Most of my colouring in the past has been done with Promarkers, and it's only very occasionally I produce something I'm happy with. However, I finally invested in some coloured pencils, and I bought the Prismacolor ones, as they were mid-range price wise, and supposed to be quite good, and also because I'd bought, and been bought, some colouring books, and the Promarkers usually tend to bleed through, where pencils won't do that. So anyway, I've been stamping out some images, and using them for practice over the last few months.
I watched a few You Tube videos on using them, and gradually a few things dawned on me that have helped me be less critical of what I've done. I'll list them here, in case they help someone else.
The first, and probably the most obvious is You are NOT going to be an expert the first time you pick up a pencil! Sounds obvious, but watching videos, and seeing examples of work others have done, and not being able to duplicate what I was seeing was making it stressful, until it finally clicked with me that they've been doing this for a long time, and probably struggled in the beginning too. It's all that practice helps them make it look so easy.Second- I try to work too fast. I forget that the videos I'm watching have probably been sped up somewhat. So, slowing down is a key factor.
Third, it really is all down to trial & error, and practice, practice, practice! Just keep reminding myself it's only cardstock & ink.
Finally- lightness of hand! This is a biggie. Not to try to lay down a solid patch of heavy colour in one go. Take time, and layer colour to get the depth you want. And don't worry too much about shadow at the start. So I selected some cardstock to matt them on, and die cut the images with either oval or rectangle dies. A couple have some stamping on the base card, and another three have backing paper from various pads. When they were mounted, I added some acrylic gems for a bit of bling.
I die cut some small strips for the sentiment, using a die set meant for cutting slider strips on cards. That's a tip I picked up from Jennifer McGuire. You get quite an assortment of lengths, and is by Honey Bee Stamps, called Straight Interactive Sliders. I got them from Bumbleberry Papercrafts.
The strips I cut from the same card as the matt.
I used some small Peel Off sentiments on them, they're something else I'm gradually trying to use up. Back when I started making cards & stamping, everything was wood mounted, Barbara Gray was just about introducing the concept of clear stamps. Anyway, that meant that a single sentiment stamp was quite an expensive thing, so I bought a lot of peel offs to cover all the sentiments I'd want to be able to use. Of course now it's much easier, we can buy some great selections of sentiment clear stamps, and I do now have a lot, so the peel off stash hasn't had much use in recent years.
I know that the Gorjuss Girls, with their lack of nose & mouth are not everyones taste, but they are weird enough to please me,lol.
