VIDEO ART TUTORIAL | Gold Foil Leaf & Watercolor

Hiya Oddballs!!!!

I'm back again with another "Technique A Week" Video Art Tutorial!

This week I experimented with Gold Foil Leaf and it was soooooo much fun!

Since this was my first ever attempt with Gold Foil Leaf there was a bit of a learning curve but overall I was extremely pleased with the results, and the good news for you is.....

I made the mistakes .....so YOU don't have to! 

Check out my new video see how I did it and then continue reading down below for my TIPS on how to get the best results using Gold Foil Leaf & Watercolor!

My best tips for applying Gold Foil Leaf to your watercolor painting are:

• Be sure to use an old crappy brush to apply the adhesive and wash the brush out immediately after using it with warm soapy water, this way you can continue to use the same old crappy brush for this adhesive in the future. [DO NOT LET THE ADHESIVE DRY ON YOUR BRUSH!]
• Find the softest cleanest good quality brush to apply the gold foil leaf - the gold foil leaf is so soft and it doesn't take much to tear it away from the glued areas.  You also don't want bristles to fall out and stick to the glue, a good quality brush can solve this.
• Use bigger pieces of the gold foil leaf then necessary to obtain a smooth gold finish, the over hang will tear away easily.  Smaller pieces of the gold foil leaf to fill an area will give you a textured gold look.
• The jar says to wait half an hour before applying the gold foil leaf however I found it only necessary to wait 15 mins as any longer and the adhesive was too dry and no longer tacky. You want the adhesive to be tacky but not wet, and not dry either. If its too wet still you will have problems, the gold foil leaf will not go on nice, not sticking where its suppose to and "gumming up". If you run into this problem its likely you didn't wait long enough, so just wait a little longer. If the adhesive is too dry the gold foil leaf wont stick at all and it will not feel tacky to the touch, if you run into this problem simply brush on more adhesive and wait 15 mins. for it to become tacky.
• Paint or Outline in paint the areas you want to gold foil...... If you wanted to go back and add some gold foil leaf to a watercolor painting that you already finished some time ago that would work great. You can apply the adhesive right over top of dry watercolor paint or ink. It may or may not change the color of the adhesive but its ok if it does, the gold foil leaf will cover it up anyhow.
• Apply a thin even layer of adhesive, DO NOT leave puddles of adhesive anywhere! Apply it liberally in the areas you want the gold foil leaf to be. 
• Finally this is probably my most important tip.....you saw that I used a very tiny brush to apply the adhesive as I wanted to be as accurate as possible with that adhesive....... as the detail that you are able to achieve with the gold foil leaf is directly related to your accuracy of detail when applying the adhesive......if you go out of the lines with the adhesive the gold foil leaf will stick to it and you will lose detail this way,  you can't remove the adhesive once applied and you can try to scrape the gold foil leaf off after the fact but you risk tearing your paper and making a mess, small mistakes like this are probably best left alone untouched if you do make them.

 

 SUPPLY LIST:

• watercolor paper
• watercolor paints
• watercolor brushes
• masking fluid (optional)
• digital stamps (optional)
• gold foil leaf
• soft clean brush
• adhesive for Gold Foil Leaf
• old brush to apply adhesive

The images used in this tutorial were just newly released same day as the video and can be found in my Etsy Shop, they are..... 

 

Baby Elephant Kisses

img#375

&

Birch Trees

img#376

You could use any digital stamp image for this project by simply printing the image out onto your watercolor paper before you paint.

I hope you will give this technique a try, and I would LOVE to see it if you do!  Join us in the Oddball Art Stamps Facebook Group and share your creations using Oddball Stamps.  Enter your creations in our Monthly Challenge to win free stamps and use one of the prior months "Techniques" and win an extra stamp if you are chosen as our winner!

Thanks for stopping by,

Lizzy xo

ps..... have you seen DT Tina on the Oddball Stamps Blog today with her stunning take on the new Baby Elephant Kisses stamp!

Holiday Giveaway

well its been way too long since we had a giveaway on this blog so here it goes.......

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO WIN!

We will have a FIRST place winner and a SECOND place winner....

10 original watercolor paintings to choose from.....I was having trouble deciding which 2 paintings to use for this giveaway so I decided why not let the winners choose, so this is how it will work....

1. Sign into Rafflecopter below and follow the easy steps to enter, there are many ways to enter giving you up to 10 entries if you choose to do them all!  You can also come back each day and enter again. 

2.  Winners will be chosen by random number using the tools supplied by Rafflecopter.  First place winner will have first choice of 1 of the 10 paintings and second place winner will get to choose 1 from the 9 paintings that are left. 

This giveaway is open to participants worldwide and shipping will be taken care of no matter where in the world you are.

