The next challenge at Less is More is to make a one-layer card using a self-drawn frame. I went a bit mad and hand-drew the whole thing. The finished piece looks like it is layered because of shading using an alcohol marker on the bottom edge of the mandala – a very effective way of adding depth without layers. The background is a masked, dense layer of blended distress ink over which I’ve used a black pigment marker and Stabilo pencils for shading.
I’ve procrastinated a bit on my homework for this section as I and watercolours often do not get on well together. The lessons have been great on Wanderlust 2022, with each of the tutors carefully and patiently explaining the techniques they use so that they are, in the main, replicable. Here are my results from weeks 29-35…
Various mixed media techniques on papers other than watercolour paper have generally worked ok. I still haven’t fallen in love with watercolours as a medium, but am glad I have tried them. Oh, and buying decent tube watercolours made such a difference to the vibrancy of the colours over the student quality hard pan collections I normally use.
Apparently, World Cardmaking Day is held every first Saturday of October and is dedicated to those that prefer to make cards rather than buy them. In honour of this, the latest challenge at Less is More is to make a CAS card on the theme of friendship. I made the following card, and I’m not sure I like it! I think that the blue shading around the top and bottom of the rose detracts from the clean and simple aesthetic.
The recipe challenge this week over at Less is More is to use vellum in your clean and simple card design/make. One of the trickiest things is to find a means of attaching it to the card without the glue showing as a darker area given its translucency. I’ve got around this by taping a fold-over flap to the inside of the card. I found the flower in a long-neglected box of Pergamano parchment craft. I mounted it on black to get the right contrast for the white of the stretched vellum. The sentiment is stamped in white pigment ink several times to get it opaque.
A little challenge over at AAA Cards this fortnight, with the main theme being ‘small and few’. The optional twist is to add (lady)bugs to your clean and simple card design. Here’s my take on the theme:
Over at Less is More, there’s a new theme challenge for your clean and simple cards/makes – ‘butterflies’. Clean and simple means minimal layers, and lots of blank space, drawing attention to the stamping/colouring/sentiment. Here’s my one layer take on the theme, using watercolour pencils and a bit of distress ink over a mask to get the blue band across the middle:
Challenge time again over at AAA Cards and the theme for the fortnight is ‘along the edge’ with the optional twist of ‘under the sea’. As always, the card should be clean and simple – minimum layers and embellishments and lots of empty/white space. Here’s my design team card for your inspiration:
The current challenge at AAA Cards blog is to use a rectangle just 1/9th of the card face. The optional twist is to add butterflies to your layout. The normal ratio of white space to an image on a clean and simple card is 2/3rds to 1/3rd, so reducing this again makes for an extremely clean card, though not necessarily simpler. Here’s my take on the theme:
Another no layers card at AAA Cards in their latest challenge. There’s also the option of a ‘plant/grow/farm’ theme. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I don’t have any stamps featuring tractors or farmyard animals/birds, so went instead for another interpretation of ‘plant’ and featured a flower on my one layer card:
It’s recipe time at Less is More, and your ingredient is ‘a tag’. Just make a clean and simple card featuring a tag, upload it to your blog and share the link over at the challenge blog. I’ve made this card for inspiration as part of the design team:
