I began by stamping the mushroom border and a mushroom cluster from the Nature Table stamp set along the bottom of the card. I used a permanent black pen to add a few lines to join them together. I masked the images before stamping the mushrooms on a tree twice on the left hand side of the page. I drew a continuation of the tree to the top of the page, adding in some detail on the tree, and again masked all of these images.
I coloured the background with Brushos, using a combination of yellow and orange, with a hint of violet, until I was happy with the overall colour. I dried the background with my heat gun, and then added foliage stamping along the edges and behind the mushrooms, using various shades of archival inks. I used bleach to remove the colour from some of the foliage, and then proceeded to colour all of the images with watercolour pencils. I also coloured the foreground with watercolour pencils.
I stamped lots of small leaves onto oddments of scrapbook paper and other bits of backing paper that I had left over from various projects, and stuck these onto the card, some on the ground, and some tumbling down randomly, as if they were falling from the trees overhead.
I
am aware that this first card might seem a bit daunting to a beginner, and so I wanted to show how a much simpler card could be made using the same
mushroom stamp, taking much less time, but producing a really pretty
card nonetheless. I made a mask with an oval aperture in the centre,
which I placed onto a piece of smooth watercolour paper. I then stamped
the mushroom border onto the paper, and coloured it using Distress Inks
and a waterbrush. I used a loose style, not trying to be too precise. I used Pumice Stone and Weathered Wood Distress Inks to colour the mushrooms. I
dried the image and then covered it with the mask that I had used from
my first card. I added a small circle mask to represent a moon, and then
coloured the sky, using a combination of three Distress Inks in Dried Marigold, Stormy Sky and Seedless Preserves. I removed the circle mask and added a little bit of Weathered Wood
to soften the starkness of the moon, before swiping some Mustard Seed Distress Ink across
the moon and a bit of the sky to either side.
I
removed the mushroom mask, and coloured the tops of the mushrooms with a
bit of Mustard Seed DI as well, to represent the light from the moon. I then
coloured in the ground with a bit of Milled Lavender. I added a streak of Mustard Seed
for the moonlight, deciding where it would shine.
I stamped the sentiment taken from the Bewitched Moonlight stamp set, and a fairy from the Summer Fairy stamp collection using Versafine Onyx Black Ink.
