Simplicity and elegance

I love all sorts of techniques and styles of cards.  Every once in a while I like to go back to the basics and simply stamp.  My favourite, when I'm in this mood, is to keep it clean and simple.  To me that means having a great deal of lovely, open space so that the focal point, the image which I wish to spotlight, takes all one's attention.

Orchids, by their very nature, command a lot of attention.  They are not a shy and retiring flower.  For them it's the spotlight every time.  What better image, then, for my clean and simple card, than the orchid?

On a piece of Watercolour paper I stamped my orchid three times, the third time, having masked the second orchid so that the third appears to be slightly behind that bloom.  I used Fresh Fig ink for each image.  It's a good, strong colour and is common to many orchids.  Once the ink had dried I used my Powder Pink marker to colour in the centre of the orchid petals, leaving the outside portion white.  For the very centre of the orchid I first coloured it in using Crushed Curry and then went over that with my Wink of Stella.  I added sections of stem freehand using Soft Suede and then added some Old Olive.

For my sentiment I turned to Soft Suede and then added Crushed Curry freehand.

My inspiration for this card came from three challenges.  First I followed sketch 21 from "Less is More" #347

The images are from Addicted to CAS #120 which called for florals

And finally the sentiment is from Inspirational Challenge #144 which is all about "hello"