Behind the scenes and free shipping with CCC

     Hello my fabulous friends!

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Just dropping in to let you know that if you haven't ordered your must have stamps and dies from Colorado Craft yet, now is the time!

 It's free shipping time! Today and tomorrow only (August 30-31st) No promo code needed! Just shop as usual over on the Colorado Craft Company website, and you will get free shipping if you are in the US, $6.95 off of International orders, flat rate of $10.00. This deal ends August 31st at midnight mountain time.

ALSO 

 Just a quick reminder of the Colorado Craft Company blog/instagram hop GIVEAWAYS are still going... Click HERE for all the giveaway info.  Winners will be announced on the 3C blog.

 And of course, I have some inspiration to share too! I promised on Monday that I would talk more about my process when approaching a painting that feels challenging, so let's chat-

The Bird of Paradise Wishing set from the latest Colorado Craft release features a flower that is not only a fantastic stamp, it is a stunning flower in real life! The colors are incredible and they blend from one to another in beautiful ways without creating mud (even when going from green to pink!), and I wasn't sure how I was going to be able to capture that in my painting.

Adding to this, I have been sick, and haven't had a chance to do much painting this past month, so I was feeling a bit rusty with the paint brush.

If all you do is scroll through Pinterest and Instagram and see finished masterpieces, it can be easy to feel like everyone else just sits down and sneezes out perfectly colored cards every 10 minutes because you are only seeing the finished product, not the process. Even watching tutorials, they are often edited, and don't show all the experimentation, practice, and planning that happened before turning the cameras on. 

Note: I'm sure there many super talented people who can just sit down and color anything and get it perfect the first time, but I am not one of them. 

My process is messy... I just don't generally choose to show the mess.

I don't "hide" the mess because I'm ashamed of it, or because I want to appear better than I am. I choose not to share it because it is a private part of my creative process.. the part that I only truly feel safe enough to explore fearlessly when no one is watching, and the cameras are all turned off. When there is no expectation, no judgement, and no audience.

However, I feel it is important to occasionally remind people that the finished masterpieces we scroll through by the hundreds (and can easily feel discouraged by if we start comparing ourselves) is only PART of the story.

So, here is a peek behind the scenes of one of my cards-

My first step is choosing colors... 

I have a LOT of colors to choose from because I find studying colors and all their properties fascinating- you don't need this many colors.  However, this is my BTS, so I start with a lot of colors!!!

I start by looking up images of Bird of Paradise flowers on the Internet. I then use a cheap watercolor paper to swatch colors... being sure to place colors next to each other  and overlap colors that might be overlapped in the painting so I could get a feel for how the different options look together. If I mix colors, I make sure to add in notes so I can recreate a mix if I decide to use it

It's messy. It probably wouldn't make any sense to anyone else, but it helps me find both the hue (the color) and the properties* I'm looking for. This isn't intended to be something I frame or even share on Instagram... this is a time for me to explore and learn.

*Properties include things like transparency/opacity, flow, and if it blends or pushes other colors when wet, granulation, etc.

I use cheap paper for this so I feel free to test as many color combinations as I want without feeling like I'm wasting money -after all the good paper is expensive!

Speaking of paper, after I THINK I have figured out my colors, I do test swatches on scraps of the good paper I plan to use for the project. Paint looks and acts differently on different papers. I want to know exactly what to expect when I move to my actual piece... 

And I did change directions with some of the colors after testing them on this paper. 

Notice again that I both layered colors and put them next to each other. This is where I'm starting to figure out what colors should be applied wet in wet (for organic blending), what colors should be painted in glazes, etc.  This swatching helps me form a plan for the painting.

In this case, I discovered I was going to need to do both wet in wet and glazing on almost all areas of the image... 

After figuring out my colors and my plan I do a test painting. This isn't meant to look good. It's sloppy and rough, but it gives me a chance to test my plan, and practice techniques... You can see that the petals on the left look washed out, the middle petals look too harsh, and by time I got to the petals on the left I was getting the feel for how much of the yellow to use, how much pink to add, and how thick those paint colors should be (how much water). 

You can also see that I wasn't having success with the green and pink blend, so I tested out a different green with more blue in it off to the side (and that's the color and technique combo I used for my final card)

This color study is done on the same kind of paper I plan to use for my project... Yes, it's the expensive good paper, but it's important to know how your paint is going to react on the paper you plan to use.

You can do this study on the back of another study, or a paper where you messed up the stamping (like this was), or large scraps from another project... I keep a box of those kinds of scraps near my table for this purpose.

Besides, learning isn't a waste of good supplies! Always remember that!

After going through the whole planning process, and doing a practice run, I can then move on to my actual project with confidence.

I don't always have to go through ALL those steps for every card I make.. If I'm confident in the techniques I'll need, and the properties of the colors I'm using, I'll just do swatching on the good paper and jump in to the project. On the other hand, there are times I need to take more time doing practice pieces before I can paint the image in a way I'm happy with- those are the times when I am challenging myself and pushing out of my comfort zone and into a new level.

In the fine art community, thumbnails, sketches, and studies are the norm... In the card making community we often seem to want hacks and easy ways to do things that work the first time every time with little skill or learning curve required. I get it, I love quick and easy too, but if you want to take your coloring or cardmaking skills up a notch or two, you have to put in the practice. It won't always be polished, quick and easy... but it's worth it!

I'll be back with more soon... see you then! 

~Kassi

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