Busy, busy weekend

I have to say, I had a FABULOUS weekend! How did I know it was going to be a good weekend? It started out with me driving behind what I would call a "bubble car." It had painted bubbles all over it, and when it turned a corner, bubbles shot out of the back. It doesn't get better than that! I also knew it was going to be a great weekend because Dave Brethauer, owner of Memory Box, was teaching at the stamp store where I work. Guest artists always make for a busy weekend, but it was definitely worth it.
For those of you who know me, you know that I love to color with color pencils as well as paint with watercolors. Most of what I learned was from Dave's first book called Stamp in Color. That book is out of print, but his new book is out and called Card Design. It has wonderful samples in it and really helps you get a grasp on coloring images.
**On a side note to my family who read my blog, Dave is from Wray, CO and therefore knows about Akron and Otis. I think he is the first person I have EVER met who knew where our family is from (and that includes all the people I have met who were born and raised in Colorado). We even had a conversation about the Norka! It really is a small world. Okay, back to the crafting...
Although Dave taught both a color pencil and watercolor class, I took a combined class along with the other staff members at Angela's Happy Stamper. It was so incredibly generous of Angela to pay for us to have a private class. She is such a great boss!
The first card I am including is a card we made in the class using watercolor pencils and a paintbrush. We scribbled color here and there around the pear and then blended with a paintbrush and water. We worked from light to dark colors (can't take away any extra watercolor paint) and moved the brush from top to bottom using a "wiggle" motion. I know I am not giving the technique justice. I guess that is what his book is for!
The second card is a card I made Dave as a thank you. It used some of techniques we learned using Prismacolor pencils. I don't use gamisol with my Prismacolors because I think it dulls the color and it sometimes eats my paper. I do however use a blending pencil to crush pencil colors together. In Dave's class, we didn't use either the gamisol or the blending pencil. Instead, we learned to work with just the Prismacolors themselves to achieve the final look. I really like the effect. I finished the card off with matching rhinestones, but it is hard to tell what the centers of the flowers are from my scan.
This blog entry ended up to be rather long. I guess you can tell that I had a wonderful weekend and had to ramble on about it for a bit. Sorry!