Another Graphicus Guild Limited Edition Stamp

This is another of the Graphicus Guild Members' Limited Edition Stamps which some of us who were at a recent workshop were allowed to purchase early! I think this one may be my favourite.

I have used water colour paper for this project, spritzing it lightly with water as I wanted to see what happened when the paper was already damp before the ink was applied. The inks were Adirondack inks applied with a brayer. First I stamped the image onto some scrap paper and then tried to tear fairly accurately along the line of the hills in the background. Once I had torn this I had a mask which let me apply the green Airondack ink (Bottle) to the bottom and leave an edge which would match the skyline created by the hills. I then used the other peice of paper I had torn to mask my newly created skyline, and a second torn edge just a few centimetres above that to create the deeper yellow area of the sky using Adirondack Butterscotch ink. Next I removed all the torn paper masks and added more ink to the top. At this stage it had not turned out as well as I had hoped. I had been looking for a softer more mellow effect, so I decided I had nothing to loose by spritzing more water onto it to see what would happen. So I did, I spritzed rather a lot actually and the paper was now very wet but I could see that under the water I was getting a result. I got some kitchen towel and blotted my paper to get rid of the excess water and was really pleased to see I now had the background I wanted! Finally, once my paper was dry or at least nearly so, I inked up the stamp with Adirondack ink (Espresso) and lined it up with the paper so as once I had stamped it the top edge of the hills would match fairly closely to the skyline I had created. I like the fact that the texture in the water colour paper has left a kind of mottled effect on the trunks of the trees as I think it creates the look of the bark you see on Silver Birch trees.

I have not put this on a card yet, as I can't quite make up my mind what to use with the image which is just a little under A6 in size. If anyone has any ideas about what would look good leave me a comment. I often get stuck when I have stamped something I really like because I find it hard to decide what other things will be worthy of my stamped image.