Friday 17 March 2017

Apple blossom time

It's almost time for the crab apple blossom on the tree outside our house to burst into flower. It's a beautiful deep pink flower that looks lovely on the tree, but as we often get a lot of wet and windy weather while it is flowering, soon turns into a soggy and slippery pink carpet on the ground below. It's lovely while it lasts though!

This stamp, from Clearly Besotted, is really a generic blossom that could be cherry, apple or pear, but I've coloured it in the pink of our crab apple tree. After my recent experiences with bleeding watercolours, I used proper watercolour paper and heat embossed the stamping to prevent the bleeding, which worked for me.


I coloured it with watercolour pencils and a water brush. After finishing the image, I went around the outside with a pale grey watercolour pencil and used a very wet water brush to drag it out away from the edges. You can only see it very faintly in the photo, but that's the idea, it just seems to give the coloured image a bit of a "glow". The sentiment, also heat embossed, is from the same stamp set.

I am sharing this with
The Flower Challenge - Anything Goes
CAS Watercolour - Spring
Uniko Studios - Spring  
Rubber Dance - Everything Spring







13 comments:

Margarets designer cards said...

Beautiful card, lovely stamp, I hope your tree does not come out this weekend and waits for drier weather,

Christi Conley said...

Beautiful card - I bet the trees look so pretty when the blossoms are still there! We had a pear tree in the backyard when I was growing up and the blossoms were SO pretty - until the rain and wind destroyed them. Lovely card Jane, stunning coloring :) xoxo Christi

Di said...

Absolutely fabulous card Jane - the colouring is perfect. and heat embossing before water colouring is a really neat trick I also discovered recently. Isn't it strange how as soon as the long awaited for blossom arrives the wind and rain comes too! Sigh.

Hugs

Di xx

Bonnie said...

Beautiful watercolor apple blossoms, Jane! The soft wash around them sets them off beautifully! Thanks so much for sharing this with us at CAS Watercolour!

Karen Dunbrook said...

pretty cas...
Thanks so much for playing along with the CAS Watercolour Challenge!
xx Karen

Beverley said...

Beautiful CAS card, wonderful watercoloring and such a pretty stamp. I am sure your crab apple tree blossom looks just as pretty when in bloom too :) Thanks so much for sharing and joining in on the Uniko Challenge. Hugs Bev x

Loll said...

Your crab apple blossoms are so pretty Jane. We have a lot of cherry blossom trees in our area and I know that you mean about how beautiful they are while they last. Soon there is a pink carpet everywhere is the blossoms fall way too early. :) Your blooms are so bright and beautiful. Definitely a sign of Spring in the air. Great job with adding the light shadow that lifts the blossom branch from the page. Thanks for sharing with us at CAS Watercolour!

Bibi Lindahl said...

Beautiful CAS card! Love the stamp and you've coloured it in so beautifully. Your crab apple tree sounds gorgeous, also when it "sheds" to make a carpet :) Thank you for entering your lovely card to our Spring challenge at Rubber Dance ♥

TaeEun said...

Beautifully colored CAS card! I love apple blossom in Spring too! Love that you added grey shade around the image. It gives the image more artistic look! Thank you so much for joining us at The Flower Challenge!

Sazzle Dazzle said...

Simple CAS perfection and great to see you join us at Uniko this month Jane. Wonderful colouring and a wonderful Spring feel to your card. x

Susanne Rose said...

That's a really beautiful card! Thank you for joining us over at the Rubber Dance challenge. Hugs, Susanne.

ionabunny said...

Very pretty CAS card. Love the colours. Thanks for joining the Rubber Dance challenge. Hugz

Rahmat said...

What a beautiful coloring love the simplicity of this card, thanks for joining us at Uniko.