Stag Night

It's a sketch challenge at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown this week.

My automatic response was to look for an oval die or shape to add, then I remembered my oval stencil from ClarityStamp (part of a set of outline shapes, which come with the "innies") and decided to go a different way.

I don't have many photos this week, as this was done late one night as I've had my mum to stay - it's been lovely!

As well as the stencil, I used a moon mask cut from a post it note with a die, and torn copy paper hills. The card is Clarity card. I added the sky in chipped sapphire distress ink, using a brayer and make up sponge. The hills were made with a make up sponge, and the trees stamped over the torn paper in black permanent ink. They're from Clarity's cabin in the woods stamp set. The stag is a dovecrafts stamp.

This is the first version I made:

I really liked it (although the stag will need a little touching up), but the black ink had bled through the paper a little, and when I tried to tidy it up I thought I'd ruined it. Fortunately, it's dried okay, but in the meantime I had another go, and changed the composition a little.

I'm not as happy with the trees in this one, but it is a bit tidier. The stag in front of the moon is perhaps a bit contrived, but why not! I'll use both, but I went with the second for my challenge entry.

I've used a white pen to add snow to this version.

For the layers, I added chipped sapphire with a little black soot distress ink to the edges of two more sheets of card, one with a blending tool, the other with the brayer.

I trimmed back the image and the layer.

For the vertical strip, I was going to do snowflakes, but thought it would look odd, and not match the plain and naturalistic style of the main image. So I added hills and trees to a strip of Clarity card instead.

I like how this looks too, as my mum said, it'd make a lovely book mark. I'm not sure whether it's needed on this card (except to match the sketch), when I make up the other image, maybe I won't add this bit.

I mounted it onto an A5 card, cut down to be shorter to fit the images. I constructed the card flat, just with a tape pen, keeping it simple.

I've been wanting to have another play with these simple landscapes for a while, they're so effective and atmospheric. There are so many stamp images you could use with them, some more dramatic like the stag, or more playful, with Father Christmas and elves. And once you get the basics, they're quite quick too. I think they make great, stylish Christmas cards.