Quote-a-Day

Daily ColoringOpen

Open Card

This is another in the series of  "Wet Stencil" cards. These are card blanks that are covered with wet stencils (stencils used after a previous project). While the stencils are still wet, I place them over card blanks. I then wipe the ink off of the stencil onto the card. I then add additional color as needed (and have another wet stencil to use on a different card).

Four different colors of alcohol inks were used on this card.

Finish card (closed)

Daily Coloring

Open card

Today's coloring is a little different because I am coloring with alcohol inks and stencils. I realized that I need a couple of quick note cards for a meeting this weekend. I was using these stencils and I had thought that I could use some blank cards and add a design to the cards using stencils that were already wet with ink.

Closed card

The cards are simple but effective in that all of them are one of a kind examples.

Daily Coloring

Coloring Page--Left Side

Today's coloring assignment is a little different. My sister-in-law is a big fan of turtles. Since I was sending her a care package of items she requested, I decided to decorate some blank paper to use as wrapping paper for the books I was sending her.

To design the paper, I pre-wrapped the items so I would know where the creases would be. I then used stencils to place the central figures on the page so once the paper was used I would know where they would appear on the final product. The top image is the left side of the paper which will be the top side of the "box".

Below is the right side of the paper which will be the bottom side of the "box".

Coloring Page--Right side

I layered color with my Copic Markers. This is a favorite stencil of mine and I have discussed layering colors for this image here. Below is the finished page with just the images colored in.

Coloring Page--Filled in

The paper seemed a little plain so I decided to use alcohol spray inks to add color to the background and to add depth to the two central figures. That empty space to the left of the sheet is that part that is the overlap once the "box" is wrapped.

Coloring Page--background color

 All that was left to do was wrapped the items. Here is the bottom of the stack of books.

Package wrapped--one side

 Here is the top side or featured side of the books highlighting the turtle.

Packaged wrapped--second side

Daily Coloring

Cut an colored envelope

For today's coloring assignment, I wanted to try again with the Sharpie and Copic markers. I wanted to try a different technique in hopes that the Sharpie ink wouldn't feather when confronted with the alcohol inks.

One of the other alterations that I made was that I cut out the envelope first and then used the cutout for the stencil design. This allowed me to be sure to get the image/location that I wanted on the face of the envelope. When I stenciled and colored the entire sheet, I couldn't control how the images appeared on the actual envelope. By cutting the envelope first, I was able to guarantee the placement of certain parts of the stencil.

The trick for this envelope is that I sprayed the envelope with fixative after drawing the outlines and the coloring lines. I then let it dry overnight to set. When I colored with the Copic markers, there was much less feathering of the outlines. I think that I am getting pretty close to perfecting these techniques.

Envelope Face

Envelope Flap

Now all I have to do is find out how to send these envelopes in the mail.

Daily Coloring

Today's little assignment included some color choices that were unexpected. I started coloring yesterday's page when I realized that I had not separated day 22 from day 23. Some of the green from yesterday's leaves leaked onto this page. To try and hide some of the ink, I decided to make my version of Shrek. In order to hide so of the darker leakage, I created a grey shadow all the way around the creature to dissipate some of the green leaked color. Overall, I am very pleased with the way it turned out.

Daily Coloring

Today's coloring assignment--my little blue grey kitty. I always try and use these daily exercises for a greater purpose. Granted, sometime these types of commitments are tedious. Sometimes the commitment can be overwhelming. And sometimes, they can be mindless and dedicate fun. I try to use them as stepping blocks to further goals.

Today's assignment was an experiment in layering color. I am not a big fan of the color grey and of course, the Copic markers come with about 50 different shades of grey. I wanted to try and replicate the blue grey colorings of the "blues" shade of cat (and dogs) that is very popular today. I also wanted to experiment with "seal points" as found in my favorite breed of cat--the Siamese. The seal points were done in a darker shade of grey. The blue accents on the face were done with the same blue as the swirls on the bottom flower and then covered with a light grey shade.

The ears, nose and heart eyes were done differently-- the grey was layered first and then the pink was layered on top of the grey. The unlayered pink is shown on the tongue.

In closing, all daily creating can be useful. Use the time wisely if  you need but don't feel compelled to have meaning in these every day challenges.

Daily Coloring

I have already spoken of my love for the book above. In the post here I discussed how the pages worked with Copic markers and I mentioned that I wanted to see how the pages did with Prismacolor pencils and my Gamsol blending solution. I am really happy with the way the page turned out.

I liked the outer flowers better in that I used a different coloring/blending technique. For the solid red, solid orange and solid blue flowers, I blending the colors on the page and then added the blending solution. The color variations are slighter and less pronounced until you view them up close.

For the other four flowers (upper left and right, lower left and right) I didn't blend the color on the page. I colored concentric circles of color but only overlapped the colors a little. All of the blending occurred when I blended with the solution. The color variation is much more noticeable.

