A Field of Wildflowers from a Repurposed Snapdragon Stamp Set

This is a card design that's been brewing in my head for ages.  Like, A-G-E-S.

The loose lines of the various layers in the Build-A-Flower Snapdragon Layering stamp set from Altenew have sort of an impressionistic vibe, and when I first bought this set a couple of years ago, I imagined using the smaller stamps and the tops of the larger ones to create the illusion of depth in a field of wildflowers.

When I took the Altenew Academy course called Seasonal Scene Building, taught by Nichol Magouirk, this seemed like the perfect opportunity.  Inspired by one of her lessons in which she creates a framed scene, I set out to create the look of a meadow as seen through a 'window' of sorts.

Here's how I did it:

I started by wetting a piece of watercolour paper all over, and then putting down a light wash of yellow watercolour from the bottom-up, followed by a light wash of sky blue from the top-down.  I added water and pigment as necessary until I achieved a soft gradation.

Then, using Antique Linen distress ink, I used the more solid of the flower stamps to place a light indication of where the flowers would be.  Because I used this pale, warm ink, it easily blended into the inks I layered on top and muting the colours (as would naturally happen when looking at a distant point in a field - the colours diffuse at the further points but maintain their intensity at the closer points).

I started with my lightest purple ink and stamped randomly in the upper portions of the horizon line and down toward the middle of the foreground.  I did this with a couple of the different solid stamps to get a bit of variation in the shapes.

I then did the same with my next-lightest shade of purple, beginning slightly lower down and continuing to fill in the foreground.  I repeated this with another two darker shades of purple, and then went in with some peach and pink inks to add a bit of additional depth and dimension.  I saved the line stamps for last, using them to indicate shadows.

I then went around and dabbed on some muted green watercolour paint in the places where I could still see the yellow background to help fill everything in.  

Once I had built up enough layers -- just enough for it to look right, but I don't know how many, precisely -- I added some splatter with white, black, green, and blue shimmery watercolour to compliment the other colours and add to the loose, artistic feel.

For the frame, I cut a rectangle of heavy white cardstock and added score-lines at 1/4" intervals to give the indication of boards.  I'm really glad that I went with a plain white frame instead of the woodgrain one I tried originally, as I think it anchors the busy card panel.

I cut the banner from the edge of the cut-down card panel and stamped a sentiment from the Altenew Statement Flowers stamp set, added a few little sparkly things, and that was that!

Overall, I'm really happy with how this turned out!  I have to thank Nichol, the instructor, for the inspiration and confidence to finally get this design out of my head!

Thanks for dropping by!

😊Teri