Blog - Page 8 of 9 - MansiMakes

Interpretive Watercoloring of Anita Jeram’s Illustrations from Guess How Much I Love You

I cannot tell you how excited I am to be part of this Colorado Craft Company October release: they secured the licensing rights to the designs of the world renowned children’s book illustrator, Anita Jeram, and I have spent all of last week coloring these amazing illustrations!

Anita’s and Sam McBratney’s beloved children’s book, Guess How Much I Love You, has sold over 43 million copies and has been printed in 57 different languages.

Today, I share with you all the images I painted, with more detailed photos of each on my Instagram and Facebook accounts between the 3rd and the 7th of October.

I painted each of these images with distress ink reinkers and finished them off with Faber-Castell polychromos pencils.

You’ll notice that I took some creative liberties with the images, turning the hares into female protagonists. My six-year-old daughter is always asking difficult questions about our patriarchal society and often gives me pause … so, of course she saw a mama hare and a daughter hare in this book. And she inspired me to say, “well, why not?”

I love that the book isn’t limiting. It is the love between a big one and a little one (no matter their gender), or could be between a couple in love or two friends. To quote the website: “there is a universal truth at the heart of Guess How Much I Love You that enables it to have an extraordinary relevance to many different people.”

The Colorado Craft Company has brought home to crafters one of the most beloved book of all times "Guess How Much I Love You" and I am beyond excited to share my creative interpretation of the wonderful illustrations.

I hope you’ll like my interpretation — it’s my first time painting animals, so go easy on me.

To celebrate their new release illustrated by Anita Jeram, Colorado Craft Company is generously giving away a $35 gift certificate to their store for each blogger participating in the reveal! Simply leave me a comment telling me which of the new sets is your favorite. I will leave the contest open until the end of the day on October 7, 2020.

Please also make sure you visit each of these artists below. Each one of them has some amazing inspiration to share. Lastly, don’t forget to shop for these stamps and, in Anita’s words, “create something delightful today!”

Supplies

Curious about the products I use? I have listed them below. (These are compensated affiliate links at no cost to you. Thank you for your support! Affiliate and product disclosure can be found here. As always, I was not paid to do this post and I only use products from companies I love.)

Be a Dreamer: Whimsical Card

It’s the first day of September and I can feel a nip in the air. Fall is officially here and while I’m hoping for rain to put out the raging fires in Northern California, there’s none in sight. Given that’s what’s on my mind, it won’t come as a surprise that I reached for the BB Puddle Jumper stamp set from MFT Stamps.

I used Gina K’s Warm Glow Amalgam Ink to stamp the image on to watercolor paper. I like that the ink is barely visible when stamped and completely disappears upon watercoloring. When I started painting the boy, I didn’t really have a plan.

All I was focusing on was getting my light and dark areas right, having enough variations of color (because boys tend to be shown as very boringly monochromatic) and making sure I got the rainbow in there without him look like one. Lol.

Once I had his skin tone just right (yes, continuing to be intentional about representing diversity!) and the shading on his clothes, shoes and the umbrella complete, I thought I’d start working on a puddle. But the puddle would need to have a reflection and I had already spent close to two hours perfecting this image. The thought of painting a “duplicate” image didn’t feel appealing at all!

So, instead of going the conventional route and painting an elaborate puddle for this cutie to jump into, I decided to take a more fantastical approach: creating a story book illustration feel with oversized fall leaves, a thicket of woods in the background and some warm autumn colors.

For the leaves, I used Tim Holtz’s alcohol inks on Yupo Paper and Duralar for varying degrees of translucency again using fall colors. I then used Sizzix Tim Holtz Alterations Collection 3D Impresslits Embossing Folder to cut and emboss maple leaves. I absolutely love the texture it added to my paintings!

I decided to make this a slimline card to give me more real estate to create this fun scene. As I placed the various elements on the card base, playing around with the placement of the leaves, I realized I needed some kind of interesting background.

I used Speckled Egg to color the entire card panel, added some trees using brown paper and affixed all the leaves first before placing the boy atop.

The last thing I did was add an appropriate sentiment from Simon Says Stamp — also notice that I used a die cut heart to stamp the “Be” on — some sparkly accents and some iridescent dots on the insides of the umbrella.

