Daily Marker Coloring Challenge, Blog Hop, and GIVEAWAY!

Hello, hello my dear friends! I’m a bit late in joining along in Day 2 of the Daily Marker’s NEW 30-Day Coloring Challenge... so let’s just call this: Day 2/3. :) I want to join the chorus of voices encouraging EVERYONE to try to make time to color this month, even if for just a few minutes. That dearest of dearhearts, Kathy Racoosin of The Daily Marker started this marvelously uplifting event, which has no structure, rules, or fuss — the only point is to give yourself the gift of time to do this thing that you so enjoy.



I have to say, spending a few hours coloring in the garden this morning is surely just what the doctor ordered for us, as we await news on our little puppy Tibbs, who had to spend the night at the animal hospital yesterday. It seems he swallowed something he wasn't supposed to — at least that’s what they are examining as I type this. Last night we got to spend a bit of time with the pup, and he was definitely feeling cheerier after some fluids and antibiotics. We knew when he wanted to chomp on our cheeks that our little puppy was making a turn-around.

So, my coloring queens, let’s get to the fun ....we debuted a new digital stamp set called Merriest Berries that was drawn expressly with Kathy in mind, as she LOVES a good cluster of holly. I upped the ante a little bit, adding mistletoe to the holly, and I sure hope you got to see what Kathy came up with for the beautiful KICK-OFF post for the 30-Day Coloring Challenge... here’s a peek!

Isn’t that OVER THE TOP AWESOME??!! Look at how Kathy treated the bow with those wonderful stripes, enhanced the white stitching with incredible shading and allowed those Merriest Berries to bubble over with holiday fun. I was so tickled to see what Kathy made with this set — THANK YOU SWEET KATHY! I’m doubly stoked to see what YOU will do with it, hopefully inspired by all of the coloring challenge beauty that will surround us all month long. See below for how you might win this set, along with a gift code to shop at Power Poppy!

I was hoping to be able to join in on the blog hop yesterday with so many other fabulously NEAT companies, but I got sidetracked with things around here, and just this morning spent some beautiful time in the garden painting this new image...

The digital version of Merriest Berries comes with three different options for the cluster of berries and ribbon. Kathy Racoosin chose the “bow” version for her creation, and I decided to go with the “candy cane”. There is one more version with just dovetailed ribbons, as well as a sentiment with “Merriest Wishes”!

I’m still not quite ready for traditional Christmas colors, so I decided to color my berries and ribbons in  a palette inspired by my garden Zinnias! Pink and Orange do not fail you, my friends!! They offer such a zingy, zesty happiness, and that is definitely something I wanted to bring into my world today. So... 

I printed my image at 35% opacity so that the outlines were very light. But then I went back in with my gouache paint and spent lots of time darkening and gradually deepening the shadows to really help those berries and leaves pop.

Here’s a detail of the berries, you can see how each holly berry is multiple shades of yellow, orange, pink, and red, and the white area is a spot that I did not paint at all, but left blank. If you do not trust yourself to leave an area blank while you're painting, a trick I learned back in art school was to dab rubber cement with a fine brush in the areas you want left white (essentially, masking them off). Finish your shading with watercolors and gouache, and then roll off the rubber cement — it works like a charm — if you can still find rubber cement. hehehe — do they even still make it?)

Anyway, painting this lively cluster really lifted my spirits. I decided to give it a handpainted gingham background in citrus yellow, and handlettered a sentiment to send my Merriest Wishes to all of YOU today!

Daily Marker Blog Hop list  

If you encounter a broken link, please refer to the full list to get you to the next blog.

The Daily Marker

Mama Elephant (Road Trip 9.9)

Stamping Bella (Road Trip 9.23&24)

Gina K Designs (Road Trip 10.6&7)

Waffle Flower (Road Trip 11.1)

Jenn Shurkus (Road Trip 11.11&12)

Neat & Tangled  (Road Trip 11.18) 

Concord & 9th (Road Trip TBA)

Power Poppy (Road Trip March, 2018) YOU ARE HERE!

Lawn Fawn (Road Trip TBA) 

WPlus9 (Road Trip TBA) 

Debby Hughes (Road Trip completed) 

Jennifer McGuire (My favorite OnLine Card Class is OCC partner)

Kristina Werner (My favorite OnLine Card Class is OCC partner)

Heather Ruwe (My favorite OnLine Card Class is OCC partner)

POWER POPPY GIVEAWAY

I’m giving away the Merriest Berries Digital Stamp Set — PLUS a $30 shopping code to Power Poppy! Please leave a comment below by Sunday, September 10, at midnight, and I will pick a winner and announce it here on my blog on Monday, September 11th. The full list of ALL winners from the individual blogs will be announced HERE at the Daily Marker on Tuesday, September 12th. (check each blog for the specifics of their giveaway).

Thank you so much for coming by today, and pardon for the delay in my post. Enjoy your Labor Day weekend, and I so hope you’ll take time to color in the challenge. All you have to do is color, but if you want to REALLY have fun, you’ll want to share your card on social media and hashtag: #thedailymarker30day