Wondering where to start coloring your sunset?  You may want to start by looking at photos of sunsets.  You might be surprised by the colors.  Barbara has a fabulous description of how she did her card, which really got me thinking.  You may want to think about objects in silhouette – like this tutorial by Marianne Walker.

Have you thought about Brayer?  Wondering what Brayer is – check out this Wikipedia article.  Beccy has this great tip: Brayer colour lightly onto card.  Then, using a wet paintbrush, take off colour where you want your clouds. Dry with paper towel. Rebrayer the same colours to give clouds hint of colour, then lightly add some darker colour to the cloud with paint brush.  Dry with paper towel.

Sandie found this amazing video.  Definitely an inspiration for coloring sunsets!

We hope that gets you started.  Remember everyone starts somewhere.  If you need some feedback or help, hop over to the Make It Crafty Facebook group.

Happy Colouring!

Jen

There are all sorts of ways to add a little grounding to your favorite image – grass, sidewalks, stone.

Did you see the fantastic sidewalk Barbara created for Zoe to jump?  Here’s a tip for making your own: For a sidewalk, draw a horizontal line behind the image at the height anywhere between mid-calf and the upper part of the foot. Then draw the slanted lines along the width at about 1″ apart. Finally color the sidewalk and add some grass along the edges to complete the look.

Carole has a great tip on her blog for creating a little grassy spot for your friend.  Debbie’s floor is created by blending several markers in the E family – just perfect for Dad.

Marianne Walker has great tutorials on creating pebbles on the ground and drawing grass.

Happy Colouring!

Jen

So does the idea of coloring something to look wet have you quaking in your craft chair, too?  I have some helpful tips for you to get you started.

Debs has a great tutorial on her blog.

Debbie has these helpful tips from making her card: “I added dashed of blue to indicate rain, made the “dirt” dark like it is when it gets wet and added a light colour to the top of the cobblestones to make it appear as if the sky was reflecting off the surface of the wet rocks.”

Barbara provided helpful details that helped me try my first water drop: “For the water droplets on the raincoat, I used the white gel pen first and applied my raindrops. Then when that was dry I used my darkest yellow color from the raincoat (in my case Y26) and gave them the shadow. The gel pen resists the marker a little so it was easier to get a fine line. Some of the larger ones I added a medium yellow (Y15) on the white to help blend it. And in areas that I messed up I was able to go back in with the white and cover it up. Since this image I’ve been brave enough to go back in and add more.”

Don’t forget, this is a coloring challenge – no gloss.  Don’t be afraid to join in, even if it’s your first time.  You can post on the Facebook group if you need a little help.

Happy Colouring!

Jen

As with many of our color focused challenge, the trick to coloring with pink is finding a color palette that you like.  Here are some from the MIC DT:

RV00, RV21, RV23

RV00 and RV0000 with R81 and R83

R85, R83, R81.  If you want to go paler use R83, R81 with the blender pen to pick up from R81 to create the 3rd colour

To achieve Maria’s fabulous pink shirt, try RV00, RV09, RV13, RV14 and RV21.

What’s your favorite pink color combo?

Happy Colouring!

Jen

For me, the key to getting started on this challenge was figuring out what colors to start with.  If you scroll down, the DT cards list some helpful Copic colors.  Marianne Walker has two helpful tutorials on skin colors and coloring skin.  Dorcas has a great tutorial on coloring skin with Prisma pencils.  Passion for Promarkers has a tutorial for coloring dark skin with Promarkers. Well, I think that covers many of the coloring mediums.

If you have tips and tricks for coloring dark skin, we’d love for you to leave them in the comments.

Happy Coloring!

Jen

This week’s challenge is to color your own embellishments.  Sheila prepared this great tutorial on coloring your own glitter.

I used this tutorial on coloring your own baker’s twine.  Another tip is to change the colour of your mats as well as your embellies with your coloring medium.  When coloring your non-porous embellishments, if you don’t like the colour you used, you can use the blender pen or blender ink from a refill to wipe off the old colour and apply a new one.  With glitter, twine, and white flowers colored to match, you’re card will be all decked out!

The MIC DT had some other useful hints flying around this week that I want to share with you:

If you mess up on an image that is almost finished, don’t worry!  You can color that portion on a new image and cut it out, then paper piece it onto your first image.  If your  Copics need a little TLC after coloring your embellishments, you might find Debbie’s tutorial on cleaning Copic nibs helpful.

Happy Colouring!

Jen

I looked high and low for hair tutorials that weren’t brown, black, blonde…and I found one.  Marianne Walker has a great one for lavender streaks.  You can get some great inspiration by searching for images with “coloring manga hair” and the color that you like.  So what unusual colors are you thinking of?  Purple, pink, turquoise, green…

Since I was on vacation, I didn’t get my card done in time for the challenge post.  I chose purple hair.

Mermaid Miranda from Tiddly Inks

Maritime Abode from Make It Crafty

I’ll leave you with this – what is the most unusual color you’ve had your hair?  I haven’t gone very far – just auburn from my usual brown.

Happy Colouring!

Jen

When you set out to color with blue, you may be like me and daunted by all the choices.  Here are some tips and tricks to get you started:

• Mixing in the gray colors can help change the tone of blue you are looking for or give more shadows. The Cool (C) and Neutral (N) gray colors which work the best when blending with the blues.
• Blue-green shades are great for water; a bit of dark blue brings in some shadows, and is also good to help give the look of deeper water further away from the coastline.
• Suzanne Dean has a new video with a pretty blue ballerina dress.
• For jeans/denim, try B91, B95, and B97.

Happy Colouring!

Jen

So you may be asking yourself – why yellow and purple?  Turns out yellow and purple are complimentary colors.  They’re on opposite sides of the color wheel and work really well together.

If you’re having a hard time with this challenge, and take my word for it, so did many of the DT members, the best place to start may be looking at the colors that the DT used on their cards.  They’re listed in the challenge post for convenience and you can visit the DT’s blogs to get details.  Barbara has given us a great tip: “I think softer or dull yellows work better with the brighter purples and visa verse. For a more vibrant purple, try adding the fluorescent FV2 in with your shadows.”

Marianne Walker has a great post on feather blending yellow and purple.  Our own, Annika, has a wonderful video featuring coloring with yellow and purple.

So, get out your Y’s, your V’s, your YR’s, and your BV’s and start playing!  We look forward to seeing your work in the challenge.

Happy Colouring!

Jen