Now the question is do I color the background or not? I am thinking about doing an ombré effect.

Daily Coloring

For today, I wanted to share something a little different. This is a coloring page I designed using the Americana stencil called Oopsy Daisy. The page is smaller than the actual 12 by 12 stencil. I outlined the flowers using a Sharpie fine tip black marker. I used an extra fine tip Sharpie to fill in the the positive space with coloring guidelines. I call them coloring guidelines because the same motif is used for all of the petals of the same flower. If you look at the yellow flower on the center right of the coloring page, you will see that all of the coloring lines are vertical in orientation. With busy designs, this helps a person to identify which element goes with each other.

The page was filled with color using TomBow Dual Tip Markers. This page will be the basis of a separate project. I outlined the page on one day and then let it dry completely overnight. I added color on the second day.

I would have preferred to use my Copic markers but the alcohol in the markers makes the Sharpie outlines feather.

Daily Coloring

I realize that there are gaps in the coloring of some of these calendar pages. If you embiggen the image above, you will see there are some white spaces in the castle. The main reason this happens is that there is very low lighting at my current work station. I am in a temporary work station without good overhead lighting. So I never really know the real colors that have been used or if there are any missed areas until I get home and photograph the page. The situation should change in a week.

When you see pages without these little areas, it means that I colored the image at home with my full complement of markers.

Daily Coloring

 

Here is today's coloring assignment. It isn't something that I would normally color. Plus, I was limited by the markers that I had at work so it came out differently than I would have expected. Not that I'm not happy with it, but it is different.

Daily Coloring

I am participating in the 30 Day Coloring Challenge on Instagram. I almost feels like cheating since I was already planning on coloring every day in my Coloring a Day Calendar. Regardless, here is my coloring assignment for today.

Daily Coloring

This little elephant was so much fun to color. It's amazing what can happen when you color with the lights on.

Daily Coloring

This was an interesting coloring assignment. I didn’t have time to color at work because I was very busy. I got home and was so tired from my gym workout that I decided that I would wake up early and color in the morning and then post my assignment on the blog.

And then I got insomnia and couldn’t sleep. So I dragged myself out of bed and grabbed the first markers I could get my hands on—in this case, my TomBow dual tip markers. I have mentioned that there is a slight sheen/slight glossy finish to this paper. While that is good for Copic markers, the TomBow markers didn’t do as well. The ink pooled in some areas and streaked in others. There was absolutely no blending available and the colors didn’t layer either. And now, you know.

Daily Coloring

For today's coloring assignment, I wanted to challenge myself by only using four markers. I used a yellow, a green, a blue and an orange. For the background, I wanted to use a fifth marker but instead created my own layered color by first using the same yellow and then layering the orange on top. The goal was not to have any single color touching itself.

Daily Coloring

This little money was fun to color.

Daily Coloring

Since I shared the Weekly Coloring Assignment yesterday, I am sharing two daily coloring assignments today. The goal really is to color every page of this particular calendar. For January 8, I had a little mishap with my marker. For some reason, the ink decided to flow freely when I was coloring one of the outer circles in the center portion of the lotus flower. If you enlarge the picture, you can clearly see where it seeped out. To minimize the effect, I colored the center medallion the leaked color. After I colored everything else and when the center had plenty of time to dry, I colored the center star a dark grey.

I really enjoyed coloring this henna inspired piece. I don't exactly know why it is so satisfying but I keep staring at it and smile. I hope it makes you smile today as well.

Daily Coloring

I mentioned this book during the Coloring Across America Tour on Day Seven. On that occasion, I mentioned that I was going to revisit pages from the book using different media. Today, I wanted to see how Copic Markers would work on this paper.

I am very happy to report that Copic Markers were a perfect medium for this book. The paper takes the ink wonderfully. Because of the rag content of the paper, I don't think blending on the page would be very successful but layering colors worked amazingly well.

Each column of the image was colored using three shades of the same color family--a light, medium and dark tone. Each column was filled with the lightest shade first. The second element of each block was then colored with the medium shade and the third element was colored with the darkest shade. If there were more than three elements, the pattern was repeated until all elements within the block were completed. This continued for the first six columns.

For the remaining six columns, I started the same process with three different markers but within the same color families as the first six columns. The lightest was put down first. For the second element, the darkest shade was then applied followed by the medium shade on the third element. Like the first six columns, the pattern was repeated if there were more then three elements.

No markers were repeated so a total of 36 markers were used. This paper was such a pleasure to color and the geometric nature of the pattern made it fun. I think the next treatment will be Prismacolor colored pencils and blending solutions.

Daily Coloring

Another page from my coloring calendar. Those smudges were intentional I was trying to lift some ink from the page so that the glass cover would have some glare marks. Because the paper is so absorbent, the color had already set on the page and couldn't be lifted. At least I tried.

Daily Coloring

Another coloring page from my calendar.