I am so in love with this mixed media card and I hope you like my interpretation of it as well!

Thanks so much for taking the time to read. I’ll see y’all next time!

Supplies

Curious about the products I use? I have listed them below.

(These are compensated affiliate links at no cost to you. Thank you for your support! Affiliate and product disclosure can be found here. As always, I was not paid to do this post and I only use products from companies I love.)

Flamingo Coloring with Pencils

Say hello to Bella: the flamingo I colored this weekend. It turned out to be a two-day project with more colored pencils than I had imagined using.

I’d been wanting to color this gorgeous stamp from Colorado Craft Company ever since they released it. When I saw Del & Artie color it live with Copic markers, I knew I needed to buy it right away. And I did. But when it came, I felt daunted. Everyone else had already done such an amazing job coloring it…what could I do that was different?

Last evening, though, when my daughter picked this stamp out for our family coloring night, she said to my husband, “We are going to have one rule before we start, Daddy: we are not going to compare! We are coloring for fun and we’ll just do our best because that’s what matters.”

It was such a great reminder!!

Sometimes I forget what I tell my own child. Lol.

Well, after many hours of blending, shading, laughing, talking, and coloring some more, Bella is ready to make her debut. My daughter hasn’t finished her version, yet and my husband isn’t one for sharing 🤷🏻‍♀️ I love that we are able to spend time coloring together. This is the second time we’ve gravitated towards stamps from Colorado Craft Company to color — their big and bold series is perfect for all ages and all skill levels!

Supplies

Curious about the products I use? I have listed them below.

Did you do anything fun this weekend?

Journal Page: Intuitive Mixed Media

When I decided to paint this journal spread, all I had envisioned were three faces. I didn’t know which mixed media products I would use or even which colors! I started out with three circles, created using packaging tape as a guide, and just built a scene from there.

There was no plan, no choice of colors laid out…more a grab what’s within reach and see what happens. I love being able to paint like this for myself…there’s no agenda, no motive, no end goal. When I open my journal spread, the empty pages seem full of possibility. The first stroke is usually the hardest but once I have a line, or a scribble, or a color splashed on, intuition takes over.

Have you ever painted in your journal just for the sake of the process? How did it make you feel? Scared? Anxious? Free? I’m always curious where the journey will take me and I am rarely displeased with the results. As I add more textures, more layers, more colors and more of “my self” expressively on to the page it metamorphoses into exactly what it was supposed to be.

I hope you’ll enjoy this video and be inspired to create something for the pure joy of creating…something that makes you happy inside.

Supplies

Curious about the products I use? I have listed them below.

All My Atoms

I absolutely LOVE this Cute Chemists stamp from MFT Stamps, and I assure you I’m not one for cutesy stuff! But would you just look at this? I’ve only used the two main characters and a couple of hearts but you could totally create an entire lab scene with this stamp set.

I colored my chemists with Karin markers, using the same wet-on-wet method I used for my flower girl in the Bundles of Love stamp (watch the process video if you haven’t already). I also added a touch of glitter to make the love concoctions stand out a bit, just for fun!

For the background, I used Gelli Arts’ ladder stencil, dry embossing the pattern on heavy cardstock and then coloring over it with distress inks.

Then it was just a matter of putting the layers together on my card base and adding a sentiment (from the same stamp set) on black paper heat embossed with ultra fine white embossing powder.

See you next time!

Mansi.

Bundles of Love

When I saw this Pure Innocence Bundles of Love Stamp from MFT Stamps, I knew instantly I needed to use my Karin BrushMarker pens. The girl is carrying pretty posies in a dainty basket and I love that you can add details to her dress. You can celebrate spring with an abundance of color by taking advantage of the opportunities her flowers provide. Or you can pair it up with other sentiments in your stash to create a variety of special occasion cards. The possibilities are endless!

In this process video you can see how easy it is to use the fine-tipped pigment-loaded brushes in intricate areas. You’ll also see how I don’t use more than a little drop of ink. With watercoloring, the number one rule is to allow your water to control the flow of your ink.

So, using the wet-on-wet method, I was able to get beautiful gradation in my colors by using a very little amount of ink.

Once I finished coloring the stamped image, I fussy cut it. I didn’t want anything taking away from the coloring, so decided to turn this into a clean and simple white background card.

