Cardinal Christmas

Meet Cardinal Christmas.

One of my favourite birds, the Cardinal is found in Southeastern Canada south through the Eastern United States to Texas and beyond to Guatemala. They are a songbird, with a distinctive crest on the head and a face mask, which is black on the male, and gray on the female. 

I used distress inks to watercolour my Cardinal. I coloured my stamp using aged mahogany, then pulled in the colour from the edges. I then added crackling campfire in his tummy area, and added candied apple to his tail feathers and upper feathers. 

I also added white watercolour to his breast and tail feathers for highlights.

For the ivy leaves I painted with salvaged patina, mowed lawn and rustic wilderness and used the candied apple on the berries.

I wanted to do a stencil background, so I fussy cut both the bird and the ivy out, and added candied apple to my stencil for the card base, using a very light touch with my brushes.

Once the ink was dry I arranged where I wanted the bird and leaves and stamped my sentiment using VersaFine Clair ink. I used the Picket Fence stamp on the front and the Penny Black stamp on the inside.

I then styled the bird and leaves and added them to my card base using foam squares.

I hope you have enjoyed this card as much as I enjoyed making it. 

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