Autumn Hare with craftyroodesigns by Rebecca Yoxall

Autumn Hare with Brusho and craftyroodesigns stamps.

Hey there! thanks for stopping by.

This month see's a collaboration with Colourcraft and Craftyroodesigns with an Autumn theme. So make sure to check out all the other posts to see what everyone creates with the wonderful craftyroo stamps.

As some of you might know I'm not a natural stamper so I've had great fun experimenting with ideas and coming up with ways I can incorporate stamping into my paintings. This gave me an opportunity to look at how the decorative effect of stamping could enhance my work and give me a different direction.

I hope you like it.

I started with a limited colour selection of Brusho - 

terracotta

burnt sienna

turquoise

dark brown

ultramarine

I taped a sheet of heavy weight watercolour paper to a board and sprayed it with water. I sprinkled the colours very lightly in the centre of the paper roughly where I want the hare to go.

Once the Brusho was dry I grabbed a selection of floral poly stamps and mixed my Brusho colours with a white acrylic paint in order to make them opaque and cover over this first layer.

I used 'Rose doodles' 'Funky flower rose' and 'Funky flower chrysanthemum' 

Whilst this was drying I drew out my hare image in pencil as a practice so that I could draw in permanent pen on the Brusho and stamped texture.

Once I was happy with my design I copied this onto my piece. 

Next step is to paint in the background with white acrylic. Using a soft brush with a good point I carefully painted around the perimeter of the pen line to make the hare stand out.

The white acrylic will pick up some of the Brusho pigments from underneath too and will create a mottled pigment which I think adds to the surface effect.

After the acrylic layer was dry I went back to the stamps and wanted to capture a sense of the hare sitting amongst grasses and wild flowers.

Using the Ultramarine Brusho and white acrylic mix I stamped ' Spring flowers 2' along the bottom of the image.

Then further stamped colours on the top as well as some painted embelishements

I then added more detail with the white acrylic onto the hare's face, ears and eyes.

...and the final touch with a black pen - the whiskers

The combination of unique Brusho texture and colour and the decorative floral patterns created with the stamps gave me just the right illustrative style that I wanted.

Sketching Pencils	sable hair brush	Clear Spray Bottle	palette	Eco Acrylic Paint
Brusho 24 Colour Boxed Set	15g brusho

Decorating honey pots by Karen

We are in jam making season and, for beekeepers, August is also the time to collect the summer honey. With a busy month ahead, I harvested early this year as the bees have already produced more than I need for family and friends and I like to leave plenty for the bees to enjoy and to ensure healthy colonies going in to winter. Of course, jars need labels and decorating! This month on the blog we are celebrating autumn colours, which also makes me think of harvesting from nature, so I combined these to decorate my pots.

I used quite delicate papers - sheets of printed sticky back labels and tissue paper - so I didn't want to use too much water on them. To avoid spraying these papers with water, I mixed the Brusho Crystal Colours Sandstone, Gamboge and Burnt Sienna with water on a craft mat and used a wide brush to paint them in rough diagonal stripes on to the label sheets.

I sprinkled and sprayed the same colours on the craft mat and then spread the tissue paper across it, mopping up the colours randomly and repeating until the paper was well covered and then I hung it over a chair to dry.

To add a touch of luxury I printed a texture stamp randomly across the tissue paper and around the text on my labels using the Aztec gold paint.

 Little bees were then stamped all over the tissue paper with brown ink.

I traced round a bowl to then cut out circles to top the jars, tied with a length of raffia.

Do you like the finished handmade look? It would be easy to repeat these effects in different colours and with fruit or flower stamps for jars of jam or other pots. I think deep reds with the gold paint would be gorgeous too.

Golden haired nylon brushes

15g brusho

Aztec Metallic paints

UPDATE: The metallic paints and several other great products are in the overstock promotion this month, ending on 31st August: You'll find the promotions here:   https://www.colourcraftltd.com/specialoffers