TMR 140 | Trampoline Cat | Sport

Today marks the start of a new challenge at The Male Room. We’ve now swapped from being a fortnightly challenge to being a monthly challenge, which gives you even more time to enter and play along with us! The theme for this month is sport. I’m not much of a sporty person myself, and I don’t really have all that many crafty products that would work for sports, but after some contemplation I came up with an idea that I thought would be fun!

I started my card by stamping one of the cats in the Cool Cats stamp set from Your Next Stamp. I stamped it directly onto my white card base with Tea Dye Distress ink as I wanted to do some no-line colouring.

Next I drew in my sport element – a trampoline! Circles are not easy to draw, so I used a couple of circle dies and lightly traced around them with a pencil to create the shape of the trampoline.

With the elements all ready I started colouring with my Spectrum Noir Illustrator markers. I decided to use Red Browns – RB1 pecan, RB2 red brown, and RB4 umber – for the cat as something a bit different. I tend to use Earth Browns more often when I’m colouring brown, or sometimes Tans, and thought it would be nice to change it up. I also used a touch of GB2 Caramel and FS9 Ivory to shade the stomach and end of the tail to look white.

Next I coloured the trampoline. I used Brown Greys for the inner part of the trampoline, and True Blues for the outer portion. I used the same blues to colour the cat’s bowtie, and the darkest of the greys for his pupils. I also bought in a light Antique Pink for the nose, tongue and pad of the paw.

I wasn’t entirely happy with how the colouring looked, so I decided to bring in some coloured pencils to add more depth and dimension and to help build up the details. I mostly used coordinating colours just to help intensify the colours in the areas I felt needed it. I also used the pencils to draw in some details as needed, such as the cat’s whiskers and eyebrows, as well as to add texture to the trampoline. I used a white pencil to enhance some of the highlights, and also to tidy up the outer edges of the trampoline, which I would not have done if I’d been thinking ahead!

I wanted to add the impression of grass to finish off my scene. In order to do this I created a mask for my trampoline by cutting some scrap paper with the larger of the two circle dies I’d traced at the start of the cardmaking process. I then used a make up brush and some Mowed Lawn Distress ink for my ink blending. I concentrated the colour close to the trampoline and faded out to white as I got further away. The ink did not take well where I’d used the white pencil, so I later went in with some green pencils to colour over that and help disguise it a bit, though it still looks a little messy.

I finished off by adding a sentiment from the same stamp set. I wasn’t sure which sentiment to use, so I let my husband choose. I then stamped it with Versafine Onyx Black ink.

As I was working on this card I really wasn’t sure that it was going to work out. No line colouring can be tricky, and I didn’t think it was working for the cat, and then I felt like the trampoline concept wasn’t coming through very well and that it wasn’t clear that that’s what the cat was on. But I persevered and I’m glad I did because I rather like the outcome! It just goes to show how important it is to see something about before giving up on it, because more often than not you can make it work. I hope this inspires you to come and play along with our sport-themed challenge at The Male Room even if you don’t have any obviously sports themed stamps! You can find more inspiration from the rest of the design team on the challenge page or directly at their blogs via the links below.

Love,

Lady Joyful

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Challenges:

Allsorts Challenge – Summertime

Classic Design Challenge – Anything Goes

Crafter’s Castle – Anything Goes

Crafty Catz – Anything Goes, Optional: Time to Relax

Digi Choosday – Anything Goes

Dragonfly Dreams – No Patterned Paper

Inkspirational Challenge – Word Prompt: Sketch (because the trampoline is sketched/hand-drawn)

STAMPlorations Summer Challenge – Anything Goes

Stay Crafty With Hero – One Layer Card

The Male Room – Sport

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Check out what the rest of the DT made:

Andreja

Clarissa

Faith

Goga

Granne

Helen

Lady Joyful (that’s me!)

Lise Mariann

Ma-Mi