I did dry-embossing with the Altenew Mega Rose Stencil on the card panel as well as one of the die cut circles to make a subtle highlight area for the girl. Getting creative with sentiment placement, I used Stitched Ric Rac die cuts as a base. The sentiment “This One is For You” is from MFT’s Cup of Love stamp set.

Bundles of Love is such an apropos name for this stamp set…there are so many little details to love in it ! A sweet little honeybee and trio of sentiments complete this cheery set, so make sure you check it out.

Hope you enjoy the video. As always please let me know if you have any questions.

Supplies

Curious about the products I use? I have listed them below.

See you next time!

Mansi.

Papercrafters Unite Against Racism

If you’re here from Dana’s Kraft Paper Stamps blog, welcome! If you haven’t visited her blog, yet, please do!

When Justine Hovey sent a call out for paper crafters to partner up and make our voices heard in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, I was all in. I’ve been journaling and painting my thoughts out because words aren’t easy to come by, and I am grateful that these art sessions have led to some deeply meaningful conversations with my young daughter.

PaperCrafters Unite Against Racism Poster

The goal of this hop is to come together to stand behind our crafty sisters and brothers of color not just in the art industry, but also to show our support in the never-ending fight for equality all over
the world.

For this blog hop, I decided to go back to the basics: skin color. At the core of it all is the value attached to how much melanin your body has. It’s absurd, really, that your skin should dictate how you’re perceived and treated.

I’m unable to explain to my six-year-old why it’s ok for lighter-skinned people to feel superior to those with darker skin…why there is so much systemic bias in our societies worldwide against those who are dark, why humanity takes a backseat when it comes to skin color…why we still run commercials promoting fairness products and try home treatments to get whiter skin. Why fairness is desirable and dark skin demonized…

Isn’t it what’s inside that matters? The color of the skin is purely a coincidence of genetic materials co-mingling…it doesn’t make you who you are! More than anything else, what makes us human is empathy, kindness and respect. It’s our heart, our mind, our soul that makes us human. Not the color of our skin.

With this card, I wanted to share how we are all joined by the common thread of kindness…there may be gaps in our understanding of what we consider “the other” but those gaps can be filled with education, with empathy and with kindness. We may all look different on the outside but we can all strive to be the same on the inside.

We have to listen harder to the voices that have been suppressed for centuries, do better to support those who have been marginalized, and be better every day in our thoughts and actions, so that our future generations focus more on what counts inside over what appears outside.

To continue on this blog hop, please visit Ingrid’s blog next.

Also, here is a list of Instagram Accounts of Black Crafters (Thanks Kristina Werner!) and a List of Ways to Help (Thanks Jennifer McGuire!)

If you’re looking for a way to help, please consider donating to one of the following charities:

• Black Table Arts – organizes and brings in black artists into communities and provides creative spaces for leadership

• The Loveland Project – helps provide therapy for black women and girls

• Fair Fight – a movement to ensure free and fair elections

• Black Girls Code – a movement to increase women of color in STEM fields and exposes girls to computer science and technology

• The Bail Project – mission to combat mass incarceration and reshape the pretrial system in the United States and helps reunite families.

Supplies

Curious about my cardmaking supplies? I have listed my most-used items below. These are compensated affiliate links at no cost to you. Thank you for your support! Affiliate and product disclosure can be found here. As always, I was not paid to do this post and I only use products from companies I love.

Specifically for this card, I used a Gelli Arts gel plate in conjunction with Brea Reese alcohol inks to get the skin colors. Next, I used Concord & 9th’s Sew Seasonal Dies to cut out the leaf shapes and sewed them together with a gold thread. I thought My Favorite Things Cross Stitch Die in combination with the Stitched Circle Die cut to make a backdrop for the leaves (representing holes in our understanding of “the other”). Last, I added the Altenew Be Kind Sentiment, which really drives the point home.

A Post for Pride Month

Today, I bring you a colorful, cheery post celebrating Pride Month and all that’s good about humanity!

Rainbows signify happiness to me and I love that these colors are deeply associated with the LGBTQ movement in America, signifying the diversity in the community but also each colors holds its own symbolism:

life (red),
healing (orange),
sunlight (yellow),
nature (green),
harmony/peace (blue),
spirit (purple/violet)

Blending the colors in this card signified harmony and unity and the sentiment I chose spoke to that symbolism as well.

