Painting with Viva Las Vegastamps! and my new Favorite Inktense Pencils

Did you know you can paint with stamps??? And build up beautiful scenery with single stamps...it's pretty easy and I'm going to show you how! I recently received the new Easter Plate #1372 of stamps from Viva Las Vegastamps! There is this adorable Bunny Artist #18115 in a painter's smock and I knew exactly what I wanted to create...but I needed to go through my stash of VLVS stamps to find some floral stamps.

 

**A TIP** If you love the thrill of the hunt and would like to get a TON of stamps for only a couple dollars more than that of a single plate...I highly recommend getting a POUND of RUBBER Grab Bag!!! They do have smaller grab bags of just images or just phrases, too. How can you live without a pound of rubber stamps???

I am building up a large floral scape by masking with paper masks and multiple stamping using Bouquet #9680, Hyacinth and Leaves #10301, and Sunflowers #9918 - and the Bunny Artiste will be painting them.

I attended a FREE workshop at my local Jerry's Artarama this past weekend and I had a special coupon that I had been saving for an occasion where I would be OK with driving out of my way to go there. Well...I finally got myself a set of Derwent Inktense Pencils that I have been pining for. I saw a project made using these pencils by one of my crafting Idols...Lisa Fulmer. Now I can finally paint on fabric and get a watercolor effect. 

For this project I am using a cotton muslin. I first begin by stamping my florals multiple times on plain paper and trimming them out. These will be my masks. I would have used post-it notes, but I didn't have any with me on my crafty play date at a friends house. Strange part - she didn't have any at all. This is simple masking. Start by stamping an image, then place mask over and then stamp again, slightly overlapping. I repeated multiple stamped florals to buid up a large floral scape.

Please see accompanying image number to go along with written instruction/description.

Photo #1: Bunny Artiste stamped on muslin in brown Staz-On ink off to the right side of my fabric. Photo #2. Next I stamped one Hyancinth, placed a mask over and stamped another to the left. Then placed a mask over the second Hyacinth also. Photo #3: I repeated by adding Sunflower image stamped three times; applying a handcut mask after each stamping. Photo #4: Detail stamped images covered by my paper masks. Photo #5: After completing Sunflowers and masking, I stamped the Bouquet three times slightly angling around the other flowers. I started in the center, then reinked and rotated to stamp left and right sides. Photo #6: Remove the masks to see the full layered image as one scene. Now the completed image is complete and ready for coloring.

 Now I begin painting my scene with my new pencils and build up layers of color.

Then to get a softer, watercolor look, I used a waterbrush to blend out some of the color. This really brightened and intensifed the colors. I continued building up and blending the color with the water brush until I reached a point I was happy with. For a finishing touch - I added some white gel pen to add back in some highlight areas. Some of these were lost from bleed out when blending out the colors. Not a problem. Nice part with these Inktense pencils. After the first time you wet the colors, when dry - they are permanent. If you re-wet - they do not blend out any further. These will be fun to play with more on other projects.

HERE IS THE FINISHED MASTERPIECE!

I'm thinking I might add some beading and some embroidery stitches and alter this embroidery hoop. I have so many more stamps from VLVS that I have yet to play with. I encourage you to check out Viva Las Vegas Stamps website, and plan to get lost there for while. Don't forget to visit their blog page, too. There are lots of cool stamping ideas and techniques there, too.

Have a crafty day! Sb