Have you begun your holiday cardmaking yet? I have a small handful done but I feel so far behind! Today I’ll give ou a couple tips that’ll take a simply-colored image and spice it up – and one tip will even make your coloring faster.

PLUS I’ve just released four brand new Level 2 classes—coloring images that’ll be unique ones for your holiday cards. Let’s get going!

Tutorial: Favorite things for finishing a card image (and new classes!)

Watch the video below and scroll to the end to leave comments or questions — or click HERE to watch it on YouTube and leave comments over there. I read both dutifully!

Four Tips, especially for new colorists

1. Got some messy blending? Cover it up by adding a pattern on top! Either white snowflakes or polka dots, or even dark stripes or dots on an outfit would do the same. And if it’s a background, just add falling snow! No one will see the messy color beneath.
2. EASY blending: Color an image with one flat alcohol marker color, then do colored pencil blending on top. It’s the best of both worlds: simple flat alcohol marker with no blending needed, then the pencil won’t be fighting white gaps caused by the paper texture. Win win!
3. Add shading to white pen texture! Go over the shaded areas with the alcohol marker base tone of the object being shaded. That’ll dull down the pattern in shadow areas, making it look more supple like real fabric. Scribble the pen on scrap paper 
4. Make the tiniest highlights on eyes by drawing the dot with a pen, then “shave” it down to a good size with a pencil!

New Classes & more

Click on the image below to get to the course you’re interested in – you can see all the images that’ll be in the lessons once you’re there! OR you can go to the brand spanking new HOLIDAY page, where these are all at the top, and all the other holiday/winter classes are all on one page! Tap on the image below:

Colored Pencil

Watercolor

A timely older tutorial…for winter

White pens are the bane of the existence of many…this might help!

WHEW!

Those who’ve followed along on Patreon and Artventure know this was a heroic effort to get all this together; and I’m excited that I also have next week’s videos scheduled. So after I take a couple days to just SLEEP, I’ll be spending time working on sample pieces and figuring out prices for the upcoming commission fiesta. Hooray!

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