WWC192 – Marsha’s Masculine “Anything Goes” Challenge

It’s Wednesday which means it’s time for a new Watercooler Wednesday challenge! This week Marsha is hosting and it’s anything masculine goes. I decided to push myself and create a masculine card that includes flowers.

I chose the Mandy’s Flowers stamp set from Simon Says Stamp to use for my card. The wreath seemed like a good choice as it isn’t too floral and feminine feeling. I stamped it directly onto a white card base using my go-to MFT Black Licorice Hybrid ink, which is suitable for working with many mediums including alcohol markers, which I used on this card.

After stamping the wreath image onto my card base I stamped it again into a couple of post it notes which I then fussy cut out and used to mask off the image. I then took the Wood Palette Background stamp from Altenew and stamped it onto the card base with Simon Says Stamp’s Barely Beige ink. Finally I used Altenew’s Paper Bag ink to stamp a sentiment from Mandy’s Flowers into the centre of the wreath.

Next I started on the colouring. I searched on my phone for a reference image for masculine floral arrangements and found one to use as a colour guide. I used my Spectrum Noir Illustrator markers to do the colouring. The colours I used can be seen in my video above.

I coloured the ring of the wreath first, going with browns for a wooden look. Initially I used earth browns, but I later went over the colour again with a red brown to better match the sentiment.

Next I coloured the flower. I wanted the flower to appear white, and often white flowers have a greenish tint to them. After experimenting with a colour combination on another piece of paper I settled on a yellow green for my shadows, with eggshell as the midtone and forgoing the lightest colour in favour of using my blender pen to soften the transition to white. I’d not coloured white flowers prior to this, at least not that I can remember, and I’m pleased with the result.

For the leaves I again experimented to work out my colour combination. I used a yellow green again, but this time a darker one, as my shadow which helped tie the colours of the wreath together for a cohesive look. For the smaller leaves I went with a darker combination than the large leaves so that they would look different whilst still being cohesive to the arrangement as a whole.

With the arrangement complete I took my lightest grey pen and used it to add a drop shadow to the image. This helped to give more of a look of dimension to the one layer card.

I love to colour but do not consider myself a strong colourer. Nonetheless I’m pleased with the colouring on this card. I’m happy with the overall design of the card too and I feel like I did achieve my goal of a masculine card with flowers. What do you think – did I manage it? If not, what could I have done to achieve the goal? Or do you feel that flowers could never suit a masculine card? I’d love to know your thoughts on it!

Love,

Lady Joyful

Challenges included:

Addicted to CAS – Foliage

Addicted to Stamps and More – CAS

Color Throwdown – Color Palette

Digi Choosday – Anything Goes

Moving Along With The Times – For A Man

Polkadoodles Craft Challenge – Anything Goes

Watercooler Wednesday – Anything Masculine Goes

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Check out what the rest of the DT made:

Charlotte (that’s me!)

Gail

Heidi

Helen

Kath

Marsha

Tristan