Coloring An Image and Creating a Card from A to Z

Hello my lovely crafty friends; It's me Sharette and I am back to share how I create a card from start to finish. or (A-Z) I have a lot to go through so I am going to just jump right in.

First up weather it's a 'rubber, clear or digi items, I like to stamp my images on a sheet of card stock a few times, just in case I mess up or if I want to try out more than one hair color or technique; especially if it's a new stamp or the first time I am inking or printing it out.  So here is my image that I stamped on a card stock. This was the first time I inked up "Anya Styles" from The Greeting Farm. so I filled up my page with her. I LOVE this image. She has gorgeous Big Hair with lots of layres and curls. I wanted to really follow the layers and waves in her hair so it took me a few try to get it just right. (or at least something I am happy with.  (As you can see I left one just 'stamped' so that you can see what she looks like with out any coloring.

 So for this Tutorial I am going to work with the blank image, I am going to show you step by step how I color my image and put my card together. I wont show you EVERY SINGLE details, but just the basic of what I do.  First thing I do is to color her skin. I used my Prisma colored pencils and OMS. Skin: 1080,945,946, Cheeks( 928, 1031
Edited 7/25/13: I had a comment left for me that was very informative: For those that are first time colors or are not familiar with some of the terms that I am using: OMS (Oder less Mineral Spirits) I purchase these items in the Art section of my local Michael's ..paper stump is just that: A piece of tightly wrapped paper that you use for blending your colors. IF you click on the side bar to my blog I have several tutorial that explains and shows what these items are.. Great Feed Back :))) Thank you!!

 Here she is after I colored her up.. Now the next step is to move on to her hair. I colored all the other 4 images with black hair, but for this one I went with  "Dark Brown": 948,947,1099,946

As I said before  you can see she has "big gorgeous hair with lots of layer and curls to it.. So it's just to pull out those layers. I use the "short stroke and flicking technique"  when laying down my hair, so that you get the look of 'hair stands'. starting with my 'darkest color first,  I lay down my strands of hair; then I go back again with second darkest, then the lighter color and then the lightest color. Now a lot of tutorial with Prisma and OMS will tell you to start blending your first layer with your OMS. and  paper stump, and then go back and add the other colors and then blend again, and so on.!! . I use to color my hair just like that, but the more I practice and tried different techniques. I personally like to add All my colors and layers "First" before I go to my OMS and paper stump  to melt and blend the colors.

 Here is what she looks like after I applied all of my colors that I have listed. For the ends and rootsI went darker because usually those areas are darker. You can already see where the lights are going to hit and where the shadows are going to be darker.

 Once I have layered all my colors I then used my OMS and paper stump to blend and melt my colors together. Now! I am not any way finish, Again I want her to have "dark brown hair". So I need to go back and follow the same steps again. using my darker pencils.

 A good "TIP" to remember is that if you want to have your 'highlights to stand out, then go 'darker" in the roots, folds, and ends. So I use my two darkest color and just continue to go over my layers until I reached my desired look. and at this point I don't need to go back over with my OMS and paper stump because the colors have already melted nicely so when I put a darker color using my short flicking strokes,  it really gives the illusion of real hair.

 And here She is all colored up. As you can see here hair is a nice shade of dark brown, you can see her 'highlights', and her roots and ends are just a bit darker.  Jacket: 918,118,1032, Boots and Belt: 997,941,1082, 918,118 Skirt: 1004,989,1005,912 Bag: 918,118,1032,946 and her Phone: 915,916 and some glitter for a little bling!

 What I will do know is to cut out the image that I am going to use, and I keep notes of all the colors and techniques and style that I used so that if I need to reference back to it later I have it already to go.

I couldn't go with out showing you my card that I made. This was a Birthday card I made for my Daughter. Her favorite color is yellow.. So that was the reason I have two of them colored up almost the same, the first one was me just testing out my color combo on my sheet (#3, top right)

 Here She is in her Yellow:  Hair: 935,1056,1054. Jacket: 915,916,942,1034, Boots: 916,942,1034,1020, Skirt: 1021,1061, Bag: 997,941,1082 and Phone: 1038 (hot pink and glitter)

Here is my supplies I used for my card.: Card stock: PTI, DP: My Minds Eye "Life of the Party" stickers "Recollections from Michael's

 Here is the completed card. Sentiment is apart of the stamp set. I just stamped it with some Memento "Rich Cocoa, my ATG tape glider and pop dots to  complete my card.

and here is the Inside of my card. 

I hope that you all have enjoyed my little A-Z of creating a card, If you have any questions or comments I would love to hear from you. I know that many of u are addicted to your "Copics" But I started with my Pencils and I have grown to love them more and more everyday.. So instead of trying to name all of the colors that I used I have attached a  link to a "Prisma Color Chart".. It's one of my most important tool in my coloring arsenal. I have it taped to the side of one my my cubes on my desk so that I can refer to it any time I need to. I found a few of them by searching the net..Here is a great chart that you can down load and print.

Happy Scrapping,

Sharette