All of the 10 paintings have been painted using Twinkling H2o watercolor paints on Strathmore 140lb cold pressed paper 7.5" x  11" in size.  They are numbered 1 - 10 below....

GOOD LUCK!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Now In Store....

I am excited to share with you this years brand new holiday paintings and ordering is now available for this years Christmas card sets!

I have created 10 unique and original Christmas card designs from my original watercolors which can be ordered in sets of 10 or 20 ( 1 of each design or 2 of each design ) 

>> PURCHASE HERE <<

Check out all 10 of my new watercolors in the album below....

Just like previous years I will add hand painted detailing to all of the cards in the set for the first 10 sets purchased  &..........

We are giving away 2 of the originals in our Holiday Giveaway....no purchase necessary to win.....enter HERE!

Painting A Creepy Cute Fairy In Watercolors

I created this watercolor painting I titled Stardust using Twinkling H2o watercolors. (my favorite type!) 

I LOVE the Luminous Faces  set which is what I used to achieve this look of the girls face.  I don't remember exactly which ones I used in this video for skin color but they definitely came from that set.  The colors I find myself coming back to the most for skin tones are Amber Bronze, Golden Sand, Pink Cloud & Cinnamon Stick which are all part of this Luminous Faces set.  Check out my unboxing video of it HERE.   

The colors used everywhere else in this painting including her hair were

Wisteria 

Rich Cobalt (also part of the Spiced Sorbet Set)
Wild Plum (is part of the Spiced Sorbet Set)

Natural Linen (this color is part of the Luminous Faces set and its also part of the Native Blush Twenty Four Piece Mini Kit which is basically the  Luminous Faces with the addition of 12 more fun colours)

China Black (is part of the Spiced Sorbet Set)

If you've never used Twinkling H2O's before, I just have to say these little gems are such luscious, yummy colors in convenient little pots, you just spritz with water, wait a few mins and start painting, the paint never goes bad or moldy or anything, the cakes just dry and harden back up til you go to use them again!   You can use a brush, sponge or stamp to apply the paint which is so versatile, you control the consistency with how much water you add.   Then there's my favorite part, they are completely cruelty-free, everything from their company Colourarte is cruelty-free! My kind of business! <3  (I say that out of my pure joy for their products, they are not giving me anything to say that, I have in fact bought all of my paints from them.)

The only other supplies used in this painting were...

  

Masking Fluid

uni-ball Signo Gel 207 Black Ink,

And if you enjoy this image you may like IMG#160 Starlynn Queen of the Sugar Web Fairies, it is very much similar to the image in the video.

I have lots of footage now so I just need to get thru it all and hopefully can get some more of these out real soon!  Thanks so much for checking out my process.
Lizzy xo

New Stamp Releases and Other Things....

HELLO!

If you are here from the BLOG HOP please click HERE to visit my blog hop post and enter my giveaway!

I have 5 new stamps in the shop today, well actually I added them a couple of days ago since I knew today would be a busy one and they have already been sold a few times so this is probably already old news to some of you! lol  BUT what you likely haven't seen yet is all of the beautiful samples created by my awesome design team!

2 of today's new releases are actually old stamps that I have redrawn to make new again....

the stunning card above was created by Bettina using IMG#22 Chloe which as you can tell by the number is one of the first few stamps I ever created.   I like to think that with every drawing I do, I get a little bit better at it.   So as time passes things will catch my eye in the older stamps and I feel an urge to redraw them lol

The timing couldn't have been more perfect with Miss Chloe and her sweet heart shaped balloon as Valentines Day is just around the corner.   If you already own the original version of this stamp it won't be difficult to spot the changes, but for those that don't, I have redrawn her head completely, touched up her clothing and the balloon just a little and added a brand new "sweetheart" sentiment to go with it as you can see in the stunning card above created by Tracey.

This adorable card above was created by Granne using Chloe and IMG#17 Patsy which is the other even older stamp that I redrew. 

With Patsy I redrew her head completely and cleaned up the lines everywhere else.  With both Chloe and Patsy you get 1 smiling girly and 1 pouting girly in each set.

This next breathtaking card was created Naz using my brand new stamp Ziggy IMG#285

I chose to name her Ziggy since I was inspired to create her the day David Bowie died.   To say I was devastated by the news would be understatement, but I picked myself up & poured all of that emotion into my artwork.   I created 2 sketches that day, one of them became this stamp which as previously mentioned I titled ZIGGY and the other became a beautiful watercolor painting of a fairy that I titled STARDUST.  

This stunning card above was created by Bettina and the next 2 beautifully colorful samples below were created by Delores...

