Sweet Cat Watercolor Tutorial

Hi friends! Today I have a fun tutorial of a sleeping kitten.

Watch the video to see how!

All of the supplies are from this inexpensive pagos watercolor kit. (affiliate link) and here is the reference photo.

I hope you enjoy the project. I am keeping this post short as I had my 2nd covid vaccine yesterday and I am totally wiped out today! I did manage to film a sat chat though so that will be up on YouTube tomorrow:) Have a great weekend! Happy crafting!

NEW Derwent Pastel Watercolor Review

Hi friends, today we are taking a look at the new Derwent pastel watercolor pan paint set of 12. You can find it on the Derwent website as well as a download of the color swatch with lightfast info and on Amazon USA. (affiliate link) This product sold out shortly after my review went live on YouTube but it is a new product and I’m sure it will be restocked soon. You can take this as an opportunity to decide if this is something that would add to the supplies you already have.

*This product was sent to me for review.

Pros:

• Nice color selection (thought I would like a brown in place of one of the greys)
• Color layer well
• Smooth
• not chalky
• Good quality small waterbrush included
• Price $25
• Good lightfastness for pastel shades

Cons:

• I wish there was a brown in place of one of the greys and a cleaner warm green instead of the drab kakhi green.

Bottom line: I prefer this pastel set to the other pastel watercolors I own. They lay down well, layer and are not chalky. I wouldn’t recommend it as a stand-alone set but it is a great addition to other traditional watercolors.

I will have a tutorial for the macarons next week! Happy crafting!

Inspired by Garbage

Hi friends! I was going to toss these eggshells out after making my daughter a sandwich but I thought they were to pretty to discard. So I rinsed them and set them on a paper towel to dry and that is where this still life came from.

A simple monochrome subject is an excellent thing to practice because you really have to look for the subtle changes in line and value so it doesn’t look invisible. You can find a real time version of this tutorial on Critique Club or enjoy the time-lapse below!

Supplies (affiliate links used)

• 5″x7″ canvas panel (Arteza multi pack) or a 5 pack of 5″x7″ for $3.51
• Golden open acrylics *sets and open stock from Blick, I have the modern and traditional 6 color sets. Amazon has the modern set and traditional
• Brushes: Zen All Media brushes in a variety of sizes
• Palette paper (best deal) Cute small pad I used
• This is the stay wet palette seal I mentioned

I hope you are having a great week! Happy crafting!

I hope you have a good weekend! I did:)

Happy Monday friends! I didn’t get a chance to blog this weekend as I had a lot going on. I hope yours was a good one! Happy belated mother’s day to all the mom’s out there. I got up early and went to my sister’s house to take out mom to an antiques shop and out to lunch. It was an adventure as the place we planned to eat at did not have dine in service so we ended up at the Sea Dog and had a great lunch there (Thanks Ron for driving and picking up the tab!) None of us bought anything at the antiques mall, I almost picked up a vintage tin of watercolors and then regretted it on the drive home because “painting with 50 year old watercolors” would have been a really cool video idea. But on the bright side it means that I wasn’t thinking about work this weekend. When I got home my hubby surprised me with pizza and the kids had cards and gifts. I am so spoiled! I didn’t cook once all weekend! I thought I’d post my Sat Chat here this week. I post my informal Sat Chats every Saturday morning on YouTube at 7am ET but I don’t always blog them as they are not a tutorial. Anyway, I hope you enjoy:)

So we did end up driving to Farmington Saturday and there were no issues with both girls taking the SAT. It was such a pretty area I painted this little scene from where I was parked waiting to make sure they got settled into the testing area OK.

I felt such a relief after the test was done (you’d think I was the one who had to take it LOL!) because I was so afraid I would oversleep or that the girls ID wouldn’t be sufficient or they would close the test center last minute. I think the uncertainty of the past year has done a doozy on my mental state. All of this to say, I am starting this week with a sense of peace, calm and relaxation I have not felt in months.

Stuff I mentioned in the video:

• Cheap finger blender brushes ($10 vs $40 at the stamp store!)
• Watercolor portrait tutorial
• Mother’s day card & SVG
• Pagos Watercolor kit (box I showed, review and cat tutorial upcoming)
• Egg lesson now up in Critique club

I hope you have a fantastic week and til next time happy crafting!

