New HoneyPOP Get Well Card

It's been a while since my last post. I have been uploading stuff but it was all changes to make the website more compatible with the latest html specifications and trying to improve some of the web site infrastructure. One side effect you may notice if you have memorized the card positions is that a bunch of cards that got edited will shuffle around position when I put up the next set of indices later today because they are actually computer generated by the file modification time.

I do have a few new cards to put out too, starting with this new Inky Antics HoneyPOP get well card. This one is kind of interesting. I actually used marker and colored pencil on the inside because there were areas I didn't want to bleed though and show on the other side. I didn't do a lot a shading and blending on this one. I did some (applying a second layer after the marker dried and using the blender to lighten the other side) but I was more concerned with color matching the image to the cardstock so I only used the one marker color for each area instead of full blending set.

As always, click on the images for full directions including the stamps used and paper sizes.

Lottery Ticket Card

Here's another humorous birthday card using a different stamp from the same Stampin' Up! set that I used last time. The characters legs and arms are so skinny, I went straight to the colored pencils this time.

In an effort to get as many different possible colors, I have picked up a number of brands of colored pencils ranging from more expensive artists brands, to store brands and even Crayola ones from the kids section. This time I decided to try out a dirt cheap A.C. Moore branded set that had 36 different colors in it. This set has a nice color range and includes many normal colors. I've been surprised how hard it is to get a basic, normal, "box of 8 crayons" shade in the expensive sets. Surprisingly, it also had a really nice peach that worked perfectly as a skin tone when lightly applied.

I made the paper on the left myself by using stamps. I stamped each number in a different color, trying to play on the idea of the balls mixing together during a lottery drawing and get as many different colors into card as possible. Can you figure out how many different stamp pad colors I used on the card in total?

As always, click on the images for full directions including the names of all the stamp colors used.

Two more poses from Mille for Thanksgiving

Millie couldn't quite decide how she wanted to be presented, so here are two more cards with Millie (click either image if you want the instructions). Of the three I think the first one in portrait mode ended up being the best one.

I like the parts of the card but these two present a dilemma. Millie is mounted on the first third line so do you put something to the right or do you leave well enough alone and let all the Happy Thanksgivings on the beautiful paper show through?

In retrospect if I were making these again I would probably put a strip of paper in the center and move the image over to the second third line. That would take away that empty feeling and lead you to the image, without taking away the paper. If the strip were added now it would lead you away from the image to nowhere.

What are your thoughts? Can you live with empty space like this and if not how would you fix this dilemma?

Millie's Back For Thanksgiving

Remember Millie from last August? She's was offering us a bandage and then had a special note for us. She's back again to celebrate Thanksgiving. As usual, she's a really generous mouse and never leaves home empty handed. This time she got all dressed up in her pilgrim outfit and baked us a nice pie. She really liked posing in front of these Nestibilities labels and insisted I share this one first. If you would like to spend a little more time with Millie, just click on the card.

Can colored pencils really look this good?

After having done all three coloring techniques I went back and revisted the color pencil and Gamsol technique to see if I could get something closer to the Copic image that had color everywhere instead just a fade to white coloring pattern. I had high hopes for it as cheap way to nicely color stuff for some other ideas I want to explore later.

I changed two things though this time. First, I used different colored pencils. I used Crayola Twistables I brought as a travel pencils a long time ago. These are basically durable plastic mechanical colored pencils for kids don't need a sharpener. The lead in them is softer or different somehow from the other ones I used because I get less pencil marks when coloring with them. The second thing I did was I remembered seeing something on the web in an art homework assignment that students where supposed to do blending without mineral spirits. So, armed with those thoughts, this was my attempt at getting a full color pencil/Gamsol image:




I used the 2 browns, red and a gray out of the Crayola set. There are only 24 colors so picking colors was easy. In order to get different shades of the same color, I put different amounts of pencil down. I only used the dark brown near the edges. I used a dry blending stump to blend and remove the pencil lines as much as possible. Dry blending alone will not get the look you see. Once I was done dry blending, I went back with a little bit of Gamsol on the blending stump and dissolved the dark brown line into the light brown, finished off the removal any more stubborn pencil lines and picked up a little bit of red from the tongue to use on the cat as pink.

I will say, like I said before, blending it takes a bit of work and finger pressure and learning so the technique may not be for everyone. The best way to explain this is I could sit there and color 30 images with Copic markers and not feel anything. This technique requires you to apply at least light pressure on the stump so I wouldn't do a lot of them at once.

I think the end result was worth it though.

Copic Puppy Love or Coloring Techniques II

Continuing the thread I started in the last blog post, here's the same stamp set colored with Copic markers on a new original card right next to the Gamsol coloring technique I did previously so you can see the difference in the results. I was inspired by the folding mechanics on the other card so the new one is a gatefold card that opens in the center but stays closed when the image is tucked behind the words. I also liked with the idea of making the card male friendly so I went with a male friendly blue base and some metal embelishments. Click on the card image to go to the website if you want details or bigger pictures.



