Craft A Scene March 31st - Farm/Western scene 1

This is the first week of the April challenge over at Craft A Scene  where the theme this month is to produce a Farm Scene or Western Scene, whichever fits your homeland best.  As I am English, the farm was my choice to begin with, and this set of stamps is from Sheena Douglas.  There were other stamps in the set, but I felt I did not need any more.  If I have any criticism of this set, it is that they are rubber stamps so you cannot see exactly where you are positioning, and also that they are quite large which means a large card.

I do not use sticky rubber cushioning on any of my stamps.  I totally detest the stuff and spent ages removing any that I had put on.  All I do is to spray the back of each stamp with Crafters Companion Stick and Spray, a repositional adhesive, and then put the stamp on the rocker block or acrylic block, and then put the paper or card on an upside down mouse mat to give the cushioning needed to get a good impression. 

My mask positioning was not the best (my fault, a bit careless and lazy as I did not want to start again) and I did end up with a halo effect initially, but I was able to use a pencil just to continue the lines and join things up properly, and things seemed to come together again.   I also used the pencils to draw in the birds as and where I needed them.

The Barn Owl is not truly a daytime bird, but they do come out at dawn and dusk to hunt so I thought a little poetic licence could be allowed, especially as it is such a beautiful bird.  The other thing that is probably not truly correct these days is seeing cows and sheep in the same field, which we did see when I was young.  The cows ate the longer grass while the sheep nibbled the shorter bits, leaving the ground in good condition.

All the colouring was my usual Derwent watercolour pencils, with extra shading with the Graphite pencils in suitable places, trying to give some idea of where the sun might be.  I added water in some places but not everywhere.

I hope you are all going to join us and put together your own scene.  Apart from keeping to the theme, the only other rules are to make a scene with a background and foreground.  If you can draw, then draw your own, use stamps, or do a decoupage and it must be a completed project of some kind.  It is up to you.  Colouring is also optional, just shade it in if you do not want colour.  When you have completed your project, just upload it on to your blog, and then link it over at Craft A Scene.  If you do not have your own blog, you will find a link there to send your picture to Nancy by email, who will then post it for you.  Come on, join us and have fun.