Hallo,
Welcome to friday - or in my case more like Sunday because I work tomorrow and Sunday nights....
I just thought I would show you a bit of what I have been up to lately (in addition to trying to finish off my Christmas bulb project that is...)
Starting this afternoon I am teaching a class at the local 'Center for Lifelong Learning' It is an all volunteer organization that offers a wide variety of classes twice a year for 8 weeks.
My class is tittled - Coloring for cardmakers. I am by no means an expert - I just love to color and have picked up a few things along the way - art in High School (a couple years ago), a couple college classes, books, the internet, a few gallery classes and ALOT of time playing :)
The first 4 classes with be with blendable color pencils - in this case Koh-i-noor and the last 4 will be watercolor - also Koh-i-noor.
In this first class I plan to talk a bit about light and shadows and blending of colors, some tips for starting with the pencils and will demo 2 images. The type of pencils I love are the soft lead, oil based, blendable pencils (Koh-i-noor. prismacolor, lyra to name a few) Both Koh-i-noor and prismacolor can be found at AC Moore and you can use your coupons on them :) You can also find prismacolor pencils at Mike's, JoAnn's and Hobby Lobby (as well as a ton of places on the internet)
The first picture is a stepped out demo board using both of todays images - I will have one for each of my students to take with them.
The second photo just shows light and shadows. The image is a sweet little one from My Favorite Things -
www.mftstamps.com.
Light and shadows seem to bother people the most but its not that hard with a bit of practice - shadows lie opposite the light and under things (like under her arms and on the bottom of the pumkin). My yellow X represents the light source and the gray the shadows (and shadows are not always gray mind you :) This gives us a starting point to lay down the lightest colors.
These pencils can be used by laying down light to dark or dark to light - I find it easier to work light to dark as I can always add more dark but its harder to take away a darker color. Typically coloring in a circular motion will give you the nice smooth coverage but whatever works for you :)
The next picture I layed down the lighter colors - yellow, light green and brown (leaving lighter spots where the 'sun' hits) and peach tone for her skin.
In the next picture I added in the medium tones of green, orange and a light brown (in skin areas) and then went back with the lighter colors and blended the division lines. As you use the lighter pencil over a darker it blends and smooths the division lines - adding a bit of darker to the light area and making the darker area a bit lighter.
With the last little girl photo I added the darker colors and again blended with the lighter colors - going back and forth till I liked how it looked and then added some pink for her cheeks. Lastly I added some shadows - shadows help make the image stand out a bit off the paper visually and give the picture some depth. I usually have my shadows a bit lighter and smoothed into the background more but I left it as is so it would be easier to see for now.
The tomatoe image is from a local (Pensacola) company by the name of Flourishes (I think you have heard that name here once or twice as they are only one of my all time favorites!!!)
www.flourishes.org
Both of these stamp companies have blogs and gallerys that have a ton of ideas and eye candy to look at BTW!!!
I pretty much use the same light to dark coloring techniques for the tomatoe. This stamp has some pretty good referance lines for the shadows in the curves of the leaves and the curve of the tomatoes which makes it easier to decide where to put your shadows.
All for today - I do plan to post my class project each friday from now on for the 8 weeks if you want to follow along :)
If you have any questions or requests just let me know!!!'
Take Care
Tera
P.S. I had a couple question come up in class so will add some info here too...
Paper and ink
Paper - my favorite papers for stamping and coloring are #1 Cryogen White and #2 Neenah (white, natural white and desert storm) but regular white cardstock that you can buy in bulk at Sam's, wal-mart or Office Depot works too. The 2 brands I use are smoother and blend a bit better than the regular stuff and they are a bit heavier weight - I have found thaty I can test out colors on the back of my panel and it won't show through the front - even when I use Oderless Mineral spirits(OMS) or copic markers. There are other papers out there that are good for pencils and copics such as X-press blending cardstock and Heavenly White and probably some I don't know.....
Ink - for pencils (without OMS) almost any ink will do as long as it has had time to dry - staz-on, distress and water based inks like those from Stampin' up. Once you start to use OMS some of these inks will bleed, how much will often depend on which paper you are using. Water based inks will often bleed with the OMS and with copic markers and definatly bleed if you paint with watercolors.
I use memento inks almost exclusively for all my coloring. I have several boxes of stamped images in my 'coloring' bag that sits by my spot on the couch and I pull them out and color in the evening while the family is watching TV - which means I might feel like pencils, pencils followed by OMS, or copics - even watercolors sometimes (though I usually take the image to my craft room if I want to watercolor) So therefore the memento works best for me because it will tolerated OMS as well as the copics and watercolors without bleeding.
Ok all for now.....