Below you can see this super fun card created by Jenn she used my brand new image titled Mary-Jane IMG#286

I know this image isn't for everyone but those that do enjoy it I bet will really appreciate it lol  I actually didn't set out to create a new stamp with this one.   What happened was,  I painted up IMG#279 Long Day and decided to share it in 1 of my favorite facebook groups 420 Vegans as I figured the members there might really appreciate it, and it turns out they did, a lot!  So the group admin offered for me to use a piece of my artwork for their banner.   I looked at the banner they already had, which was AWESOME and decided if I was to replace it with my artwork it would have to be something brand new and just as awesome, so I got out my Twinkling H2O watercolors and got busy...

I painted the image above for the 420 Vegans banner and after realized that there may be people out there who would like to have this pot smoking girly as a stamp and so thats how Mary-Jane IMG#286 came to be!

The 5th and last new release I have to share with you today is another Seal Fundraiser Stamp Set 100% of the funds from the sale of this stamp set goes to charity and we are celebrating all month long with a Blog Hop, stop by and join in the fun, we have LOTS of prizes including an original watercolor painting, a giclee print and lots and lots of digital downloads to win! 

The beautiful card above was created by my design team member Andrea using the new Seal Fundraiser Stamp Set.

This new set comes with an extra large jpeg coloring page and a zip file containing all of the images separated into their own png files with transparent backgrounds so they can be easily moved around the page or used individually as seen in some of the samples below....

created by Bettina

created by Naz

created by Lori

created by Julie

above and below both created by Granne 

As always on the first of the month we have a brand new Challenge starting over in the Oddball Art Stamps Facebook Group

I hope you will come and join us for a chance to win some free digi stamps from my Etsy Shop

#OddballArtChallenge

I would love to hear from you...

which of the new stamps is your favorite?
is there anything you have been waiting to see as a stamp? let me know in the comments below and it just might show up in the next release February 15th!

Thank you so much for stopping by! 

Lizzy xo

A Super Sealy Blog Hop & Give Away

As you probably already figured out we are having another BLOG HOP!  YAY!

This one is extra special as we are raising funds for a really great cause that is so near and dear to my heart!

Since I am last in the hop you have probably already seen all of the lovely cards made by my design team ladies using my brand new Fundraising Seal Stamp Set and Coloring Page

What I did is a little different, I used my original sketch for the new stamp set and created a 12" x 12" original watercolor painting....

I used my beautiful Twinkling H2O's on 140lb cold pressed watercolor paper to create this painting and now the best part........

I am GIVING IT AWAY!

Since this a fundraiser after all and 100% of the funds from the sale of this Seal Stamp Set and Coloring Page is going to charity you MUST purchase this digital download for $3.75 to enter this giveaway. (keep in mind my/this give away is separate from the Blog Hop giveaway so the rules are a little different, just another opportunity to win more prizes)  You will get 5 entries for each purchase and then you can take advantage of all of the other ways to score extra entries ie. liking, tweeting, commenting etc. (see below)

There will be 3 prizes....

First prize - Original Watercolor Painting
Second prize - 8" x 10" Fine Art Reproduction of the painting
Third prize - 3 digital downloads of choice from my Etsy Shop

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Don't forget about the Blog Hop Give Away.....

you must comment on this blog post and all of the other 8 participants to qualify as well as solve the secret phrase using the hidden letters in each of our posts, here is a list of the blogs in case you get lost....

Andrea Norris 
Hippieaud Ernst 
Sari Aavamäki
Bettina Leikvoll
Julie Odil
Naz Leila Smith
Lori Thomas

YOU ARE HERE --> Lizzy Love

remember to go back to the Blog Hop on our challenge blog to leave a comment with your answer to the secret phrase for a chance to win those prizes!

Oh How I've Missed This...

Getting sick sucks, but getting sick, like really really sick in the summer is really the pits!  After spending almost a week and a half in bed with the worst summer flu I've ever had it was so so nice to get back in my studio painting again!

So I broke out my twinkling H2O's  and a couple of ACEO's I had already precut up ages ago from 98lb cold press watercolor paper,  and painted these 2 little cards.  The second one down I used a rubber stamp from the Whimsy Stamps Lizzy Love Collection, her name is Maggie and you can purchase her to use in your own creations HERE!

