Happy 2011 Everyone.....Hope your holidays were as enjoyable,restful,interesting &/or productive as mine....with an accent on the &/OR!
Will be doing catch-up on displaying here some the more interesting projects and exchanges I"ve been working on and been involved with these last few months for ATCS FOR ALL....STAY TUNED!
Here are the finished images
Baby Blue and
Luna looking Up
Compare them to their WIPS below to see the difference!
Hand-Colouring Home Printer Photos HOW-TO:
I printed out my own black-and-white photos to colour with Epson Durabrite inks on Epson Glossy Photo paper.....just de-saturate your coloured ones to turn them into black and white..
The pens and inks I used to hand colour were rated permanent, smudge and bleed-proof....and were they ever! ( Faber-Castell Pitt artist pens- use the brush tipped ones - and Staedtler Lumocolor pens , Pioneer Gel pens )
The TWO most important things I learned from doing these was:
1. DO NOT use pens DIRECTLY on Glossy Photo paper.....it looks awful, frankly.......covers all the shadows and gradations of tone up!
The exception is gel pens, which add nice highlights here and there ( see car chrome and cat's whiskers )
2. Instead USE a damp -not wet - flat sable brush to transfer inks from the tips of your pens TO the paper surface
EASY , no?
I have uploaded both the experimental first WIP set and the final work to compare and see the real difference those TWO little easy steps make !
Quan Yin - The Chinese Buddhist Goddess of Compassion is one of 4 cards created for the WATER elements exchange on ATCS FOR ALL.
Patroness of Fishermen, she is sometimes seen standing on water over a lotus- symbol of purity- and a protective dragon-or overcome sea serpent - about her....she is also seen depicted carrying either a vase of merciful water to pour out to those in need , or a willow branch.
Digital design of about 9 layers
I haven't written here, but I have been busy creating art!
The other cards in these exchanges - usually 3 different out for 3 back - can be seen over on my ATC"sFOR ALL Gallery page
Some methods:
Constellations were done on coated scratchboard paper with cp and gel pens...found the surface is so slick anything used to colour photographs ( like Marshall's photo cps ) works on that surface very nicely!
Tried "scraping" first and found it not my forte'!
The Tiffany lamp postage stamp was built around a last century French fashion illustration, with added collaged elements
The "Apple twins" are a face doubled and cut out. Image courtesy of WACKY STUFF , of FLICKER.
The "Nuptial Visit" is a PD Theatre image I collaged over a water-coloured background over which I embossed feather shapes with cp for the wall-paper.
"The Newfangled Invention " actually WAS an invention...!!
I placed it in the early 1900s, but it actually was invented in the early 1930's...the inventor remains a Frenchman, but with his HEAD SWAPPED for a more EDWARDIAN-looking fellow, following STEAMPUNK- period"conventions"
Three pictures were combined and layered to make it , and I decided designing it to look like an old studio photo of the period would be fun!
