Thinking of you - By the Sea Challenge

I've been in kind of a rut lately ~ so recently I decided that I need to challenge myself a bit more.  What a better way than to start participating in a few challenges which are all over the art blog world!  I went in search of and listed several challenge blogs or blogs that offer periodic challenges on a separate page at the top of the blog (so you could browse them too!).  Whenever I have a bit of extra time I am going to go there, browse a few places and if something sparks my fancy I am going to take the challenge! 

Since it's so nice and summery here I decided to join in the UNRULY Paperarts Readers Art Quest this month!  June's theme is ~ By the Sea!   Now, living in a land locked state I don't have much first hand experience "by the sea" but I was there once and it made quite the impression on me....    And I just so happen to have a stamp which is perfect for this challenge!  

I have this vintage bathing beauty from Deep Red Stamps ~ I've only used her once up till now but with the inspiration photo listed on Unruly PA and the color scheme it gave me this idea.....

Stamps: Deep Red Stamps

I stamped the image onto a piece of watercolor paper using StazOn ink and just started playing with my new Koi watercolors.  I just got them because I wanted  a nicer set than I had for the Watercolor Paper Comparison that I'm going to be doing.  They were a bit "salty" (no pun intended) but I had a 40% off coupon for Hobby Lobby so they were only $21.00!  Couldn't pass that up!

These paints are lots of fun...very concentrated pigments so a tiny bit will go a long way!  I've never had a really nice white watercolor paint before but I LOVE it...it was so much fun to be able to add white caps and foam along the edge of the beach and actually have it show up.  The cheaper white watercolor paints I have would get lost in the color and not really have much of an effect on the image.  Too much fun!!

The watercolor part is edged with Golden Glitz Delicata Ink by IMAGINE Crafts/Tsukineko.  The kraft card was spritzed with Bronze irRESISTible texture spray (also by IC/T).

I'm very pleased with how it turned out ~ it's been a while since I did any water coloring with anything besides Distress Stains.  It was fun for a change!  

There is still time for your to enter too!!  The June challenge is open until the end of the month so pull out your supplies and make something....By the Sea!