Watercolour Polar Bear (With Video)

Today I painted a sweet CAS Christmas card. I’ve been trying to make Christmas cards regularly throughout the year and it’s always good to add another to the collection to make sure I have enough when December rolls around. This one uses non-traditional Christmas colours, and my husband joked that it’s not a proper Christmas card because it doesn’t have red or green!

I started by stamping the Polar Bear from The Cat’s Pajamas Polar Holiday stamp set onto a piece of watercolour paper cut to the size of my standard card base. (I go for A6, which is a quarter of an A4 sheet, and slightly different in proportions to the typical American A2 card base.) At the same time I stamped on a Christmas sentiment from the retired Joyful Tidings set from Pink and Main. Any other Christmas sentiment would work just as well. I heat embossed the stamped elements with black embossing powder.

Next I painted my images. I used some cheap water colour paints and started by painting in a loose wash of blue to create my background. I added the same blue to the little ice pool too. I then mixed up a coral shade to paint the spots of the bear’s scarf as well as his present. Finally I painted the bear himself with a wash of grey, adding some very basic shading as I went.

With the painting completed I decided to trim down the watercolour panel so there would be a slight reveal of the card base colour, rather than having it fit flush to the card base. I created the card base from some soft blue pearlised card. I then used plenty of foam tape to attach the watercolour panel.

As a final touch I added some Wink of Stella to the bear, ice pool and present. I also took my white Caran d’Ache colouring pencil to lighten up a few areas on the bear that were looking a bit too dark.

I’m happy with this Christmas card. It was a fairly quick card to put together but I had fun with it. I do still need to learn to be less impatient with my watercolour painting so that I stop causing areas to bleed, or smudge them with my hand. All in all though it turned out nicely.

Love,

Lady Joyful

Challenges included:

Addicted to Stamps and More – Make Your Mark

CAS On Friday – Animals

Christmas at Sweet Stampin’ – Anything Christmas

Craftyhazelnut’s Christmas Challenge – Anything Christmas and Optional: Include a Bear

Craftyhazelnut’s Christmas Challenge Extra – Anything Christmas

HLS Christmas Challenge – Anything Christmas

HLS Watercolour Challenge – Anything Goes

Merry Monday – Christmas and Bears

MFT Sketch Challenge – Sketch/Layout

STAMPlorations CAS Card Challenge – Anything CAS and Optional: Masculine Colours