I get so excited when I "fix" something.  I've learned to fix things because I mess things up.  This beautiful image is "Rose" by Lena Raven.  You can find her gallery here:  http://browse.deviantart.com/art/Rose-210583223.

I had so much fun coloring all those curls, and painstakingly colored them one at a time so they would be as perfect as I could get them.  Figured I'd better do the curls first and if they didn't go okay, I'd toss it and start over.  The curls turned out really well, so I continued on to her skin.  The first pic shows what happened.   I haven't learned the how and why of the colors becoming mottled.  So this is what I had.

The first thing I did was go over it with a coat of Ice Grey 1, which is a very light grey.  Yuck.  I went over it with the colorless blender.  Double yuck.  Go back over again with the Coral, Sunkissed Pink, and Blush.  Worse yuck. 

Somewhere in the back of my mind, back where the add grey suggestion had been, came another suggestion -- colored pencils.  So with the pencils I started.  I tried peach first.  Then some more peach.  Next I thought maybe use mineral spirits with the pencil.  Couldn't get any worse.  So with a stub and mineral spirits I went at it until it blended.  Not much better, but not too bad.  Then I thought, okay, try white.  So I went over it with a coat of white pencil, then another coat.  Not bad at all.  What if I added the mineral spirits?  So I did.

After smoothing the white with spirits, I had a smooth shiny surface.  I went back over with the original Promarker colors.  And this is the results. 

The original is not something I would use on a project, but it photographs nicely and would probably scan just as well.  I'm so happy because I thought I would lose those beautiful curls and pink ribbons.  LOL

I get out my markers and play with them.  This is how I learn about the inks and papers and colors and other media.  The reason this worked, although not perfect, is because the colored pencils and spirits laid down a waxy coat and alcohol markers can be used on a waxy coat.  When I start a swatch, the best outcome is that I can use it in a project, either the original, a photograph, or a scan.  For the next week or so, I will look at this piece here on my work table and smile.  I'll feel joy, and I'll feel happiness.  And that's why I color.

As always --

Thanks for stopping by!

My First Coloring Freebie

I'm going to try to post these at least once a week on Wednesday, by Thursday for sure. There may be times I will post once a day or several in one day. 

Here is one of my favorite images from Sureya on Deviant Arts.   Sureya's gallery is full of images that are excellent to practice techniques with.  http://sureya.deviantart.com/

"Sweetbreeze"

I colored her in Promarkers.  The only colors I wrote down are for her hair:  Burnt Sienna, Caramel, and Cinnamon.  For the gold trim I used a gold glitter pen.  This one is free for all.  There will be times where being a follower will work in your favor, but that's your choice to make. You may download either or both.  Just make sure you give credit where its due.

Please upload your work to any or all of the galleries listed below.  I frequent them often so I will be able to see your creations.  And, of course, comments are always welcome.  A comment could be as simple as "TY" for "thank you" or  you can share a coloring tip with us.  I just want you to tell me what you think. 

The Outlawz Challenges blog's gallery
http://outtlawzchallenges.ning.com

Scraps of Color gallery
http://scrapsofcolor.ning.com

Through the Craftroom Door gallery
http://www.craftdoormagazine.com

You can post on one or all three. If you check out the challenges you may be able to enter your project and win something.

As always --

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Crossroads and Freebies

I've reached a crossroad.  I started this blog so that we could have a place to learn and encourage each other to color.   I've learned about markers, colored pencils, digi stamps, papers, and inks.  

So, what now?   Challenges?  Design teams?

I'm not very good at card making without a kit, and I really don't like having to make them, which is what you do to enter most challenges.  Reading the requirements for a design team member makes me want to take a pill and lay down.  Never mind the qualifications. The responsibilities to be on some teams gives me palpitations.  Since I'm already one french-fry short of a happy meal, my doctor would become suspicious at the increased drug usage and may want to send me to rehab.  LOL

I have decided to post some of my coloring and swatches here as freebies.  You may use them for your personal card or crafting project only.  Ask for an okay if you want to use it for something else.  I will let you know the artists of the images and where you can get a copy of an uncolored image.  There are some great images artists make available to us without charge.  We know what Angel Policy and Terms of Use means.  Please respect the work of others as you would want your own work respected.

