Here is a plein air sketch I did in Belfast Maine on the coast the other day.
Video!
I am using the set of 24 koi watercolor box. The paper is one of the watercolor blocks I made the other day:) Enjoy the quick and easy painting tutorial and til next time happy crafting!
Here is a watercolor sketch I painted at a lovely secluded beach I found. Paint along and enjoy!
I am using the set of 24 koi watercolor box.
The paper is one of the watercolor blocks I made the other day:) Happy Crafting!
Hi friends! These adorable seed packets are fun to make! You can use them to save seeds or as ATC (Artist Trading Cards) or in pocket letter swaps!
Stamps are from Rubber Stamp Tapestry Use coupon code: SEEDS to save 20% on all $10+ orders of mounted stamps! Offer expires Sunday, August 14, 2016
Supplies:
Watercolor Paper
Watercolor paints
Black pen
Pencil
watercolor paint brushes (small flat and round)
Stamps: Dogwood Forest
Scoring tool (I am using a Scor-pal but you can also use a ruler and butter knife)
Corner rounder
Directions for Envelope:
Start with a 6″x5″ piece of watercolor paper. Perpendicular to the 6″ side score at 1 3/4″ and 4 1/4″ to make the side flaps. Then score at 1/2″ from one end (to make the bottom flap) and 1″ from the other side to make the top flap. Cut away the rectangles at the corners. You will use a corner rounder to round the corners later.
I hope you give this a try! Happy crafting!
Hi Friends! Today I am trying out the Holbein set of 18 watercolors I picked up for $32 on amazon. I figured this would be a good kit to try since the 5ml tubes were only $1.78 each.
Video!
Pros:
bright colors
highly pigmented
transparent
Cons:
Colors seem very samey, as in, they all seem to have the same texture with little granulation in the colors in this kit.
Many of the colors in this set were mixed pigment
Several colors were not that useful to me and ones I would not buy such as Compose Blue, White, Black and Jaune Brilliant
The Colbalt hue looks like pthalo blue and there is not a purple leaning blue in the kit (but I do love the mineral violet!)
Bottom line: I still feel this set was a good value even if I divided the cost up between the colors I would actually use. That said I did not feel there was anything special about these paints so if you already have watercolors you are happy with I’d skip them, or maybe buy a couple of tubes of Holbein in colors you need BUT if you were looking for high quality affordable watercolors these are a good bet. I hope you found this review and demo helpful and til next time happy crafting!
Hi Friends! I am officially on vacation for a week but never fear, I have planned tutorials for you in my absence, it will be like I never left LOL!
A few of you asked me to do tutorials of the plein air watercolors I have been doing lately so I have!
Video!
I am using Winsor & Newton watercolors:
perm rose, yellow ochre, winsor lemon, Windsor green, ultramarine, pthalo blue, burnt sienna
grab your watercolors and paint along! Til next time happy crafting!
Edit 2/15/17: The Kickstarter campaign did not get funded, if you would like to help out this project please visit their new Indigogo campaign. Thanks you:)
Hi friends! I wanted to pop in today to let you know about a fun project put together by Mahe Zehra Husain from The Creative Art Academy. I have enjoyed her blog and ebooks for years and now she has teamed up with 80 artists from around the world to bring you a printed book packed full of projects and techniques.
In order for her book to become a reality she is funding it through kickstarter and plans to have paper copies shipped by Christmas. Please check out her Kickstarter page for more info.
As you probably know the publishing world is shrinking and the amount of truly inspiring craft books being published is dwindling. As a bonus 20% of the proceeds from this project will go to The Malala Fund to help girls gain an education all over the world. Not only do you benefit from the art education in this book but you are helping girls get an education too!
I am proud to help spread the word about this wonderful and inspiring project. If you want to find out how you can help and get a copy of this book for yourself check out their Kickstarter page. Have a great weekend and til tomorrow happy crafting!
Sponsored by The Creative Art Academy
Hi friends! We have a live painting tutorial today at 12:30pm Eastern Time on YouTube today! Programming note: There will be no live painting show next friday because I will be on vacation so make sure you stop by today! I have been requested several times to paint a peacock and I found lots of wonderful reference photos on Paint my Photo, I like the detail on the face in this photo by Janruss and this photo by Paola Richey has a great shot of the body.
