Friday 6 March 2015

A quickie guide to colouring

I'm the first to admit that I'm not the world's greatest at colouring in images, and that there are people out there who can do marvellous and mystical things with Copics (how do they do that?!). But here it 
is, my quickie guide to colouring in!

I only have a couple of rules when I'm colouring .... Always start with the lightest colour and add the darker shades, and always work in two or three shades of the same colour family to allow you to blend and build the lighter and darker areas.

I sometimes colour with Distress ink pads, sometimes with Copics (but I'm very new to Copics), but today I coloured with my Polychromos pencils. These are very similar to use as Prismacolor pencils - one is wax based and one is oil based, but they blend the same.

I used my 'Queen of Everything' stamp and started with the lightest flesh tone:


Then I took it one step darker around the edges:


And then one step darker still:


I used the same principle for the cheeks .. starting with the light pink and taking it one step darker around the edges:


I could have left the face like that but I wanted to add some shape to the nose, so I lightly drew a line from the eyebrow down the side of the nose:


This gave me a guide for adding a little more shading. Here I have shaded just one side:


When adding colour to anything else I followed the same principle of starting with the lightest shade and adding darker around the edges:


I wanted to add more than one colour to the body and this is when pencils are really great! I began with adding some green ... but still darker round the edges:


And then the same again with reds and pinks:


And then I added blues and yellows:



To break up areas of colour I like to add a random bit of scribbling, and touches of white gel pen:


And here she is finished. Ta-da! If you would like to see how she looks when added t a journal page, have a look at this post here. Byee for now!


18 comments:

  1. FAB - thanks for sharing your technique

    Kathyk

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  2. Thanks for a great tutorial Kate and for making me believe I could do this! If you had to choose either Prismas or Polys which would you go for??

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    1. I like both, and find them very similar. I generally reach for my Polys because they don't break as easily (and I seem to spend a lot of time sharpening my Prismas!), and simple because Polys are easier to get hold of in the UK.

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  3. Great tutorial Kate, i struggle with pencil colouring so this has helped a lot, Thank you :-) xxx

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  4. Oh my gosh! I can't even begin to tell you how helpful this is. THANK YOU so much for sharing. <3

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  5. Ooh Kate! This is so lovely of you to put such a great step by step of your process on your blog. I'm fortunate to learn this from you in person (which actually is the very best way if you folks can get on one of her brilliant classes) but this will really help peeps who can't get to a class.

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  6. Great step by step Kate. I adore your colouring effects. Thanks so much for sharing xxx

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  7. Great tutorial your tips are great, I have Prismas but just getting use to them, this has helped a lot. So use to my copic that I just grab them now but will go back and try again with my pensils.
    Hugs Linda

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  8. BRILLIANT tutorial Kate. Thank you for sharing. I can't imagine you having any problems with Copics, I colour in the same way from light to dark then blend everything together with my light one again.

    Have a great weekend.
    Gez xx

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  9. Thanks for the tutorial Kate, very helpful indeed!

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  10. Thank you for sharing your technique! You're so talented!! I adore these rubber stamps and I'll definitely be putting these on my list of "wants" this year!

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  11. I need all the help I can get with my colouring, so thank you very much for this!

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  12. Thanks a lot for this interesting tutorial.

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  13. Thanks a lot for this tutorial, very interesting. It seems so easy ...

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  14. Lovely colouring on your great - and so cute! - stamp :D thank you for sharing your way of doing, simple but very effective!

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  15. Thank you, Kate! This is really helpful. I struggle a bit when coloring in images.

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Thanks so much for leaving a comment!