The Grillfather

Hi there!

It´s my, Helen, turn again to show you a new coloured image.

I love well grilled food. If I had lived in a house I would at least grilled once a week, most likely more.

One of the parts I like about making cards is to find the perfect images for the receiver. And this time it's a perfect match. It's for someone who grills all year round and I can't help it but looks a little as the character in the image. The stamp is called the Grillfather and comes from Art Impressions.

I´ve stamped the image on Perfect Coloring Paper with Memento ink. In the image there is some text and I masked it as I stamped because I didn´t like that part. And this little guy seams to be a superhero, in the image he has a mask for his eyes and I tried as well as I could to get it away, it's tiny so I didn´t mask that part just wiped the ink away. And here we can see it but I guessed it wouldn't show of in the end.

I started by putting in my highlights, I wanted the fire from the grill to make some highlights on him, used Y000. And I didn´t put it as a first layer covering all the skin so just where the highlights would be.

And then I went to E000 for the first layer of skin tone. And I didn´t cover all Y000, left a small line of yellow shining.

B20 was my tint for the shadows in the skin.

Covered that up with E53. And moved on to E000 to soften it out. I went in with a little more of Y000 and then E04 for his lips.

I didn´t used Y000 in his sweater, instead I used a yellowish red, R05, for the highlight.

Moved on to R27 for the rest of the sweater.

And as I laid my next two layers, R59-R37, I had a hard time struggling with the ink that settled on top of the paper and didn´t sink. I cleaned my pens, but it didn´t worked and this is my third or fourth attempt...

I could had moved on to another colour for the sweater, but no. Got some roundness to the belly. Y000 for some highlight and C1-C3-C0-C5 for the shadow on the apron, hat and glove.

I wanted it to look like he´s wearing jeans shorts so I used B21 for the first layer on the pants.

The darkest colour is B97 and my mid-tone is B45. In the edges I went in with some Y000.

The same for his shoes. For the socks I used R37 and C3.

With a light grey, C0, I sketched in the grill.

Then I drew the lines with a Copic Multiliner.

I used C3-C7-C5 for the grill.

And as I know the receiver doesn´t use lighter fluid and wouldn't have an open fire in his grill (unless he wants it) I just had to make just that. If the fire wasn´t there, I wouldn't have had the light from which the highlights come.

For the fire I used Y13-Y17-YR14-R05.

Sketched in the floor and fence with C0.

The first layer of colour for the floor is E81, After that I scribbled in the pattern of the wood with E44.

A little wider lines indicated the boards. One layer with E81 on top to soften the pattern.

E42 in the foreground of the floor.

For the late summer sky I used B21-B45-B97.

And the fence got it first layer of colour, E40.

Scribbled in some trees, used YG67-YG99-BG99.

The fence got a pattern with E74, softened it with E70-E71.

A shadow from the Grillfather used W3-W5.

The image lay like this on my desktop for some weeks. I looked at it and I didn't liked what I saw. It was too bright.

So I decided to darken it up.

The floor got a new layer of colours, E87-E84-E81.

The fence got darken by E44 and the shadow from the man went to W7.

And as I made the card I trimmed of the pine trees that I wasn´t happy with.

Love

Helen

Here is a wobbly one!

Hello there, I have a clean and simple card
with a bit of a twist!

This was for my Dad's Birthday....

As you can see, quite a simple image on the front
but when you open the card.......

The old chaps bum has bit of a wiggle

thanks to the assistance of a wobble spring!

(the stamp set came with a spring but you can also buy them separately)

Art Impressions - Bummer Set

MFT Die Namics Blueprint 15 die

Memento Ink Tuxedo Black

Copics -

Sign: B12, C3

Shirt: B0000, C00, C0, C1, C2, C3

Skin: E0000, E000, E40, E41, R20, V20, W2

Trousers: E40, E41, E42, E43, E44

Socks: W00, W1

Shoes: E21, E23, E41, W1, W6

Have fun with your Copics.... I certainly did with this one!

Adding interest to your colouring

Here is a little montage of ways you can add a bit of fun to your colouring!

Lets start with a simple stamp

I have used

Say it Loud! by Art Impressions

It's OK like this, but a bit boring don't you think!!

So to jazz things up a bit I started by stamping it out on Copic suitable card stock using 

Memento Angel Pink, so that I could use the no lines technique

and cut it out using a stitched circle die by Lil'inker Designs

Now I started by creating a background using my "Squiggly Wiggly" method!

Basically you start with your base colour, in this instance B0000 and cover the whole area using the standard Copic circular motion.

You then add squiggles of a darker shade, in this case B000, going over it with the lightest colour to soften the squiggles if necessary. 

Don't get heavy handed with this, light, delicate squiggles work best.

 I finished with a layer of B00 squiggles, softened by B0000 applied in a circular motion as before.

A - B0000 applied in a circular motion

B - B000 squiggles applied to three quarters of box, softened with B0000 

C - B00 squiggles to top left of box

D - Squiggles softened with B0000 applied in circular motion

This technique works best with the palest shades in any of the colour families.

Now the real fun begins.......

time to play around with your image!

I started by giving each word a 3D appearance, achieved by simple shading, but hey, it's still a bit boring and I like to have fun when colouring.....

I'll show you a close up in a minute, but here is a list of the colours I used for each word

SING: B21, B23, B24, B26

DANCE: B01, B02, B04

LAUGH: B91, B93, B95, B97, 0

LOVE!: B12, B14, B16

shadows applied using N1, N2, N3

DANCE: random dots applied using darkest colour B04

LAUGH: spots created using 0 to remove colour 

LOVE!: Stripes drawn using B16 and B14 mindful of the 3D colouring

I hope you have found this tutorial interesting and whether you try the Squiggly Wiggly background or add a pattern to your images, above all have fun when using your markers!!

Happy Colouring