I did add freckles after all…

Hi friends, Today I have a loose watercolor portrait to share.

I wasn’t sure I would post this because I was just playing around with paint to relax while taking a break from a demanding project. I get so focused on “what do my readers want to see?” and not “What do I feel like painting” and sometimes that makes for cliché art. Anyhow, I hope you like it!

Supplies:

• I used paints and brushes from my Lukas signature watercolor set from Jerry’s Artarama
• Arteza watercolor sketchbook
• Reference Photo

Also, I used up the last page in this sketchbook. Let me know if you want a sketchbook tour! Happy crafting!

A Mother’s Day Card & More! Free SVG Cut File too!

Hi friends, Mother’s day is this Sunday so why not make mom a lovely card!

My mom (and sister) have a green thumb so we usually buy them some sort of plant from the greenhouse. They all open up around here about a week before mother’s day and there are always so many choices. Luckily mom can keep any plant alive so we can choose what looks pretty! I thought it might be fun to make some cute plant markers to customize the gift.

They would also make pretty bookmarks and I have a free SVG cutting file you can download if you want to make some. I cut them as is from white cardstock and then I cut them with a shadow on kraft for a matting layer. That way they would be sturdier and have a nice finished look. Check out the video to see how I made these and then dig through your stash for similar products and give it a try!

Supplies (affiliate links used)

• FREE SVG file
• Bristol cardstock
• Kraft cardstock
• Distress oxide ink pads
• Wonderland stamp set (flowers on plant pics)
• Darling Rose stamps, dies, stencil
• Large script stamp *12% off at Topflight Stamps with coupon code LINDSAYWEIRICH
• Postmark stamps
• Ink blending brushes
• Seam binding to die and crinkle
• Crinkled seam binding tutorial
• Flower marker coloring demo on this review
• DIY Distress oxide ink blending tools tutorial
• DIY vintage label tutorial
• Laminator and pouches

I hope you enjoyed this fun DIY and til next time happy crafting!

Using Crayons on a Heat Pad! (Great for artists with arthritis or hand strength issues)

Hi friends! If you struggle with achy hands when you try and use colored pencils or art crayons this tip will help. It will even save you time! We are going to use colored pencils and crayons on a hot mat!

I am using a heated floor mat but you could also use a heating pad with something hard on top to draw on. Watch the video to see how!

Here is another tutorial on colored pencils on a heated surface, and oil pastels on a heated surface.

Supplies (affiliate links used)

• Caran dache Neocolor 1 crayons on Amazon (good prices!): 40 set, 15 set, 30 set
• Heated floor mat
• Prismacolor pencils
• Paper (Hahnemuhle sketch 100% cotton)
• Touch up texture and titanium white from Brush & Pencil.
• Reference

Have you tried working on a heated surface before? Let me know in the comments below and til next time happy crafting!

Happy May Day! Sat Chat 5/1/21

Happy May Day friends! I remember as a kid in school we would make may baskets out of milk cartons, decorate them with crepe paper and fill them with candy and hang them on a neighbors door on May first. Did you ever do that? It’s fun to think about old traditions. Here is a may basket tutorial if you feel like making one! Now, on to this weeks Sat Chat! (FYI I post a sat chat on YouTube every Saturday on my YouTube channel but I don’t always post them on the blog.)

Here is a link to the free class I am teaching at Michaels and Here is the magazine I am published in, Craft Stash has a great price for a single issue.

In other news I went downstairs to tidy my craft area and remembered that I dropped my vintage Kenmore sewing machine on the tar driveway a month ago and it wasn’t working right so I took the whole thing apart, cleaned and oiled it, poked and prodded and by some technical miracle it it working again! They certainly don’t make them like they used to! Other than a crack in the foot pedal and the base plate under the machine it seems to be OK. The feed dogs were not moving the fabric forward but they did go up and down and they moved the fabric backwards when I pressed the reverse lever but they would not go for regular sewing. I think a spring was stuck because I kept turning dies and the flywheel and flicking the feed dog lever and eventually the feed dogs started oscillating normally. I think something just got knocked out of whack and it got a chance to right itself and it sure needed a good cleaning. I’m so glad it is working again as my daughter Lila has been using my more modern White sewing machine since the start of the pandemic and I think that sewing is a nice hobby for a person to have. Did you break or fix anything this weekend? Happy crafting!