Coloring: The Possibilities are Endless

Hello crafters! 

Kelly here, and today we are going to talk about coloring! 

Coloring is like the cheapest therapy ever. I just pull out my markers, inks, or colored pencils and let my mind unwind. It helps me keep my sanity. There are so many different types of coloring so today I thought I would share a few different ways I color my images. Lord knows Create A Smile stamps just beg to be colored :) 

I started by stamping the fox from Friends in the Woods seven times. The top row is stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black because I wanted to use copics. The bottom row was stamp in Jet Black Archival ink from Ranger because I was going to be using other mediums and I needed an ink that wouldn't react with water. Plus, it's my favorite black ink :) 

I colored the first fox with my regular copic approach. I'm not an expert so there wasn't really anything to photograph. I'll show you it up close at the end.

The second fox I colored with a technique called stippling. The basic idea is you fill in your whole image with dots. More dots for a darker color less dots for a lighter color. 

Fox all filled in. I love the variation it offers. This is especially cool for images where you know there would be multiple colors in an animals fur, I used many colors but this technique looks super cool as a monochromatic gradient too! 

Next up is the cross hatch. It is the same idea as stippling but with alternating diagonal lines. 

again a good way to pack in lots of color . . .added bonus the pattern adds more interest to your project. 

For the next one I used a dove blender pen and distress markers. The blender pen with work with pretty much any medium water does. I like to scribble my ink on a block and then pick it up with the pen. 

It blends the colors pretty well. 

I used distress inks again but this time with just water. I used the same colors as before but there is definitely a difference in how they look. Also, I didn't use water color paper so i had to be careful how much water i used. 

It still blends well but it looks less vibrant than the fox colored with the blender pen. 

For this fox I used Inktense pencils and a paint brush to water color. I start by adding my color direct to paper. If I want to add darker color later I take the my paintbrush and get color right from the tip of the pencil. 

I love how vibrant the colors are! Though the yellow was a bit too yellow for what I wanted. Oh well :)

Last I used colored pencils. These ones are Spectrum Noir. Once my coloring was done *note after I took this photo I added more brown to his head* I blended the colors with baby oil and a paper nub. 

Baby oil magic!!

Here are some close ups of each fox. 

I think they are all awesome  but so different!!

What's your favorite way to color? 

Of course I couldn't resist making a card with one of these cuties :) I used Friends in the Woods and Your View.  If you'd like to know the details of the card you can head over to my blog and see. 

You can pick them both up at the store ;) 

Thanks for hanging out with me!

XoXo

Kelly