I hope you find something inspirational or useful when you visit here.  I am always inspired when I visit your blogs and galleries to see your amazing cards and crafts.

So I'll be staying in my lane and keep coloring.  I color because of the joy it brings to my heart and the peace it brings to my mind.  Coloring is my happy place.

As always --  

Thanks for stopping by!

Markers, a scanner, and PhotoShop

So, I got my new scanner all set up to play around with this picture.  This is one of my Sassy Studio Designs.  It's called "Christmas Present."  In case you weren't aware, Regan at SSD has decided to put family first and spend more time with her little boy.   So there will be no more freebies from SSD on Fridays.  Total bummer!

 



 

This photo shows the colored image on copic coloring card stock.  This is the image I scanned onto the computer to use in Photoshop.  If you look closely, you can see that I could not have used the same markers when coloring her bottom bow.  The bow is the actual color I wanted to use and I colored it first.  However, it's obvious I did not use the same maker for the other part of her clothing.  Why I thought this would be a good image to play with in Photoshop and see what I could do.

 

I purposefully colored her very dark with my tan Promarker.  It was nice to be able to manipulate the colors.  Here the color of the entire image, her skin, hair, and clothing is lightened.   The difference in the colors is more noticeable, too.

 

Even lighter here.  And I wanted to try a technique of going back over the hair to give it some thickness or fullness with one of the grey markers in areas throughout the hair.   So I printed her out and worked with markers on the new Photoshop image and scanned it again.

 

  

 

This is the final result.  But you know me.  I never know when to really leave my images alone, so I kept playing with it.  At least when you're working on the computer you can undo or not save any results you don't like. :)  I still wanted to see if I could get those red colors looking more the same.

 

 

In the process of trying to get the red colors to look more the same, I had to lighten her up quite a bit.  But this is where I left it.  I think I should be able to fix all the flaws in this image, but I don't have those skills yet.  So I'm sure I'll pull her up one day and play some more in Photoshop and learn something new and wonderful.  I would love to be able to fix the darker shading lines on her arm, make her blush a bit lighter, and of course, fix those reds.  Then one day I should be able to change the color of her clothes entirely.  Woooo, hoooo! 

Isn't technology amazing.  I can scan all of my colorings and print them from Photoshop.  If I had to do 100 invitations, I could just print them off.  Of course, they'd be flat, so I'd have to do some embellishments or print off extra and use pop dots to give it some dimension.  I think these are things I should be able to do with Photoshop.  But you all know I only bought it because it was a good price and lots of you sang its praises and told me it was worth it.

Time will tell.  My Photoshop adventures have begun.  But for now I'm back to my markers.  I don't have the patience to work with Photoshop often.

I hope you found something inspiring or helpful from this post.  Keep coloring and crafting, and stay out of trouble.  As always --

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

P.S.  When you leave a comment, I always click on your names and visit your blogs or leave you an e-mail.  Just saying :)

 

You Can Do This With Just One Marker

It's been over a week since I last posted something.  I've been coloring and have lots of swatches.  There's something I would like to tell you about each one of them.  Don't know if I'll get through all of them, but some of the most memorable ones I know I'll post.  a Robert Jackson image called "The Bather."

This is something I've been wanting to demonstrate about Promarkers.   This picture was colored with only one Promarker color, tan.  That's it.  Each layer of color gives you a darker, deeper color in the same tone.  I'm not sure how many layers there really are in the first picture, but I figured it would be about two or three at the time I started with the pictures.  This beautiful image is one of Robert Jackson's, and it's called "The Bather."

2x or 3x

 

4x

5x

7x

 

8x

Once I got to this point, I figured I'd just go all the way.  So the rest of the pictures show the color changes as I put down each layer.  The last picture that shows some of the different color levels or tones you can get from just one color of marker.