Here is a 10 minute sketch and color swatch. Tip, do a quick sketch in pen and splash on some colors before you paint “for real” it is a great way to loosen up for a painting session! I do these quick sketches on scraps so I have nothing to lose if it turns out badly:) The colors I am using are: Permanent Gamboge, Pthalo Blue, Turquoise, Pthalo Green, Pyroll Red and Burnt Umber.
Here is a pattern for today’s painting if you want to use it.
You can watch the live show or the replay in the player below but if you want to chat and ask questions then you must watch on the YouTube watch page.
Supplies can be found from our sponsor Jerry’s Artarama. If you want the supplies I am using check out my Teacher’s Class List. If you are a teacher using the teachers list feature is wonderful, it takes the guesswork out of what a student needs to get. You can access this feature and make a list by going to Jerry’s Artarama, clicking on “my account” and selecting “My Teacher List” from the drop down menu. I am so excited for this feature and I hope you find it useful too!
Supplies:
As always I encourage you to try what you have on hand first before buying new:) I also wanted to let you know that Craftsy is having a BIG sale! Bloom into new skills with 50% off Craftsy’s freshest classes! Shop today with my affiliate link, it doesn’t cost you more but helps me keep rolling out the free tutorials on my blog and I appreciate your support! Your classes won’t expire either, you have lifetime access so you can enroll now and take the classes when you have time at your own pace.
And Craftsy has more than just painting classes, snoop around and you will find paper crafting, stamping, cooking, cake decorating, woodworking, jewelry making, drawing and more! Don’t wait, the sale goes through Sunday the 7th. Thanks for painting with me today and til next time happy crafting!
Hi friends! I am so excited about this project because I have made my most compact travel palette ever. And you can wear it, and it’s cute (take that adorable sundresses with no pockets that I love to wear!)
I actually wore the bracelet on one arm and used a cut off sock (aka fancy brush cleaning cloth) to hold my watercolor paper block and brushes to my other arm when I went bike riding today! It was a sight to behold LOL!
In the above photo you can see the sock, just slide your hand between the sock and the block and you are off to the races! Watch the video to see how I made it! Oh, and if you don’t paint you can still make the cute bracelet and put some other treasure inside!
Video!
Supplies:
For the block: Find my full DIY watercolor block tutorial here. (Supplies: watercolor paper, cardboard, scrapbook paper or decorative paper for cover-can use junk mail cardstock for this too!)
I always get a better feel for what will work in a particular travel painting set-up after I use it a bit. I took a piece of plastic (from an embossing folder package) and covered the back with white contact paper to make a white mixing area so I could have a bit of extra mixing space. You can see the mixing card in the photo above overlapping the watercolor block cover. I cut it to fit in the pocket the folded cover paper made. I also took an old gift card and cut it at an angle so I would have a credit card scraper, that can also be used to remove the finished painting from the top of the block and to reveal a fresh sheet below. I left most of the “credit card” intact so it would not get lost in the pocket. You can see, on my mixing chart, that I can get a lovely array of color with these 5 paints although I might try to sneak a burnt sienna in there too:) Luckily I have a bunch of these wee boxes to experiment with! I first thought I could use my watercolor half pans to make my palette but this box only would fit 2, goes to show you how tiny it is. I can do about 4 small paintings with the water in my 2 mini koi waterbrushes and I think I will add a waterproof black pen in there too.
I think this will be my go-to kayak paint set-up because it is really hard to fish around in back pockets to find paper and pens while trying to keep the kayak steady, wearing them is ideal! Let me know in the comments below if you plan on trying this or if you think I have finally lost my mind. 🙂 Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!
Sponsored by Papermart.
Hi friends! I want to assure everyone that I have not changed my blog over to a painting only one. In fact today I have a new episode of Stamp School!
This card uses limited supplies but is so fun to make! No kraft cardstock? No problem, you can use a brown paper grocery bag! Watch the video for a full tutorial!
Video!
Sponsored by Art Neko *Save 10% off your next order of any size or get free shipping on orders over $50 (whichever discount is greater you get!) just by mentioning thefrugalcrafter!
Supplies:
You can use any combination of rectangles to make a color blocked card, you could even cut them out and mat them with contrasting color cardstock. Take the idea and run with it! Size of the boxes on the card: 3 squares were 2″x 2″ and the rectangle on the bottom was 2″x7″ with a 1/4″ border all round:) I hope you enjoyed this weeks stamp school and til next time happy crafting!
