Pencil Poinsettia

Hello there. There is another challenge starting at The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge. The them is anything goes as long as it’s Christmas. I took the opportunity to break-out my Polychromos pencils to colour a Poinsettia stamp:

I do have to apologise for the light on the photo – but we’re in the middle of a lot of high winds and rain, so I’ve had to manage with what I have….. 🙂

I bought this very large poinsettia stamp at a recent craft show, from Sheena Douglass. Now Sheena is someone I have watched and admired for many years – I like her style of stamps, her water-colouring, her designs – I just wish I could emulate even half of what she does.

During the craft show I must have stood and watched her for over an hour, and she has broken out on her own producing a range of stamps, card, and water-colours – a couple of items I have used here.

I began by stamping the image in a red Stazon ink – I wasn’t sure if I was going with water-colours, but in the end I went with the Polychromos pencils. Four or five shades of red to begin with, then realised that the red Stazon gives a good dark impression on the veins of the leaves, so I went with three red colours mainly.

I was considering some green leaves – but love the overall effect of the red…..very much ‘in your face’! This image was die-cut on my Scan’N’Cut – I think I;m getting to grips with it now – it’s still a work in progress, though.

The background is a piece of water-colour card, wet with water, then I dropped some of the green Sheena water-colour ink onto the card – tilted it a little to make it run more, as I wanted a kinda messy background for the poinettia.

The sentiment is from the same stamp set and embossed in silver, and I even added some silver flourishes – from the same stamp set – behind the poinsettia before sticking it to the card.