 

  

 

  

Of course this works with any of the Promarkers as well as other markers.  It seems to me to be more noticeable with Promarkers than Copics because Copics have lots of colors.  With Promarkers you have some "in between" colors that are "missing."  By just adding layers of colors, you can pretty much get some of those "missing" colors with Promarkers, and probably other alcohol markers, allowing you to do a pretty good job of blending and shading.   If you could see close up you would notice I even fuzzied her slippers and added texture to her hair. Happy, happy, happy.

 

Go play with those markers, people.  Take something out and color it.  This is the only way you can find out how the markers work so you can make them work for you. 

 

Keep coloring, crafting, and stay out of trouble.  As always --

 

Thanks for  stopping by!

A Challenge, Some Hair, Some Skin, and a Recipe

I've completed a card for the Outlawz Creative Freebie Challenge.  We're given two images to color.  To qualify for the next challenge and two more images, you just need to color one or both of the images and post your project.

I wanted to try a new hair color combo and a new skin color combo, and I also wanted to try fur on the bear.  The bear is cute, but it's not furry to me.  So I'll have to keep working on that.

What I want to show you in these pictures is that there is no set way to color.  You learn the basics by learning what others do in videos, on blogs, or in tutorials, classes, and what you read in books.  After that it's up to you.  If you want to do flicks or circles, if you want to start with your light color or your dark color, if you want to start with the skin first, or the hair first, these are all choices you make to bring a coloring to your liking.  You're the artist.

Here goes.

I started with the light and colored the entire area with YR21.

Then I used the darkest color, YR24, and colored in where I felt the darkest areas were.

 And lastly, I used the medium color, YR31, to fill any the areas between the dark and light.

 

Some folks would stop here.   I didn't.   I went over the entire area with the lightest color, YR00.

 

 

Once that's done, you just have to work with it, tweak it here and there, to make it your own.

I used the same technique on her clothes, started with the lightest pink.

Think of coloring like a recipe.  First you make it according to the directions.  Then add a little of this, a lttle of that, not so much of this, not so much of that and, voila!  Now it's your recipe.  Coloring is no different.   Sometimes you have to make it over a couple times before you get it just right.  If it's something you enjoy, you'll try again and again to get it just right.

I really hope this helped to inspire you to continue coloring.  It is so fun and relaxing.  Who doesn't color?  We're been coloring since we were small children.  Bet your coloring now looks better than when you were five.  LOL

Here's my finished card.

*NOTE:  Trina pointed out that I had put the colors for the jacket in this image and not her hair.  I have corrected them.
Hair - YR21, YR24, YR31, YR00
Jacket - R81, R85, R83

As always --

Thanks for stopping by!

Challenges Entered:

http://www.craftdoormagazine.com/

http://www.bestieschallenge.blogspot.com/
http://avenue613.blogspot.com/



 









Challenges

Here's another card I've done for  to enter challenges.  I used a Sherri Baldy image, and it was a freebie.

Sherri's images are a little different from what I usually color.  So it's no surprise to me that this card is a little different from the ones I usually make.  I just went with whatever my pens and inks wanted to do.  I used 15 markers.  Sort of reminds me of some of the scribbles or doodles or mixed media -- whatever you call it -- that seems to be trendy right now.  Hey, if a dot on a canvas can be considered art, then I guess there's a place for me to hang this little sweetie.  Hope you like her. I do. 

The papers are from Jen Wilson's Totally Girl pack and Paper Pizazz' Disney Princess Papers.  The embellishments and sentiment comes from my stash.  I used both Promarkers and Copics.  I wanted her to have really black hair.  If you look really closely, you can see that her hair is blue and black.  It's Copic marker B28, Royal Blue.  This color seems to work really well for me for blue/black hair.

 

I hope you enjoyed your visit, found something useful,  and were inspired to color.  As always --

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Challenges I entered: (Anything Goes)

http://www.bestieschallenge.blogspot.com/

http://addicted-to-stamps.blogspot.com/

http://scrapbookstampsocietychallengeblog.blogspot.com/

http://onecrazystampercom.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/january-anything-goes-challenge.html

http://www.craftdoormagazine.com/

http://allsortschallenge.blogspot.ca/

http://divasbydesignchallenge.blogspot.ca/

http://avenue613.blogspot.com/

This is what happens when I don't color :)