Going Green

Hello Everyone and welcome to another Inspire Me Monday with yours truly, Kathy Jones! Today's tutorial is looking at greens - in particular colouring leaves! Anyone who has followed my work would know how much I love colouring floral images, so of course leaves are an essential piece of this. Let's take a peek at our finished piece!




Time to get started! Begin by stamping your image - I've used Simply Camellias by Power Poppy - in Memento Tuxedo Black onto X-press It Blending Card.

In the Copic family there is a huge selection of greens to choose!  Whether you want soft spring greens, deep greens, bold and bright greens or muted grey-greens, you will find a great combination to suit your project.  Today, I've used what would probably be my favourite green combination - G40, G43, G46, G99.  I just love the hues of this combo!

Lay down the base colour of G40.....

Then add some detail using the next darkest colour, in this case G43, particularly along the veins of the leaves......

Deepen the shadow areas with G46 (make sure you get on the underside of the leaves that would be blocked from the light)......

Go back with your next lightest colour (G43) and flick out from where you've added the G46.....

Then lightly go back with G40 (your lightest colour) over the edges of your previously coloured parts.  You don't have to colour over the entire leaf, the parts that you leave will stay light which will give you more contrast and interest.  You can repeat these last two steps until you are happy with the result.

When you blend with your lighter colours, you sometimes loose the depth from your darkest colour, so go back to add the contrast - I like to use G99 to really add some interest.

Then to make your leaves look a little less 'perfect' add a touch of E21 to parts of the leaves (it doesn't have to be much).  I really like the effect this gives.

Finish colouring your image in your preferred colours!!

I've used......
Flower - R00, R11, R12, R14, Y17
Bowl - C1, B0000, B000
Leaves - G40, G43, G46, G99, E21

Create your card!  You can find more details about how I made the card itself on my blog.

Hope you've enjoyed today's tutorial and you're inspired to colour some beautiful foliage yourself!!

Happy colouring!!

~Kathy