I used My Favorite Things’ Splotchy Dot Background first using dye inks in all the colors of the rainbow. Then I blended Distress Inks in the same colors over the dots. Next, I used My Favorite Things’ Heart Tree DieCut to make a cavity in the cover of the colored card panel. I also used the Wonky Stitched Rectangle Die Cut to give this panel a fun border.

Now the only thing missing from this rainbow was the pot of gold! So, I adhered some glitter gold cardtsock to the back of the tree die cut and voila! It just made the card so much more vibrant in a flash!

I then added a sentiment from My Favorite Things’ “Cup of Love Clear” Stamps that seems to play well with the blended background. I also added two hearts that had cut out from the tree to the side of the sentiment to make this the perfect anytime card.

Hope you enjoyed learning more about my process and I look forward to seeing you next time.

Supplies

Curious about the products I use? I have listed them below.

Summer Blooms: Hydrangeas

Hydrangeas are blooming everywhere right now and I couldn’t help but paint some! I took to my Distress Inks again but used them just as I would water colors.

The luminosity of these inks blows my mind away…hydrangeas are not easy to paint because of their complex structure. But I found it really relaxing to go over each petal and nurture it to life. Slowly but surely all of it came together in this vibrant gratitude card.

Ok, so let’s take a closer look at the process. I started off by stamping the Hydrangeas on Arches cold-pressed watercolor paper and heat-set the ink. Then I got four of my distress inks out: Mowed Lawn, Wilted Violet, Seedless Preserves and Tumbled Glass.

I gave the entire stamp a wash with Tumbled Glass and Seedless Preserves using a LOT of water and very little ink. Once I had heat-set that first layer, I then started adding the colors, one at a time.

The key thing to remember was adding darker colors to the “under petals” — the ones that were in the shadows of the top petals. I added diluted bits of color first, going in with the more intense, non-diluted, pure ink in the third and final layer.

What that does is it “lifts” the original wash layer up, giving the illusion of light. At this stage I introduced the green using the same light wash technique and going over with more pigmented, less diluted detail brushwork in the second layer.

I then fussy-cut the colored hydrangea image and started assembling the card. I didn’t want a plain white background but I also didn’t want the background to take away from the star of the show: the flowers! So, I dry-embossed with Altenew’s Mixed Sprinkles Stencil on a 4″ X 5.25″ cardstock sheet. It made for the perfect subtle background and almost reminds me of a dandelion blowing in the summer breeze.

I digress.

Adding some grass (painted with distress inks on watercolor paper and die cut), Ranger Ink liquid pearls for the centers, a big, bold paintbrush “thanks” die from Simon Says Stamp and an additional sentiment from Altenew’s Best Sentiments stamp set completed the card.

While it took me a while to get the light and shadow just right in this card, I have to say it was totally worth the time. I enjoyed coloring with distress inks and love the luminosity of the colors and the depth/dimension this stamp allowed me to create.

Looking forward to painting another one of these in shades of pink next. What colors would you choose for your hydrangeas? Do share in the comments.

Be The Change You Want To See

I’ve been recording all of my content for various online courses to demystify and make monoprinting more accessible to a wider audience. As part of those recordings, I did this magazine image transfer. Wish I had taken more photos of what this looked like right after I pulled the print but, alas, I didn’t. As with most prints, I “enhanced” it with Derwent Inktense pencils, Stabilo Woody pencils and some acrylic paint.

Here’s a quick hyperlapse video showing the transformation.

I have this image posted on our refrigerator as a reminder that more work needs to be done, conversations need to be had (both with ourselves and with others), questions need to be answered, and long-held beliefs need to be challenged.

We all need to stand up, one household at a time, to unite in this fight against injustice and systemic biases. The motto in our house now is: racism ends with me. And because we have been having honest conversations with our six-year-old daughter, and because she sees this image on our fridge every day, I have hope for our future.

Thanks to everyone who responded to my last blog post and newsletter with resources (books, online reads and videos) to share with my daughter. We are all learning together and trying to do better and be better.

Supplies

Curious about the products I use for mixed media gel plate transformations? I have listed them below.