Using Coloured Pencils

Hi there, it's Vicky here with a tutorial on how to get the best effects when colouring stamps with coloured pencils.

I am a professional coloured pencil artist, with over 20 years experience (yikes - showing my age now!!) So when it come to choosing coloured pencils, I've tried them all!!  My pencils of choice are Faber Castell "Polychromos" and Derwent, both the "Artists" and "Studio" range.  These are all oil based and they keep their colour for years, I've even hung portraits in direct sunlight and had very little fading!

The most important thing to remember when using pencils is to KEEP THEM SHARP. 

I have stamped this cute image "Water Lili" on heavyweight cartridge paper, cartridge paper will take up the pencil much easier than smooth card.

I then start with folds in the dress, using Polychromos PURPLE and DARK RED very lightly...

I then lightly went over with ROSE CARMINE again very lightly... 

Sorry a bit of jump now!!  I got so carried away colouring I forgot to take pics :-(  But you can see how I darkened the folds with the DARK RED and PURPLE, building the colour up gradually. The lighter areas are shaded with ROSE CARMINE and finally blended with WHITE.

You can see I have started on the hat, again with the PURPLE and DARK RED.  I have darkened the areas closer to her head, and behind the upturned brim.

This time I remembered to take photos, so you can see how it gradually darkens.  I have gone over the shadowed areas with the ROSE CARMINE and then built up depth with the PURPLE and  DARK RED.

I lightly shaded the rest of the hat with the ROSE CARMINE, leaving small areas white for highlights, these were then blended with WHITE.

I also coloured her lips with ROSE CARMINE.  Now I move onto her hair.  I used BURNT UMBER for the darkest areas, I like to make the area under the hat and the tips of the hair the darkest.

The lighter shade is BROWN OCHRE which is blended with the darker shade.

I continue this for the rest of the hair, leaving white for the highlights.  I used the same colours for the eyes, darker in the corners, and leaving a white highlight.

For the hatband, bow and bottom of the dress I used CHROME GREEN OPAQUE (darker) and EARTH GREEN YELLOWISH.  The skin is VENETIAN RED, CINNAMON and MEDIUM FLESH. All of the colouring is done in exactly the same way, starting with shadow, darker areas and building up the colour gradually.  Her cheeks are shaded with ROSE CARMINE very lightly.

So there she is finished!!  I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and it has inspired you to get your coloured pencils out.

Come back here again soon for some more Inky Imspiration!!

Summer Fun

I'm sure there are a bunch of you with beautiful summer weather, myself it's only been in the 60's here so I'm so ready for beach weather.  For my project today I had to take out Water Lili and pulled out some of my bright papers that I had laying around then added some bling and ribbon.

Time for Spring now...

Well Inkettes 

It is Carrie here and I live in the UK... and let me tell you this weather cannot make up its mind.... One minute its 13-14 degrees then its minus 6 degrees, then it snows.... well I just want Spring to hurry now lol..

So this weeks challenge is bright colours.... and although it's not my week I thought I would make a card... now as well as the wonderful Inky prize we also have ZVA sponsoring so if you want to win some goodies pop on over to the Challenge blog here!!

Now the fabby image is Water Lili and you can get her here

I teamed her up with an inky sentiment too which you can get here

Now the wonderful diamante swirl is from ZVA

It really is so easy to use.. just peal and place and looks so dazzley!!

And here is a close up of Lili

I hope you can pop over and play this week in our 'bright' challenge

Carrie xxxx

Water Lili!

Good morning all it is time to share a bit of Inky Impressions Water Lili Inspiration! That's right, today I have a creation to share with you using one of the fun stamps from the Inky Impressions Store!

For my card today I wanted to use this stamp Water Lili! I have been having a lot of fun using some of Inky's summer images, and this one is just so darn cute! I paired her with some of the My Mind's Eye Lime Twist designer paper, a must have in my book! I used Kraft as the card base and a layering element to offset the bright dotted paper I went with. I also used some ribbon similar in color to tie it all together.

Thank you for stopping by today, I do hope that you enjoy my creation for today and have a fabulous day!

~Jackie

Beach bound!

At least that's where I was headed instead of to work :(  I did take a mini vacation to the beach last week but the weather was terrible and we didn't get to spend hardly any time of the beach (probably a half hour).

Anyway, the weather is gorgeous and I was inspired to create a bright, colorful card for today's inspiration post.  I used Water Lili (which you can still get at the special show price!!!) and the papers are from Bo Bunny.  You will notice the cute little sun and flip flops around my sentiment, well those are charms that are sold at Inky and I just clipped the part where you hang it from....pretty neat! The blue ribbon is also from Inky :)