Experiment in Colouring - Day One

I got my new stamps from Paper Pretties yesterday and I figured this would be a great time to experiment with colouring. I don't own copic markers (yet!!) so I'm working with what I have.

Day one is water colour pencils, these particular ones are from Stampin' Up.

As you can see the image is an awesome dragon. I love it! After stamping several images in brown staze-on, I consulted with my 3.5 year old boy on what he felt would be appropriate colours for a dragon of this level of awesomeness, he informed me that green AND blue would be appropriate.

I picked out some colours and, this is important, tested the colours on an edge of the paper. I'm not working with water colour paper (I need to make a trip to the craft store) so I have to be careful how much moisture I use or the paper will start to peel and tear. Knowing this I started with a yellow (to lighten the green) at the points where the dragon might have more light on her scales.

Next I dusted around the edges with the green. It doesn't matter if it's neat, we're going over it with moisture anyway and that will blend the colours. If you're working with several colours it's always best to start with the lighest and work your way darker... you can cover light with dark but not dark with light.

Around the green I took the blue. The dragon's hands, feet, back scales, horns and eye lids are just plain blue. I added some color to the wings.

When I do this one next time I'm going to use a bit less of the yellow on her green-blue scales. Due to non water colour paper I couldn't do as much blending as I would have liked.

At this point both my older children (3.5 and 2) were giving critiques which mostly involved indignation that I wasn't sharing the "crayons". I took a break to put on the electronic babysitter to see if I could rush the job!

Next up I started blending with Stampin' Up blender pens. You can just as easily use a paintbrush and a little water (but, again, no water color paper). The blender pens offer a bit more control and a little less "mess". There's also no chance you're going to tip over a jar of water on your project. Oops!

For this stage I went from the darker colours to the lighter because I wanted to minimize the yellow on her thigh and tail. On the wings I went from inside to outside since the outside was colour free until I used the blender pen.

Between each section I "cleaned" my pen by drawing on a blank area of the paper that wouldn't be used until no colour came off the pen.

Finally I went over her eyes, eye lashes and claws with a Chocolate Chip marker (because I used brown staz-on) to darken them a bit. The children approved and I'm happy with the result even though I feel I could have done a neater job (next time I'll wait until the kids are in bed!).

Tomorrow I'll post images of my adventures in colouring with markers (non-copic)... this time the colour inspiration supplied by my 2 year old daughter!

Thanks for checking in!