Pencil Blending Tutorial

I've been wanting to put together a video on pencil blending methods for a while - I finally finished it up last weekend. These are the methods that I cover in the video:

Here's the video! Please let me know what you think, and if you have questions please post them on the video or post them here. I wish I had a video of me talking with my hands and pointing at my computer screen when I was doing the audio - I'm sure that would be amusing!

If you're interested in my video on pencil shading, you can find it HERE. The written tutorial can be found on Splitcoaststampers.

The pencils I used in both videos are Polychromos Pencils.They are oil-based pencils - a little drier than Prismacolors (not waxy), and they don't have the breakage issues either. I looooooove mine and highly recommend them. A teeny sweet reminder, too, that if you order from Dick Blick, please click through to them via the button in my left sidebar if you'd like to swing a little percentage of your purchase my way. That gives me a little extra pencil money once in a while! Thank youuuu!!

Heartfelt Creations Alumni DT hop

It's time again for the Heartfelt Creations Design Team Alumni monthly blog hop... We've chosen the last Tuesday of each month to share a project featuring Heartfelt Creations' stamps when we can, just for fun.  If you'd like a chance at winning a prize, be sure to leave a comment on every blog along the hop by Friday - there is a $25 gift certificate up for grabs for one random commenter! If you'd like to view the entire hop, you're in the right place! I'm at the top of the hop list today.

I chose a simple, classic layout to show off some Inchie Plus Squares from Inchie Arts - these are 1-1/2" squares made from artist quality matboard. These are colored using Touch Twin Markers, with highlights added using Polychromos pencils.

I used a Sakura clear glaze pen to highlight the flower centers and add a little more dimension.

 Ready to hop on? Your next stop is Emilia's blog! Thanks for joining us!!

Mix-Ability Challenge coming soon!!

I'm so excited to tell you about a new challenge starting Friday, Feb. 1st at Splitcoaststampers!! Many trends in the crafting industry are moving towards mixed media - the term in itself can be a little scary because the interpretation of "mixed media" covers a wide variety of art, media, and applications. Really, though, mixed media art is just using two or more types of coloring tools or methods - any combination of pencils, paints, chalks, inks, markers, etc. Often, too, some sort of dimensional element is added, like collage items, papers, or found objects. It scared me too, until I looked at the definition and realized... I have been doing that all along!

Because of the 'fear factor' involved in mixed media work, a brainstorming session began behind the scenes at SCS - what can we do to encourage and enable stampers to realize "I can do this"? And a new challenge was born.... Mix-Ability. Our team of 8 hostesses will take turns posting challenges, encouraging you to 'mix it up' a little - try a new technique, play and experiment a little, splash some paint around, etc. - while incorporating more than one coloring medium into your work. We'll be posting a new challenge each Friday, and we'll be right there with you, encouraging you and helping you to stretch your creative boundaries. We'd love for you to join us!!

This card was made using acrylic paints, inks, Touch Twin Markers and Inktense pencils. The stamps are mostly from my dkdesigns line at Impression Obsession.

Stamps used: Birds on Music, Impulse 2, Soar, Paris Registre, French Letter.

I'll share more challenge details when we go live February 1st! So excited.

Relax. Heh.

Almost forgot to share this little guy! I had made him for a challenge on Splitcoaststampers a while back. My unmounted House Mouse stamp came from Joanna Sheen's webstore, and it's colored with Shinhan Premium Watercolors (Cadmium Yellow Deep, Permanent Yellow Orange, Marine Blue, Lemon Yellow, Greenish Yellow, Vandyke Brown).The sentiment is from Impression Obsession.

Fun to make a clean card with lots of white space... I hesitate to use the term "clean and simple" since so much time went into painting the main panel! I'll just relax vicariously through this little House Mouse... I'm back to teaching health class again for the next few weeks, and though it's just an hour a day, it takes up so much space in my brain! We have a large class this time (20 students) with a slightly different focus than the last time we taught.

Hope you had a wonderful week! I'm excited for NEXT week too - a blog hop, and a fun new challenge starting up!!

