens because you can make lighter or darker versions of all of the colors.  I think I have about 48 of them now (I originally purchased a 36 set) and I don't really feel I have any missing at this point.  There are lights and darks in each color so you can pretty much do anything you need to.  Many graphic artists use the Zig Pens to color with and they are not using any water, so that should be a good indication of how "juicy" they are.

Once I had the image colored, I went over the white snow and the pom-poms on the bird's winter gear with my Clear Wink of Stella Pen.  Then I added the greeting in Versamark and heat set it with WOW! Primary Apple Red Embossing Powder to go with the striped card base I had chosen. I cut the watercolor panel using the Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangle Die in the largest size which is slightly smaller than 4 x 5.25 inches.

I still wasn't too happy with the appearance of the snow or the pom-poms so I added a layer of Ranger Glossy Accents to them.  Then I sprinkled just a pinch of Elizabeth Craft Cool Diamond Glitter on top of that while it was still wet to make it really sparkle and shine. Now I like it (giggle) and it fits the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge for this week.

Thanks for stopping by today!  Please feel free to leave a comment or question if you do.