Pretties Wednesday

Well it hasn't been too pretty here lately. It's been raining outside and I've been stuck at home in bed SICK!!! Luckily I have the company of my lemon tea and honey, I think I've had 6 cups thus far today.

The week before CHA Joanne posted a sketch challenge to the Prettie Girls. I've been slightly obsessed with cupcakes lately (I've recently purchased 4 cupcake sets from various companies). So I decided I would use my new cupcake set from Hero Arts for this sketch. I learned a ton at CHA (especially at the Copic booth) so I chose to use my Brilliance black pad to stamp all the cherries and my copic markers for coloring. Normally, the cherries would be very bold but because I learned how to use my Colorless blender, I was able to pull color from the cherries to soften them up a bit and give them more of a watercolor feel.

Don't fear the Colorless blender ladies, just stamp some images on scrap paper, color them with your markers as normal and then use your blender to remove a little. The cherries were super easy because they are round and I've found the best way to "remove color" is in a circular motion. I also learned they are pronounced "CO-PICK", not "CAH-PICK" as I had been saying. Another tip is to use your color shades in threes. For instance, if you want browns to color dirt, sand, hair, coffee, etc then you should purchase in the same color coding (BV, B, Y, YR - color codings) and separate them by at least one digit. So E59-Walnut, E57-Light Walnut and E55-Light Camel. When coloring, you always start with the lightest color and work your way to the darker shades. If you want a more subtle effect, you would allow your first color shade to dry and then go over it again using the same color but just adding a bit more ink to certain areas.

I know this may sound confusing ladies but I assure you it's not. I'll try to work up some samples to show you later this week. Not feeling too creative at the moment, I just want my tea and some soup. ;)

Did you see Monday nights new Prettie release Look Who's Perky?!?! Here's one of the cards created by Charmaine, isn't it gorgeous?!? I don't even drink coffee but I have been drooling over this set since we first saw the sketches. Polka dot and striped coffee mugs?!?! Too cute!!!