Sometimes you’ve got a stamp that you love – but the outfit just won’t work for Christmas. What to do, what to do? Transform it! You’ll have to be creative, and some stamps lend themselves to it a little easier…but it’s often possible! I’ll give you a couple tips as I transform Jasmine from LOTV into a wintry getup!
The background here is NOT included in the video because it’s part of the Copic Enchantment class.
Supplies
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One way to practice creating strong contrast without having to think about color at the same time is to do a monochrome card. Pick a color with a wiiiiiiide variance from very very light to very very dark!
I chose to use the warm greys – going from a light light to a dark dark!
Any scene could be accomplished with this technique – any of the ones in my classes! Pick a lesson you struggled with, and try it in one hue to see if that helps you see the contrast better.
Supplies
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Dino Adventure, My Favorite Things Clear Stamps: EH – MFT
I’ve been sharing some summery “epic” scene cards on social this summer….and took a break from the to-do list too turn some of those into a mini class! But rather than the normal little promo video, I thought I’d do a lesson that applies to the class, yet can be enjoyed by everyone. So let’s go!
Supplies for this project are linked at the end of this post. Compensated affiliate links may be used at no cost to you.
What’s backlighting?
It’s when the subject you’re looking at – or coloring/drawing – is in between you and the light source – in the case of these island scenes, the sun is low to the horizon and off in the distance at sunset/sunrise, so the side of the subject you see is the shadow side. The dark side.
Showing little stamps colored this way is something I’ve done for a long time, but I thought seeing it large-scale might help make the lesson clearer – and would let me show you the difference that it can make to be really bold with those shadows!
The Art Impressions Gull Friends set (EH – AI) is perfect for these scenes too…birds on the beach! This solo gull has the backlighting around the edge….but notice, there’s a black outline because of the stamp. Try something like this with no-line coloring (stamp in a light ink) and the effect of backlighting is a lot better.
Backlighting does tend to make details in the stamped image irrelevant; and for some images, it may not work at all. This kind of does since you can at least tell they’re birds because of the legs and shadows – but all their accessories lose their humor in the drama of the lighting.
And then there’s these two nutty pelicans! This took a crazy long time, just figuring out how the candle flames would work on top of the background. But…when a figure is up in the air, be sure to leave space between their feet and shadow. If the sun is low, like it is in this case, offset the shadow. In reality this pelican’s shadow would probably be off the page!
The class
It’s time for a new mini class! Island Time intermediate level….pushing the boundaries of it due to some tree and cloud drawing but I have faith in you!
Supplies
Some product may be provided by manufacturers for review and use. Compensated affiliate links are here at no cost to you. If you choose to shop using my EH (Ellen Hutson) links, please accept cookies on that site in order to retain the link to my blog, or that compensation does not happen for me. I appreciate your support of my work with your purchases! Full affiliate and product disclosure | My trusted partners in art
Gull-Friends, Art Impressions Clear Stamps —- EH – AI
While I chose to airbrush MY card – I know a lolt of you who are awesome at inking could work out doing this with inks. One day maybe I’ll learn to ink smoothly?? I know this old dog CAN learn new tricks but inking is one that eludes me! The design here for a CAS is solid though….give it a try!
I shared about this on a recent post – you can see the full Tiny Tutorial about these colorways by clicking right here.
The card
Sunny Blooms is a sweet little stamp even if it has no flower petals 🙂 It was perfect for this technique! A little white pen added onto airbrush totally worked.
The first sentiment I picked was too big. It would have had to be up in the white space – which would have killed off the idea of a CAS card (ha!) or….swapped for a maller sentiment. I added this!
More Purple Onion Inspiration!
In case you didn’t know…each weekend for about 6 months, I’ve put together collections of 15-30 videos on a topic – this week’s is all about PO stamps! Tap the image to go see it – or if you want to see all the OTHER tutorial collections, look under the “INSPIRATION” tab at the top of my blog. Have fun!
Supplies
Some product may be provided by manufacturers for review and use. Compensated affiliate links are here at no cost to you. If you choose to shop using my EH (Ellen Hutson) links, please accept cookies on that site in order to retain the link to my blog, or that compensation does not happen for me. I appreciate your support of my work with your purchases! Full affiliate and product disclosure | My trusted partners in art
I promised throughout World Watercolor Month to be posting watercolor OR water-coloring in other mediums….and today’s the most epic one yet!
Video
This entire drawing was NOT filmed. Sorry about that! (And I have no plans to redo it for a class, this was way too hard.) I do a ton of art that never makes it on camera, and I wasn’t expecting this one to work. I knew my marker strokes were very loose as I was trying to create this, and was sure it would be a hot mess at the end. But when I reached the water at the bottom, I realized that wasn’t the case. I thought perhaps a little discussion of layering would be helpful – as well as looking at the mess that you see close up that turns into magic from a step away.
If you’d like a print to examine yourself, order up one – I’d recommend getting one at real size or close to it (10″ x 14″) so you can see the size of the marker strokes – and know that just because your art isn’t “perfectly blended” it doesn’t make it a failure1
Supplies
Some product may be provided by manufacturers for review and use. Compensated affiliate links are here at no cost to you. If you choose to shop using my EH (Ellen Hutson) links, please accept cookies on that site in order to retain the link to my blog, or that compensation does not happen for me. I appreciate your support of my work with your purchases! Full affiliate and product disclosure | My trusted partners in art
Back in college I had a good friend whose medium was airbrush. The regular, old-school kind! He had all kinds of bottles of ink, masking materials, all sorts of supplies for airbrushing. I’ve often thought he would be green with jealousy about Copic airbrush now….or is he still out there making art and using Copic? I’ve googled him and have seen no sign of him, so I just don’t know. But…..
I decided to do some of what I saw him do when I would watch him work. Not all of it – he wouldn’t have taken a pen stroke to paper, he was the type to cut every single piece of color from his fancy masks. I didn’t think I had that patience, especially for a card!
In some ways I think the difference in paper textures when using marker strokes makes the glass look more glassy. With that last touch of airbrush on top it brings it back to feeling like it was airbrushed, but without all that masking.
There are several sentiments in the set – but I made a slimline card specifically to leave a nice big space at the top for this one. (Secret: I stamped and embossed it directly on the airbrushing first, but my ink splooged and it looked terrible. The good thing? This black paper with the gold layer pops even more than that had!)
Supplies
Some product may be provided by manufacturers for review and use. Compensated affiliate links are here at no cost to you. If you choose to shop using my EH (Ellen Hutson) links, please accept cookies on that site in order to retain the link to my blog, or that compensation does not happen for me. I appreciate your support of my work with your purchases! Full affiliate and product disclosure | My trusted partners in art
