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Color Pencil Tips- creating an illusion of a white dog
I found a super cute digi stamp of a curly haired pup. It reminds me of my girl friend's dog, so I wanted to use it for a card. The only snag is that the dog is creamy white. Does anyone have any tips for coloring in an off white, cartoon style stamp??
You can use gentle shading in a cream colour , tan, or grey where the shadows are. I did this card just before Christmas with polar bears using this technique.
I used Copics on this image, but the technique will work for pencil crayons as well.
I'd have said the same as cat_woman - a white thing is defined as much by the bits that are not white so the shading around the edges is probably the thing to concentrate on. Of course, you could also use a white pencil on coloured cardstock for the main part of the dog. I don't have an animal example I can show you but here's a snowman I did a couple of years ago! The white pencil is shaded at the edges of the snowman with grey. I particularly like the look of coloured pencils on kraft but I guess it depends on the type of card you're making.
do you have any tips on where to place the coloring??
I always try to imagine the image in 3D, and then pick a direction for the light source. You can then see (imagine) where the shadows would fall. I also usually put shading along any seams or where two things touch each other. Hopefully, that makes sense.
aww, thanks ladies. I wish I had paid better attention in art class, I feel like i should know a lot of this stuff.... but, I suppose I forgot much of it.
I think it is very cute! I recently learned a technique which may or may not really work in your application. Take an embossing tool - a small round tipped tool and use it to emboss the white hairs. When you color it, the embossed lines will stay white (as long as you have used white paper). You can also use a totally dried out ballpoint pen which has absolutely no ink.
Here is an example using darker colors but it can also be done using any color. I found this an interesting technique
I think your shaded puppy looks GREAT!! That's a darling image. Where did you get it? It looks like it could be used for a friend of mine who loves Westies and has a couple. I love hearing everyone's tips on shading white. Thanks for the images!!!
thanks for the link. That sounds like such a neat idea. I have a couple friends with those Water Dog's, like the one Obam,a has... anyway, that would probably be awesome to use for a super curly animal like that too!
Addicted to Stamping, he cam from Michelle Perkett on Etsy.
Thanks for the link to Michelle Perkett too. She has cute stuff. I think the dog would definitely work for a Portugese Water dog. I can't wait to try to pencil/depressed lines thing either. That's also a great link. I think trying to show subtle white/gray can be hard but I learned a lot here.
I knew that little doggie looked familiar. I love Michelle Perkett's stuff. I try to get any freebie she puts up. And Birds Cards also has some great freebies too. I like getting her cutting files when she puts up a new one.
Jovian7, thanks for the tip about embossing the area to give it some texture and dimension. I'll have to remember that. I think it would certainly add a lot to an image.
Here are couple more interesting posts on this topic.... they are geared to marker users, but the illustrations are helpful for me. (these help the visual learner in me. )
Color Pencil Tips- creating an illusion of a white dog