      

You can see the colors in the Copic image are much richer and darker since you apply marker ink to the whole image. The coloring technique I am about to describe is not the official Copic technique, but it works very well for me. First I put down the darkest brown against the edges. Then I took a medium brown and colored/blended over the darker brown and extended the coloring into uncolored area some more. Finally I took the lightest brown I was using and colored over the entire area, both the previously colored areas and the white areas, pulling the colors over further but leaving part of the image with just the top coat on it. You need to do this while the other browns are wet to get the colors to blend together well. The one key thing I didn't do that you are supposed to do in the official technique is to color the entire brown area in the lightest color first and then add the other colors and finish with a top coat of the lightest color. This is supposed to help keep the area wetter longer but it also means you end up putting down two coats of the lightest color, which gives you a darker final color than you get if you just put down the top coat to get everything to the same tonal value. A lot of times, I want the lighter color because it offers more contrast and I can't get that if I follow the official method. I repeated the same three color process for the gray. The pink and red are just simply one coat coloring. The pink was applied over the gray.

How does this compare time wise? I think its fairly quick if you have good hand eye coordination and can move the marker around accurately because the ink flows very freely from a Copic marker. In fact, you need to be fairly quick about it because you want to apply the next lighter color while the other one is wet. Other than that you mainly lay the colors down over each other with a circular blending motion and then let it dry and the blending solution in the markers does the rest of the magic. It's hard to gauge when its wet because the colors will look darker wet than they end up when it dries.

How about physical effort? You sort of do the same circle blending techniques with the blending stumps in the Gamsol method but you have to put more physical pressure and effort in to get the blending effect with Gamsol where the ink flows from the Copic marker to the paper with slightest of contact pressure. After a while with the Gamsol technique, my hand needed a break from coloring but I could sit all day and color with Copics if I had enough things stamped out.

How does this compare cost wise? At a suggested retail price of $6.50 per marker, eight Copic Sketch markers cost more than the box of 24 colored pencils and a bottle of Gamsol and a pack of blending stumps and the stamp did combined.

As always, you can click on the card image to see the instructions for making it, including exactly which Copic marker colors I used. I haven't uploaded a new index yet so both of these remain exclusively accessible to blog readers right now.

Up next (week?), I'll do a watercolor pencil/Dove blender pen version of the puppy love image.

Consider Yourself Hugged or Coloring Techniques Part I

I didn't manage to get any new cards made this weekend but I did finish the web entries for one I made about two weeks ago. The layout and stamps are based on a card Inky Antics was doing for a make and take at a stamping convention this summer. They had one of the better make and takes that showcased a lot of the products they were selling. One of those was Gamsol, which allows you to color with colored pencils and then blend the colors together. You didn't get to do the actual coloring (time was limited) but you got a precolored dog image. It's a fairly inexpensive technique since you can get the big 132 color sets of colored pencils for just over $100 with a 50% off coupon so I wanted to try it.

I, of course, did not have any of the paper they used - just the stamps, blending stumps, the Gamsol and my completed sample so I went through the 12" x 12" stacks I had and found two papers that would coordinate well. Next I picked a base color and scallop color and got busy. It's not totally obvious from the pictures but the dog lifts up and the words go under him. It's really two cards that fold into each other. The bottom part folds down and you place it inside the dog card while slipping the dog under the scallop tag to close it. There is a picture of the open card on the website if that didn't make sense, just click on the card image to get the full directions. The directions are available exclusively from this blog entry for the next couple of days. Here are the two new cards:

      

Prior to blending I basically colored next to the black lines in the areas I wanted to be darkest. I used the blending stump, damp with Gamsol, to blend the color out into the white area. As you can see it does do a fairly good job of breaking down the colored pencil and allowing you to move it across the page and get a blended look. It didn't cause any visible paper damage either on the 110 pound Georgia Pacific white cardstock I used. The only real trick is I got the pink by blending the red tongue and using the residual color on the stump. Inky Antics' PDF explains Gamsol blending so much better with step by step pictures so click on the card image and go to the card instructions and then follow the link there if you want to read more about how to do it.

I like the technique's results but I did feel like it took a little more blending effort than other techniques. The technique is really set up to blend and create a gradient from dark to light like you see in the samples. I tried to color in some larger areas from another image but didn't have much luck in getting it to blend out the pencil marks. Part of the problem is the lead in the colored pencils I was using was very hard and it was difficult to get it to get this brand to go down evenly so I was hoping I could solve that with this technique but the color mostly stays where you put it in the first place.

Next up will one be of the following:

• A Copic version of the same puppy love stamp on an original card layout, or...
• A watercolor version of the same puppy love stamp and the Dove blender pen from another Make and Take, or...
• A non blended colored pencil card puppy love?