Trying again with my distress watercolor pencils

Hi everyone, I know after doing this class from comments in the live chat that I was not alone in rushing off and buying the tins of distress pencils when they were released. 

I at least had had one play with them and at the time I wasn't really that impressed. You can see that play in this blog post HERE.

The first playtime Jenn Shurkus aka Creative Chick was recreating a card that Scrapbook and Cards Today had published of hers. My card was cute but I felt it would have been easier to use Copics for colouring and create a background with my Distress Oxides.

Now I have done a few of Jenn's online classes and she is a fab teacher so when she advertised she was going to do a full 5 hour class with the pencils I decided the $30USD was probably money well spent (that's probably about $50 kiwi dollars) so $10/hour, so awesome value and I also have a 31 page booklet/teaching resource to look back at, plus I can visit the videos anytime I want. The class is available forever and if you bought one or all three tins and haven't opened them or struggle to work with them I can certainly recommend this class as a great start (& finish). All the details are on Jenn's website HERE. As we know the pencils weren't cheap though not that expensive so it's money well invested so we do use them

Look at this gorgeous riot of colour for the class sneak peek.

I thought I would do the class live in case I had some questions but my 5am start became a 3am wake up - it was like when you're flying somewhere exciting; you awaken hours before the alarm and can't go back to sleep. It has reinforced that I don't get up in middle of night to do a class, the replay is just fine but then again it is a lot of fun sharing the excitement and sharing with the other attendees. I am telling myself this, as I have 2 big virtual events coming up - one is 2 days long, the other 3 and a half days.

We started off with warmup exercises in which I learnt so much about how you actually use them, we had 18 practice things to do.

Then we had a break before we stamped images we had prepped yesterday by embossing Versafine black ink with clear embossing powder or just plain Versafine Clair Nocturne. I was thinking about using my Archival black but Jenn says it is not a true black (it has some blue in it) and to get the Black Soot one but the only way to get that one is to buy the pack of 4 and I'd happily buy the pack of four but no one in NZ seems to sell the reinkers for all 4 shades and I am over buying ink pads if I can't get the re-inker at the same time. 

I've always been happy with Versafine being waterproof but I haven't tried getting it really, really wet.

We also did some background techniques which I must watch again, plus we coloured directly on red rubber stamps and photopolymer stamps. So lots and lots of techniques put into practice. I also have my pencils in ROYGBIV order now, which is what Jenn does, as it does makes more sense.

The 2 flowers on the bottom LHS above; the purplish rose has a watercolour wash of speckled egg around it and it has also been splattered with black soot from the pencil. I wasn't brave enough to do BIG splatters but it was a cool technique so it was a shame to die-cut it all out and lose it.

Anyhow I used those 2 flowers and 2 of my backgrounds and made 2 cards this afternoon when I awoke from a cat nap.

I loved the watercolouring on my rose with Seedless Preserves/Prize Ribbon and Peeled Paint/Crushed Olive. My background uses Seedless Preserves and Peeled Paint and I was scared it was going to become "mud" so didn't smooch to hard. After the class I inked up the grid stamp with Peeled Paint distress oxide, the sentiment with Rich Razzleberry (SU!).

Supply List:
Stamps (all TE): Sketchbook Florals, Field Notes (sentiment), Rough Draft Background (grid)

Paper: Distress Watercolour (RNG) and Neenah White #110 for card base
Other: Blanket stitched rectangle die (PFS), foam squares (SP)

The greens are the same as above. I've used Mustard Seed and Rusty Hinge on the petals, Black Soot, Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain on the "cone". The background uses a Dylusions Stamp set called Branching out and it's red rubber and I inked up the stamp with my pencil, wet and got 3 backgrounds with it. I have used the same stamps as listed above but this time I used Antique Linen Distress Oxide with the grid stamp and Early Espresso ink (SU!) for the sentiment and a few gems from Studio Katia's sparkling crystal mix to finish off. I also tried the splatter technique again, this time using the Vintage Photo pencil.

It's funny I bought these stamps in a monthly kit from Taylored Expressions with Karin watercolor markers August 2021 but this was the time when we were moving (3 houses in a year) and all my crafting stuff was in boxes, so I never watercoloured the images up at the time of purchase, so it's great that they finally get some love as they are all fab. I checked the Taylored Expressions website and the floral set is definitely still available and it is reduced at the moment but I didn't investigate too fully.

Well I still have lots more images and backgrounds to play with so sure you'll see some more KReations from this fab Creative Chick class.

#creativechickclasses

✿ Karen ✿