Spooky Blooms

ACEO / 2.5" x 3.5"

Twinkling H2O's

This End Up

ACEO / 2.5" x 3.5"

Twinkling H20's, Tim Holtz Rub On, and Pearfect Pearls Mist

I will be back in a bit with another post (YES 2 in 1 day OMG! lol)  for all of the digital stamps that I have released on July 15th and today as well as the gorgeous samples my DT ladies have put together with them.

c u in a bit and thanks for checking out my paintings, let me know what they make you think in the comments below if you have time, I would love to hear about it. <3

xo Lizzy

EAWT April Art Party

Dancing In Berlin

watercolor and ink 

18" x 12"

cold press heavy weight paper 140lb

Buy Original

Buy 5"x7" Art Print

Buy 8"x10" Art Print

Detail

Detail

This months Etsian Artists Art Party prompt was TIMELESSNESS.  To be honest I had too many ideas running through my head for this one.  Too many, because I am so indecisive and that made it way too hard to narrow it down to just one. lol  As you can see in the above pics, the idea I finally decided upon is inspired by one of my all time fav bands from the 80's Berlin and one song in particular called Dancing In Berlin!  The reason I chose this song for inspiration for this prompt is for many reasons but one in particular because even though this song came out in 1987 it is still in my top playlists here in 2012 and will continue to be forever!  In my opinion it is certainly a timeless hit and Berlin is a timeless band!  For this painting I used a great youtube video for a very rare dance remix of Dancing in Berlin, the video is a slideshow of some fabulous pics and I am sure if you have a peek you will see how they inspired this painting.  Check out the video below...

Art Party & New Art

I know I have been absent for quite a while now and I am sorry about that, I have been sick for quite some time and had to take a little bit of time off to get better.   I am feeling much better now and trying to get caught up.  If you don't already know about the Etsian Artists Monthly Art Party you can check it out HERE for March.  I did manage to get this months prompt done amazingly, the prompt was A Bazaar and this is what I came up with, I call it Dare 2 B Different it is Watercolor and Ink done on Watercolor Paper 17.5 x 12, the original is not for sale at the moment because I am using it in my upcoming Gallery Exhibition but I do have reproductions available in my Etsy Shop and on Fine Art America.

I also finally photographed some other pieces that I had finished before I got sick.  Both originals are not for sale at the moment for the same reason as above but I do have the reproductions available in my Etsy Shop and Fine Art America as well.

Big Pair
Watercolor
Watercolor Paper
11" x 14"

He Loves Me He Loves Me Not
Watercolor
Watercolor Paper
17.5" x 12"

I am going to be very busy over the next couple of weeks preparing for my gallery opening which is April 14th.  A celebration of art and women called Darling Divine Art of the Avant Garde 10% of all proceeds will go to the Canadian Cancer Society!  I will be making a formal announcement with all the details very soon, I am just finalizing some times and then it will be posted here on my blog this week!  

March Give Away

A Little Leprechaun
 original watercolor painting

11.75" x 9"
watercolors on watercolor paper
signed & dated on front
signed, titled & dated on back



Mandatory Entry

Leave a comment telling me what this painting inspires in you! *Please leave your email address in comment if it isn't visible in your profile* This entry must be done first before any extra entries will count.

Extra Entries

*You MUST leave a separate comment for each extra entry for it to count ~ 1 ENTRY = 1 COMMENT*

+1 Follow Oddball Art Co. via Google Friend Connect

+1 Give Oddball Art Co. a heart on Etsy

+2 Leave a comment on the Official Oddball Art Co.Webpage

+3 Visit my Etsy Shop and tell me something you like

+3 Add my button to your blog and leave link

+5 'LIKE' Oddball Art Co. on Facebook

+5 Follow Oddball Art Co. on Twitter
+5 Join  Oddball Art Co. mailing list
+8 Blog about this giveaway and leave a link to your post in the comment

+10 Purchase something from Oddball Art Co. on Etsy

(1 comment = 1 entry)

*If you don't follow the mandatory entry your extra entries will be disqualified*

Winner will be picked by a random number generator from Random.org and the winner will be emailed and posted on this site. Winner has 48 hours to respond to the winning email or another winner will be chosen.

This giveaway will close at 11:59pm est. on March 31, 2012 and is open to participants of all ages all over the world.

(Family members are excluded from entering this giveaway :( So sorry.)

Day 24 ~ 29 Faces Challenge

Worlds End

15" x 11"

Watercolors on Watercolor Paper

As some of you may have already read in previous posts, I have been really itching lately to try my hand at watercolors.  I say try my hand at because I haven't messed around with watercolors since I was a little kid!   So I went out at the beginning of the week and bought everything I would need to get going at it and 2 nights ago I started my very first watercolor painting.  (lets just say first because I am not counting the ones I did as a little kid lol)    Last night I finished the painting I started and I will admit that it is certainly far from perfect!   However I do feel that I accomplished A LOT!  I found this to be an incredible learning experience and I think that they will only get better and better from here.  I called this piece Worlds End and I am giving it to my mother.  My mom has always loved watercolors and knowing that I promised her a watercolor painting when I set out on this venture and so I can only hope she likes it. lol  I have already started my second watercolor and I am looking forward to sharing it with you soon!