Running With Scissors…

Today I’ve gone back to an old favorite, but with a new coloring medium, my Prismacolor markers.  In the past I’ve always colored the images from this beautiful Stampin’ Up! Gentler Times set (retired) with Stampin’ Pastels (soft chalks).  They’re rather detailed images for chalks, but at the time I wasn’t quite sure what else to do with them.  The markers, thank goodness, were much easier.

The stamped image is almost, but not quite, solid.  There’s no distinct outline.  Though there’s a lot of detail, it’s relatively easy to see where to add the shading.  In fact, you could stamp the image in a dark ink and color over it with markers, and achieve a nice result without adding any of your own shading.  In this case, I stamped the image in Ranger Distress Tea Dye, which is a very light caramel shade, and used it as a guide for shading the image.  In the end, it looks like an actual painting, rather than a colored-in open line image…well…because it’s not an open line image.  I love this type of stamp!

The rose was colored with Deco Yellow and shaded with Ochre, and a little bit of Crimson added for more color.  The other flower, which I think is supposed to be a hydrangea, is Deco Pink and Grayed Lavender.

See the white highlights on some of the petal tips of the hydrangea?  Those highlights were added as an afterthought with a white gel pen.  To make the gel pen highlights soft and nicely blended I colored a little spot of white and then immediately touched it lightly with my fingertip.  With another, clean fingertip I lightly brushed over the white to soften it.  Very easy and effective!

Just for fun, I’ve included photos of the image stamped in Ranger Distress Walnut Stain (a very dark brown) – one without color so you can see the bare bones, and one quickly colored with no additional shading:

It’s beautiful even without color, and satisfactorily pretty with color added — a great image type to see a stamper through all stages of devoloping color skills.  I don’t know if SU! has any new images of this sort, but I like to keep my eyes open when I’m shopping around…  Maybe I should take another look at the new catalog…

Well, darn, my three day weekend is over now, and I need to get a move on with the work week.  I’ll have lots more to share beginning Wednesday with Flourishes July previews.  I hope to see you then!  Take care!

Stamps:  Gentler Times (retired SU!)  Paper:  Chocolate Chip, Sage Shadow, Close to Cocoa, Very Vanilla, retired Enchante designer paper  Ink:  Ranger Distress Tea Dye, Prismacolor markers for coloring  Accessories:  Ribbon, Finishing Touches floral brad from Flourishes, Spellbiners oval dies, Scotch brand foam mounting tape