Tutorial - Colouring on Kraft paper with Prismacolor pencils

Hi Guys,

I thought for my Quixotic Paperie post today I would show you a simple tutorial on colouring on Kraft paper with prismacolor pencils.

Now be gentle with me.......this is my first time doing a  colouring tutorial on my blog! I also feel that it might be improved by doing a video rather than a series of pictures but bear with me and I might get brave enough to do that one day!!

So I used as my image the 'Little Dreamer' from The Greeting Farm available from Quixotic Paperie. You can also now buy your Kraft cardstock direct from Quixotic Paperie here.

Now colouring with pencils on Kraft gives a very vibrant colour and leaves a soft effect almost like using pastels. I rarely use Mineral Spirits for blending when working on Kraft. Instead I use my lightest pencil to do the blending work for me. I will explain as I go along!

 Step 1:
Stamp your image onto Kraft paper/card stock.  I like to begin with colouring with my lightest colour pencil. That is simply my preference. I feel that more colour can always be added....but it is much harder to take it away!  I am risk averse...so I start with the colour that is least likely to go wrong! So for this image I started with 'Beige' and coloured where I thought the highlights in her hair would land. In this instance I chose my light source to be coming directly at the back of her hair...not from the side. Don't forget to add little highlights with the 'Beige' on her pig tails!

 Step 2:
I took the darkest brown colour for her hair 'Dark Umber' and then added where the deepest shadows would fall on her hair

 Step 3:
To blend the darkest and lightest browns I took a middle shade of brown to blend them both together. I used 'Light Umber'. I blended with linear strokes (rather than circular) to give the hair some texture.  I did not want it to appear totally smooth.

 Step 4:
Finally for the last step in colouring the hair I took the 'Black' pencil and added a small amount to the very darkest places of her hair, for example, the parting of her hair and where the pigtails begin.

 Step 5:
I wanted to give her some ground to sit on so I used 3 shades of 'Cool Grey' to achieve this. I started with the lightest 'Cool Grey'. I then added a smaller amount of 'Cool Grey 70%', then finally just under her bottom where she is sitting I added the darkest shade of  'Cool Grey 90%'.

 Step 6:
  We are now going to add the reds for the strawberry and her hair bow and her skirt. I picked out 3 shades again to work with ; Blush Pink, Scarlet Lake, Tuscan Red (shown in the corner of the photo).  Add your pink  (lightest shade) first to the areas that would be lightest, the centre of the strawberry, the tips of the hair bows and the sections of her skirt. Then add the Scarlet Lake and finally the Tuscan Red to the deepest shadows. Blend them all togther with your lightest shade: Blush Pink. Go back and add more shadows to the darkest areas if you feel it is necessary.

 

Step 7: Finally colour the reamining areas of the image with your 3 brown shades that we used for the hair : Beige, Light Umber and Dark Umber. Start with the lighest colour and add to the centre of the rucksack, then add the Dark Umber to the edges of the rucksack and finally blend them all together with your mid brown colour.

Thank you for bearing with me so far. I appreciate this is a lot of text to read. I hope the photos show clearly how I acheived each step of the image. If you have any questions please ask and I will attempt to answer them.

I have not had the time to make this image into a card...but as they say 'It will be coming to a blog near you soon!'

Thanks for your visit today!

Judy x