Oceans of love

So, the stash diet this month, is going as well as the actual diet.... This MFT Mermazing stamp set somehow ended up on my door mat. No idea how, honest guv!

I started off by stamping my background on a piece of Tim Holtz watercolour card with black versafine.  I masked off the rock to create a rockier scene. After it had dried, I made a water colour wash with cosmic shimmer pixie powders in teal wash and peacock green and painted the sea. I did the same for the sand using mango blaze, bronze blush and golden mint pixie powders. The pixie powders are similar to brushos, but contain mica and so add a soft shimmer. As I'd painted over my stamping it knocked the black back a little, but I liked how it softened things. Once dry I painted in the rocks and shells, using my zig clean colour pens and a wet paint brush to blend the colours.

I stamped lots of elements from the stamp set on a second sheet of watercolour card, but on the reverse, so it gave me a smoother surface to work on. I then coloured in all the mermaids, fish and shells etc using my zigs and again using a wet paint brush to move the colour. Personally, I find a paintbrush easier to control than a waterbrush when colouring this way. Once dry I fussy cut them all out.

I then arranged them all on my background and glued them in place. The "nemo" fish are cleverly drawn with the position of the eye so that you can turn them to face to other way, without them looking like they have a swim bladder problem and are upside down! I had a tiny speck of orange at the top of my card from the pigment in the pixie powder, but it bugged the heck out of me. I inked up one of the tiny fish stamps in versafine again and stamped over it to hide it. As I said before, the black ink had been knocked back by the wash, and so this one set of three fish was more vivid than the rest. I therefore stamped a few extras on the card to tie it in. I ended up with a few more fish than I intended, but I really liked how it added more depth to the scene. I mounted it on Hunkydory mirridazzle card, amid trimmed down a 5x7 card base to 4 3/4x6 to fit it. Oops, almost forgot to say that I added some glamour dust to the mermaid with a quickie glue pen. A final pic to show some of the shimmer.