Celebration Bookmark
My nephew’s second book was just released. I wanted to create a bookmark that co-ordinated with the color of the book cover.
The first step for me to is find at least 4 alcohol ink colors (light,medium, dark, very dark) that blend well and result in the overall color that I desire.
Sandy Allnock has a fill-in color chart called Hex Chart. I find it extremely useful when trying to find Copic marker colors that will blend. It rarely is a predictable combination such as YO2,YO4,YO6.
In this case the colors were mostly from the RV family (One V) and they ranged from RV9 to RV66.
The image is stamped on the same paper I will use on the bookmark (Neenah Solar White). A quick line is made with each of the possible colors.
Then, with no intention of neatness, I try blending the different colors on the image. Some too dark, one too orange, two too close to the same color.
I have a real complex about coloring. My art work as a young child was criticized by teachers. As a result I took no art classes beyond those that were required. I never learned shading or highlights. I didn’t even see them when I looked at an image.
Years of Copic classes have helped a lot. But it will never come naturally for me. I really have to work at it. Keeping some areas white for highlights is a challenge for many of us. I also struggle with the very darkest colors that give depth.
Thankfully alcohol inks can make an rookie like me look pretty good. They helped me go from hating my coloring to accepting it enough to show other people my work. That is HUGE!
It takes time and lots and lots of practice. There is always so much more to learn.
I practiced coloring Pen Sketched Flowers four, actually five times.
I die cut the flowers and die cut a second flower shape from a very heavy cardstock for backing.
The top layer of the bookmark is very heavy cardstock cut 2 1/4 x 7 3/4″. The background is leaves from the Pen Sketched Flowers set. Black ink is splattered on that later.
The second layer is slightly larger and cut from the same heavy cardstock.
A ribbon is placed between the two layers with some ribbon showing both top and bottom.
Color Wheel
Color Blending
The first part of this lesson involved matching up alcohol marker colors with colors on the color wheel. My memory can always use a little refresher on color wheel theory.
This card is soooo far from my usual that it is in a distant time zone!
The idea behind this assignment was to use predominantly analogous colors to fill in the various shapes on the Geometric Landscape stamp set. The markers from the above color wheel assignment were used for this card.
It was stress-free fun coloring with no rules. The lighter colors make the image look like it might be
a stained-glass window with sun coming through!
I used some super-glossy black cardstock for the “You.” “Rock” (Mega Greetings 2) is white-heat embossed.
I truly enjoyed coloring this card. It is nothing like anything I’ve done before . . . ultra modern.
This second card involves a technique called Color Glazing. Both of the flowers have a similar combination of colors. However the top flower has the soft lilac color as the base and a small amount of a dark purple in the shadows as a final step. This gives an overall purple cast to the top flower.
The bottom flower, in contrast, has pale pink as a base and hot pink in the shadows as a final step.
Thus the bottom flower has more of a pink cast.
These Forever in Love flowers are both very “tight” as they are just starting to open. As a result there are more dark areas than there would be in a flower that has opened to reveal more light petals that catches the light.
My tendency is to lose my highlights. So I give myself a little reminder by coloring those highlights first. Then I remember that darker colors come up to that highlight and stop.
The sentiment from Fancy Greetings is black heat embossed.
I don’t know why but I love to color images that have berries . . . strawberries, blueberries, holly or any other kind of berry. That’s why I love this stamp. However, the next time I use it, I will have it going off the edges so it can be moved higher on the card.
Here is more Color Glazing on another flower in another color family. This Torch Ginger flower is tight like the roses above so there are many dark shadows. The top flower is glazed with red. The lower flower has a yellow base and no red.
Blending Water Color
Hydrangeas are way at the top of my Favorite Flower List.
They are blue and they remind me of Cape Cod.
Right from the mailbox, I stamped this Paint-A-Flower Hydrangea with Obsidian pigment ink on water color paper. (Because it’s pigment, it takes a little longer to dry.)
The paper was Washi-taped to a board so it wouldn’t warp.
Working small areas at a time, a #2 brush was used to put clear water on petals that didn’t touch either other. Lapis Lazuli was dropped into the water and allowed to run. Once that was nearly dry, Shades of Purple was dropped near the center of the petal. Finally Deep Blue Seas was dropped between the two other colors. I moved around the two flowers working petals that wouldn’t touch and bleed into each other. The leaves were done in a similar manner with two shades of green from the 24 half pan Artists’ Watercolor set.
White, blue and black water color was splattered on the card front.
Photos of Hydrangea show the centers to be colored similar to the petals so light blue gems were placed at the centers.
The sentiments is from Script Words 3 Die and Welcome Home.
Just one more. This time the hydrangea is painted with metallic water color. It doesn’t really blend but it mixes.
I really enjoyed this class and instructor, Kelly Latavola. It would have been easy to spend a month just working on these images and techniques.
