guest post - the amazing emily from emily etc.

Hello Amy's followers! First of all I'd just like to say thank you to Amy for inviting me to post on The Blog Hermit - one of my favourite blogs! - and thank you all for reading. I blog over at Emily Etc. and today I'm going to sharing some very simple tutorials with you for emergency card situations. 

OK! ~rolls up metaphorical sleeves~

Time for tutorial number 1 - you don't even need to be good at drawing! (But it probably helps.)

You will need:

Watercolour or cartridge paper

Blue paint

Red paint

White paint

Paintbrushes - a thick one and a thin one

Black felt tip

1. Paint a blue wash: wet your paper with a large, clean paintbrush/sponge and then paint blue stripes on it, painting water on the joins to blend it. Make sure not to do this straight onto your desk, to prevent bleeding - use a backing sheet. (In case you're wondering, this backing sheet is a photo of a Ritz crackers box that I was copying for this drawing ... funny how all this art links together!) Oh, and see that hair at the bottom of the picture? Don't do that. And if you do, remove it.

2. Mix some orange-red paint (it is a lot brighter in real life than in this quite awful picture) and paint lots of shapes like these. What did I tell you? You don't even need to be good at drawing! 3. Paint on some, uh, body parts. Legs ... tail .... antennae? Feelers? Whiskers? I'm not quite up on the biological terms, but you get the point: prawn bits. Paint them on. 4. Add an eye with your felt tip.

5. And repeat the process multiple times! You may want to add a message as I did (in case you're interested (which is admittedly unlikely but still) I made this as a thank you card for a family who I went to Portugal for. I think it's a good card because unlike many flower- or butterfly-themed numbers I have been known to produce, it is male-friendly).

Ta-raa! Prawntastic! (Prawntastic? As in, fantastic? No? No? No, OK then ... ) Note: it looks better in real life. This just isn't a great picture.

Nooow, time for tutorial number 2. When I say tutorial ... this doesn't strictly count as I only have one picture on account of the fact that when I made the card I wasn't expecting to do a tutorial of it ... but you can be guided by the solitary sound of my voice!

(I really hope someone gets that reference.)

You will need:

Watercolour or cartridge paper

Watercolour paints

A thin-ish paintbrush

Water!

And, this, in all its weirdly shadowed glory, is the card! I was very pleased with it actually, though this picture is far from fabulous. SO BASICALLY: Mix some very watery watercolour paint and paint the bottom of the trunk. Then - and this is the cool bit - drip some watery paint of a different colour into the shape, and it will spread to the edge without going over it. This I find extremely cool. Paint is amazing, isn't it? Continue painting the trunk and branches, then add the leaves and a goat! Or birds, or a dog, or whatever the heck you want - this technique works well for anything. You don't even need to do rainbow colours - you could pick, say, a warm palette of pinks and oranges, or maybe a cool one of blues and greens. It just works so well!

Sorry I don't have more pictures for that one, but trust me, it's easy! OK, last tutorial - this is definitely the girliest one. I made it for my grandma - the perfect recipient!

You will need:

Heavyweight A4 watercolour/cartridge paper - if you only have lightweight, you'll need to cut your picture out when you're done and stick it onto a piece of card

A wax crayon

Watercolour paints in bright colours

1. Fold your paper in half and taking a wax crayon - I used pink - draw lots of butterflies! Add patterns to some of them. :) 2. Mix some paint in different bright colours so that it is quite watery and paint in the sections. This technique is called wax resist - basically, the wax pushes away the paint so that when you fill in a shape it will have an outline.

However, do NOT make the mistake of thinking that the wax will resist the paint if you paint OVER the outline. That was my mistake here. Be careful, friends.

3. Now it's time for everyone's favourite thing - splatter effect!!! Make sure to put scrap paper down so you don't get paint on your desk, and splatter away from your clothes or bad things will happen. Now before you pick up your completed card to survey it in all its glory, go wash your hands - because this happens, and a purple fingerprint in the top corner would not be desirable!

TA-DAAAA!!!! Again (and I know I keep saying this, but only because it's true) it looked better in real life. The flash in this picture was too bright. But hey - being a card-maker doesn't mean accomplished photography skills!

And that is all from me today. Thanks once more to the fabulous Amy for letting me rampage around her corner of the internet guest post, and I hope you've enjoyed these tutorials. If you make any of these cards, do pop by my blog and tell me!

Emily x