Anything But a Card Challenges- April Showers

Hi! I am so glad you are visiting today! It has been a very wet ending to my week, which ties in perfectly with the current challenge at Anything But a Card Challenges! Our theme is April showers and with our rainy weather, there was plenty of inspiration. I really hope you will play along with us this week!

My project is not at all what I had originally considered when I saw this theme.  I was thinking umbrellas and flowers. You know, April Showers brings May Flowers... Well, that didn't exactly happen here.  I had my umbrella stamp and several different flower stamps pulled out on my table and was hoping to brainstorm until I had time to create on Friday, so it wasn't lack of planning for once.  Warning: This is a super lengthy post! If you want to bypass my thought process, please feel free to scroll down to the picture!

On Wednesday, my preschoolers were using watercolors on coffee filters and there were several children that were experimenting with the absorbency of the filters and being surprised by the blending of colors.  This is not the first time I have done this with my children, so I knew that there would be a lot of different results based on how much paint was used, painting technique, and frequency of cleaning the brush.  What I didn't expect was the absolutely gorgeous blending of blue and green that one of the kids achieved. As I watched the student paint and saw the project coming together, a light bulb went on! I was NOT going to be using umbrellas and flowers; I was going to watercolor a background with blues and greens!!!  It was fabulous in my head and I could hardly wait to try this.  

As luck would have it, the rain freed up my Thursday evening and I was able to find some crafty time.  I pulled out a piece of watercolor paper, grabbed my reinkers in blues and greens, and dug out my aqua painter.  I really had no clue how to begin. I am sure that for those who are artistically educated, there is a process of layering and blending that should occur, but my art background is art history, not art technique...  So I started with a lighter blue and kind of painted and smeared the color around.  Then I added a darker blue in a few spots.  Adding the green proved to be a little trickier since it turned everything green (hmm... probably should have done that color first or used yellow instead...), but I just went back and painted more blue over the top until I liked the way it looked.  At this point, my paper was pretty wet, but also full of beautiful colors.  

While the paper dried a bit, I decided to add a rain quote and wondered what would it look like if I wrote on the paper before it completely dried.  So I added my quote and actually giggled as the dark blue began to weep into the background.  Unfortunately, the weeping was nonexistent in several spots, so I lightly touched the words with a damp paintbrush.  Success!  But here is when I began to panic a little.  I loved how everything looked so far, but also knew it needed a little more, but I didn't want to ruin what I had... I really hate this stage!!!  So I inked up the flower silhouette stamp from Love and Sympathy, using pool party (very light blue) and stamped a corner. Not so bad... so I added more along the bottom.  Now the top half looked off balance. Grrr...  I placed a variety of embellishments on the top but nothing seemed to fit  Then my eyes settled on my container of glitter glues, more specifically, a light shade of blue.  I held my breath as I made a few dots of glue on the top.  At this point, DD #1, who was watching with great interest (possibly hoping to catch a glimpse of her mother having a breakdown or throwing a fit), commented "It looks like rain drops." Perfect! So I randomly added a few more dots and put the paper up to dry.  Friday morning, I woke with the hope that I would still like what I made and was pleasantly surprised to see that the glitter glue had dried with just the right amount of shimmer to add interest without overpowering the colors.  My ultimate compliment came when DH walked in the door and said "You made that? That's pretty cool!"  It is now framed and hanging in my living room, to remind me that sometimes, even in art, you have to feel the rain in order to recreate it!

 

I tried both indoor and outdoor shots, but neither captured the green properly.  The muddy-like spots are actually a very pretty shade of dark green.  If you click on the photo, you can see the glitter 'rain drops' and the splatters of blue I added with the color spritzer.

I hope you are inspired to share your version of April Showers with us! Have a wonderful week and happy crafting!

Project Recipe: watercolor paper, Inks-marina mist, pacific point, pool party, island indigo, midnight muse, wild wasabi, Stamp Set-Love and Sympathy, Accessories-aqua painter, color spritzer