Watercolored Cyclists

Today I'm getting slightly more artistic on the ol' blog. I've been following artist Greig Leach on Twitter (@artofcycling) - every day he shares wonderful watercolored images of the highlights of that day's Tour de France stage. (He even has a Kickstarter for publishing his paintings into a book!) I was inspired by Mr. Leach's art to give it a go myself, in card form!

I cannot draw. At all. So I had a little idea that I was hoping might work! I did a Google search for Tour de France images, and printed out a couple. Then I pulled out my trusty lightbox!! I absolutely love this thing, I've used it for other coloring techniques, and even though it's cheap and simple, it makes me very happy!

As I was hoping, it worked like a charm! With the lightbox turned on, I just traced the image really quickly with a journaling pen, leaving out a lot of the detail of the photograph. Then I used another one of my old, trusty friends - my ancient Stampin' Up Watercolor Wonder Crayons! I've had these for years and I don't think they even sell them anymore, but whenever I pull them out they never fail to make me happy. But of course any watercoloring medium would work.

Here's another image I used. If you watch the Tour de France, you'll recognize this superfan Didi Senft, or El Diablo! Seeing him along the road during tv coverage also makes me smile. He's part of the tour! He's typically on a mountain stage if he's there (he's had health issues in recent years) - the boys are starting to go uphill today, so maybe we'll see my favorite devil soon? Fingers crossed!

I stayed up too late last night making these, I was having way too much fun to stop. :-)

Thanks for stopping by,

Supplies: Stampin' Up Watercolor Wonder Crayons, MFT's WTG Enjoy the Ride (sentiment), Karen Foster Snap Stamps (sentiment), journaling pen, Neenah solar white paper (watercolor paper would be a better choice!)