Canvas Trio - 10000 Reasons

Here's a little project I did before Christmas, just for fun - I bought a 4-pack of 6-inch canvases at Walmart when we were in the States, with the intent of working on something larger than a card, and to make something for art's sake, not for a deadline, challenge, or quota. I also wanted to work out something using some lyrics from Matt Redman's song Ten Thousand Reasons - love that one.

So each canvas is done with acrylic paints, inks, and some strips of newspaper... stamps from Impression Obsession/dkdesigns, Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz and Stamp Camp, and stencils from Crafter's Workshop. I didn't take pictures of my process, because I just wanted to enjoy the process without having to document it. I just need that sometimes.

I created my own masks for the larger shapes - I like the bird the best, and I saved it - maybe I'll use it again! The canvases turned into my husband's Christmas present, and they're up above his computer - I love that! And they're such a great reminder to keep our minds on eternal things and the many blessings we have - too many to count, really.

Thank you for stopping by!

Sunny Sunflower

Whew! Mondays are long days... I started teaching health today, so for the next 4 weeks that's my first thing to run off to every morning. Thank goodness for coffee!! I wanted to mention, because some of you have asked... we're not really free to give details of our ministry and location online, but I'm always happy to answer questions via email... we also send out a monthly email newsletter, so if you'd like to receive that, let me know! I'd be happy to add you to our list.

Here's another of my catalog samples for the newest Impression Obsession release, colored with Touch Twin Markers - the colors  used are listed below. Love these big, bold florals! This is called Sunny Sunflower.

 For the frame, I used the Circle Shaker Frame die - it's cut from a cereal box and painted with some Distress crackle paint.

Have a wonderful week!

Designed To Color Challenge: Metallics

I made this card a while back, but never got to blog it, so I'll share it today! Though it's not the card I shared on their blog, it fits for Designed To Color's monthly challenge, "metallics". Dilly Beans is the sponsor over there, and I made a card using one of their digital images for the DTC blog post - it's fine, but it's just not especially 'me'. I like this one so much better!

This is one of my Bird Collage stamps released at Summer CHA, paired with a few other design elements (Paris Registre, French Postal, Flourish 3, CAC Script). The panel was colored with acrylic paints, inks, Touch Twin Markers and Inktense pencils.

The black paper with the gold motif actually started off white and gold - I colored over it with a black Touch marker and the gold ink showed through. It's very elegant - another idea for metallic papers you may have laying around.

Grab some metallic papers, pencils, markers, or embellishments, and play along with us!

Impression Obsession DT Challenge: Sweet Thoughts

The Impression Obsession team's challenge today is to create a card with the theme "Sweet Thoughts". That can be interpreted so many different ways - I can't wait to see what you come up with!

I started by tacking down 9 Inchie Squares from Inchie Arts in a grid on a piece of cardstock, then stamping the Cupcake Background in Memento ink and coloring with Touch Twin Markers. The square is layered on the Square Shaker Frame die and some Basic Grey cardstock.

Be sure to check out these other designers' blogs for inspiration -

Daniela @ For the First Time
Jeanne @ Inky Paws
Jenny @ One Krafty Kat
Julie @ Out to Impress
Kittie @ Kittie Kraft
Laura @ Laura's Stamp Art Journal
Vicki @ Summerthyme Studio

Remember you can enter these challenges too, using your Impression Obsession stamps! See the I.O. blog for all the details - you might even win a $25 gift certificate!! We'd love to have you join us.

Backlighting - Beach

Here's one of my 'practice cards' for the backlighting challenge posted Sunday - this scene is colored with Touch Twin Markers, with additional highlights using pencil and acrylic paint.The beach image is from Stamp Camp, and the sentiment is from one of my sets at Our Daily Bread designs.

I love the sunny effect of this Spellbinders die, with the die cut turned slightly and laid over the negative cut.

These are the Touch Twin markers that I used:

I had fun with this beach image after some time at a resort last weekend - it's keeping me warm now as we enter the really WET part of rainy season. Have a great week!