Canada Goose Sunrise tutorial

 Ever since Moon Lake arrived in my creative space I have wanted to get this lonely mama goose out on a lake at sunrise. She's got a nest in the weeds somewhere and soon she'll have goslings following her around the swampland. But for now, she's taking a quiet break on a cool springtime morning.

 First stamp the goose and her cattails in black StazOn ink on the bottom right hand corner of a 5 1/2" by 4 1/4" whisper white cardstock. Ink only the cattails on the stamp to get a fuller patch of them.

 Tear a mask from a large-ish sticky note. This will be the far edge of the swamp.

Stamp the tips of trees from Lovely as a Tree above your mask. These are the shrubs on the horizon of your lake.

 Unmask your horizon.

Stamp a stand of evergreens on the bottom left corner of the lake.

 

 Using Tempting Turquoise sponge in the water, leaving some white spaces. Lightly sponge Lost Lagoon into the sky, also leaving white spaces.

 

In those white spaces, sponge Pink Pirouette. (My sponge had a smirch of Calypso Coral on it where I thought was pink, so it turned out a bit warmer looking than I'd planned, but I figured I'd fly with it anyway!)

 

 Now here's a favorite tip of mine! Using the edge of your green (I used a variety of greens) inkpad, drag it lightly up and then down in  short straight sweeps to make distant grasses on the edge of the lake. (You might want to practice this on scrap paper first to get the feel of it.) I added a peninsula on the right side as well. Imagine the little fishes out there among the weeds? Wow!
 

 Using the straight side of your already marked up mask, repeat the stamped shrub idea from earlier on that peninsula, using Lovely as a Tree.

 Unmask it. Using your white gel pen, scribble in some horizontal lines for ripples in the water. Stamp grasses to partially shield the goose on bottom right hand corner. Color in the cattails and using a marker draw in a few definite lines to define and ground the distant land forms.

 Using a brown marker, draw in the tree trunks of your evergreens and lightly sponge a variety of greens among all trees to make them come alive.

Trim your picture and adhere it onto a Tempting Turquoise mat. Add ribbon and rhinestones. You have one happy mother goose out there on your swampy lake edge, enjoying a gorgeous spring morning.

I will be adding several other cards shortly that I used similar techniques on. Enjoy getting inky!