Monday, December 6, 2010

Overcoming My Fear...

Ok, not a bad opening line, huh? Did I get your attention? Lol :) Fear never makes sense, after you've overcome it, does it?  My fear? Coloring my images in with bold colors. Completely silly and unrealistic. I just couldn't get over it no matter how hard I tried. I would always start coloring my images in with the best of intentions to "Go Bold Or Go Home" approach, but would always "pull back". I often envied others who could do it and make it look great. I have many, many people I look up to who love color and are not afraid of it. And though I tried to emulate them, but just couldn't get my images to look like theirs. So how did I conquer this stumbling block? It started innocently enough, I saw a challenge that Flourishes was featuring on their blog: Feature flowers in some way. Sounds innocent enough, right? So I found some flocked MME (My Mind's Eye) "Lush" paper in my stash that I wanted to use, and tried to find a flower stamp I had that I could use with it. I don't have many Flourishes flower stamps, but I kept going back to their "Sweet Pea" set. Not that I didn't like it, I just thought that Sweet Pea flowers are usually a light pink color and it would be too light for the paper I was using. After some thought, I realized that I was going to have to try to color it in darker then I normally would like to, so it would match the paper better. You may think, oh well, it's just pink, no big color deal :) But I love to paint things in realistically so this was a big artistic leap for me, as I would've colored it in much lighter then this :)
Sweetpea Birthday:




*This little decision kinda freed me and inspired me to create my next card I will be featuring at the bottom of this post.**
After stamping out the image, I cut it out with my craft knife and put it on popdots to elevate it off the paper. I sponged the background paper, under the flowers, in Versa Magic "Pixie Dust", for some color. When I colored the flowers in, I only used three Tombow markers: 772, 850 & 098. The pearls are from Prima and the hat pin is from a trip to Le Temple du Scrap in Paris. I hoard those pins like Crazy, I love them so much!! The flat pink ribbon is from My Favorite Things, and let me tell you, I wish I had bought more of that stuff, it's AMAZING! But since I bought it from their clearance bin, there are no more left. My favorite part of this card is the ruffled pink ribbon at the bottom. Would you believe I bought that from a Garage Sale? LOVE IT! It's really that intense pink, and I was worried that I wouldn't find any paper that bold  (I avoid bold colors remember), but I think it works great with this paper and this whole card look. I think I just got lucky, thank goodness for that :)


I love how this inside turned out with the corner brackets, from HOTP (Hot off the Press) "Corners & Medallions" set. I really think they add to the decorative element inside. The Happy Birthday is from Impression Obsession.
I really love how this card turned out, and I learned somethings along the way. I love cards like that! :)



As I mentioned, after making my "Sweetpea Birthday" card, I really wanted to explore coloring an image in with more color. I had a stamp, also from Flourishes, called "Winter Bouquet" that I thought would be perfect for this expirament. I had this tamp for 6 months but could not seem to color it in right. I realized that not only was I worried about the bold colors, I was also letting myself get hung up on the "right" & "wrong" colors to use on something. So to really do it "right' I had to let go of my issues of everything looking realistic, just paint and take a few artistic liberties along the way :)

That being said, this was a huge bear of a card that I made many mistakes on. I had this idea of making a black & white card with red accents. So guess what happens AFTER I'm done painting it all in? I find out that I Don't have any black & white paper... Lovely. I think the only out of place thing , here is, my use of black stamping ink because it was going to go with my black & white card theme. It doesn't look bad, but I think it would look better if it was stamped in Sepia. But that's just me trying to make it look real :)
Winter Bouquet:




I entered it in the Flourishes Winter challenges: use mostly white and feature a flower ( I mean lets make lemon aide out of oranges here ;).
I used my trusty Tombows and did very little blending, and matted the image in with a light rusty/cranberry CS. I embossed some Neenah "Solar White" paper with a Cuttlebug folder for some texture. I used my Classic Lace die from Spellbinders to make a fancy lace border, added some velvet rick-rack ribbon for more color on top of that, and added some Prima pearls for elegance.
A simple card to make that wasn't so simple to do :)


Who knew a simple challenge on a blog, could actually change my views on how I make my cards? What's silly is, is that I think it was necessary to go through. How else was I going to learn? :)

9 comments:

  1. Oh my, beautiful work! I would say that you have conquered your fear and then some! Keep going with it!

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  2. These are both beautiful! I LOVE Sweet Peas. I had a plant last summer that had several different colors of flowers. All pastel colored. It was beautiful! :)

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  3. Amanda, this is a lovely, lovely card! Your work is awesome, all of it, because I just spent some time here hanging out. I'm so glad that you commented on my coasters or else I would have never been able to see you blog and all of the beautiful work that you do.

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  4. The best way to grow is stretch..You really do the Flourishes stamps so much justice. That second image is hard to color and you aced it.. I love the look of the sweet peas..I just used that set this week.. Great job..:) pssst..you did not need to grow at all..:)

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  5. YOU are one talented lady no matter what color you use! GORGEOUS does not even begin to describe these beauties! Stunning....stunning cards, Amanda!

    I do understand your fear btw. I have this thing about button holes left nekked...what is up with that?

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  6. These are both beautiful..coloured softly or boldly! I find Copics so bright it's hard to colour softly. You do amazing work with Flourishes stamps...are you the only one who doesn't know that? We do!

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  7. I had to come over and read a little bit more about your coloring escapades. So glad I did! First of all, your Sweet Peas card is amazing! Whew! Funny thing...I would say how soft and delicate and feminine it is, when you describe it in bold colors. It's all in the eye of the artist and you, my friend, are an artist with some awe inspiring coloring skills! Love how you use those Tombows. Saw your Christmas Bouquet on SCS today and its gorgeousness is what prompted me to be sure and check here tonight. Got me thinking about the brown and black ink issue. I always used brown in the past. Maybe I'll revisit that. Have a great weekend!

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  8. Oh my Amanda, your Sweet Pea card is to die for.. might just be the prettiest sweet pea creation I've seen! WOWOWOWOWOW! (That's a lot of wows!) :-)

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Thank You For Your Kind Comments And Please Have A Wonderful Day!!