Hedgehog Pastel Art

Another of the drawing lessons from Colin Bradley.

I'm not very good at animals and this picture leaves a lot to be desired,  but it is by far the best animal picture I've ever managed.

Sun Flowers

So cheerful and just right for a card. This started as an exercise in shading with copics...something I am yet to master on small scale things.

I was also trying out a new type of centre fold card. I made a mistake on cutting the side panels - they should have gone right down to the bottom. Of course I didn't realise you'd see the bottom of the side panels until I'd cut and glued them on. So then I decided to cut out some flowerpots (which you can't see  very well) and some foliage and glued one set of foliage behind each flowerpot at the back of the fold and one set behind the front of the fold. It gives it a rather nice 3d effect. While I was scrabbling in my box of embellishments for something to put on the front, I came across a packet of painted wooden ladybirds that I bought age ago.  I glued those on to the front. The ladybirds on the flowerpots in the drawing are part of the original picture, so it all tied in nicely.

Pastel Art - Castle Coombe Bridge

My second picture using Colin Bradley's fantastic lessons. His, of course, is much better than mine and doing this picture certainly underscores his statement that trees are the hardest thing for a landscape artist to render.  Mind you, the clouds also leave a lot to be desired too....

While there is plenty of room for improvement in my work, it's still by far one of the best landscapes I've produced, thanks to Colin's instruction.

This picture was rendered in pastel pencil on Fabriano Ingres paper.

Miss Holly - traced stamps

We are coming up to the mad week in September with a whole bunch of close family birthdays in the one week. I have a stack of cards I've made but none suitable for my niece who will be 7. So, I used a cute Sarah Kay design and coloured it with Copics. (Yes..I'm still trying to get control over the pens!). I cut the finished picture to a rectangle then used the corner rounding punch on my envelope board to round off the corners. the die is from Spellbinders. The flower is a hand made dampened scrunched flower using a tutorial at Such a Pretty Mess and the heart sticks are die cut. The die has a whole bunch of the sticks on the one die.

 I'm a hopeless stamper - my stamps always seem to be blotchy and/or blurred, in the wrong spot or slightly skewed/off centre/not quite straight. My solution? Stamp on to scrap paper and use a light box to trace the design onto the final surface using a fine (0.2) pen. If my surface is card and I can't see through it to trace, I trace it on to printer paper, scan the tracing, then print it onto the card.

Stamping and tracing also has the advantage of being able to eliminate parts of the design that you don't want. Some stamps come with "shading" on them which I don't always like, and sometimes I want parts of the stamps in different colours. Modifying this design for instance, I could leave off the flowers on the dress or the checks on the pocket. Or I could have made a plain bow in the girl's hair instead of a flowered one.

Another advantage with stamping, tracing and scanning is that you can combine designs and line up multiple stampings easily. You can also change the size of the stamp which is really useful and makes your stamps a whole lot more versatile. You pay good money for a decent quality stamp...make it work for you!

The only thing you mustn't do is share or sell your scans as that is an infringement of copyright. Stamping, tracing and scanning should be for your personal use only as the design is still copyrighted to the original owner of the artwork.

Less Is More - Rosebuds

A very simple card - just trying out copics. I am taking a while to get the hang of using them as they feel clumsy to me in comparison to the control I have with a pencil.

Having finished the colouring, I decided to mount it simply on a spellbinders frame. I cut 2 of the burgundy frames and glued them together along the top edge and then tied the ribbon through the holes at the top for extra strength. The rosebuds were pre-purchased paper rosebudss.

Rustic Doorway Pastel

Another exercise from Colin Bradley that I completed in pastel pencils.

 I WILL use scans of these in cards soon, I promise!

Meanwhile you can get a 300dpi scan of my original artwork here

Pastel Pencil Art - Harbour Scene

I've stumbled across a great site for learning how to draw in pastels. Colin Bradley does the most amazingly lifelike pictures using pastel pencils. This is my first attempt at a landscape following his free video tutorial. I'm planning on using the scan I made of it on a card - probably a DL sized card.

You can get a 300dpi scan of my original as an image to use on your own card here.