Artist’s Notebook: Don’t Be Afraid of Oversized Coloring Projects

I love to color big projects using Copic Markers and colored pencils. To work at 8.5" x 11” or larger, I expand the size of my digital stamps to just barely fit on the largest paper my printer can handle. An oversized project allows me space to color the same way I would paint, with lots of detail and realism.

This is what I call Artistic Coloring and it’s extremely rewarding.

But what I notice when I first introduce students to oversized projects is oversized nervousness.

“Oh my, it’s gigantic! How am I supposed to color all that space? This will take forever!”

Relax, artistic coloring does require more time than quick and easy card fronts.

But that’s not a bad thing!

Hello, my name is Amy Shulke and I’m the illustrator and art instructor over at VanillaArts.com. Today I’d like to give you a few tips to make large size projects feel less intimidating.

In the past few months, we’ve explored how Artistic Coloring differs from traditional coloring for cards and how to take the first step to adding artistry to your projects.

But there’s still a time hurdle that discourages people from using their Power Poppy digital stamps for large scale realistic & artistic marker paintings.

Let’s eliminate the fear of time.

Because often, it’s not the size of the project that’s scaring you away, it’s your mental misconceptions about Artistic Coloring.

1. Working slow is good for your soul

We live in a world of overnight shipping, pocket internet, and instant texts.

Fast, fast, fast.

And because most colorers come to coloring from the card making world, you’re used to cranking out a handful of handmade cards on a Saturday afternoon.

C’mon, you know you’re a sucker for tuts marked Quick & Easy, Simple, and One Layer.

But there is joy in deeper coloring.

Coloring becomes less a hobby and more of personal journey when you take your time. When you explore your coloring images deeper, you also start to explore the depths of your heart and mind. Artistic coloring is introspective, soothing, and even zen. It’s yoga for your hands and restorative for your brain.

Discovery and self exploration are what’s missing from Tuesday Tut-a-thons and the lack of meaning is why most colorers quit coloring when a new crafty fad hits.

If you never dig deeper into the coloring process, you’re going to find yourself tying macrame’ or tole painting pepper shakers this time next year. Think back and count the crafts you did before you found your way to stamp coloring. It’s a lot, right? You must have something more valuable than trio-blending a pink piglet in a party hat to keep you coloring long term.

Speed techniques and 20 minute cards burn you out quickly.

Slow coloring feeds you for a lifetime.

2. The joy of detail

One of the reasons why I love working with Power Poppy is the same reason why you’re a fan of Power Poppy too:

We love detail.

Power Poppy florals are chock-full of petals, leaves, berries, birds, butterflies, and little hidden details that make us smile. We’re definitely not the kind of people that refuse to color any stamp with more than three shapes in it.

But let’s be honest: far too often you stamp in black and let Marcella handle all the pesky bits for you.

Maybe you put a pretty watercolor wash behind the petals. Or you hit only the important items with a pop of color. But most of the time, if someone were to erase the black stamp lines leaving just your color on the page, it would look like a wonky color blob.

Which is strange to me, because the joy you get from letting your eye wander across a beautifully detailed stamp is less than a tenth of the pride you feel when you color all of those details yourself.

“I did that!” is an amazing feeling!

For my Annabella’s Heart online artistic coloring class, we use the new expansion pack for the Follow Your Heart set. There are now three new heart challenges to choose from and each one is perfect for detail coloring.

Marcella draws shapes clearly and then gives you tons of little clues for texture and shadow within the shapes. Power Poppy stamps are an easy, stress-free way to savor the detail coloring process.

But you won't have room for the magical details if you don't print the digital stamps larger than card size and we won't see your details unless you print the digi in pale gray.

Trust yourself.

Some people don’t have the patience for small detail but for those of us who love little bugs on little leaves… we were born to color long and slow!

3. Complex doesn’t have to be hard

Okay, I’ll admit that I lost count somewhere after the 50th petal. There are a lot of petals here to color.

But as I said in the last point, we’re here at Power Poppy because we love this kind of complex stamp. Most people would take one look at it and bleep. “I can’t do that!”

That’s where you’re wrong. This is NOT an advanced project.

One petal.

If you can color one petal, you can color this stamp. It’s the same petal over and over and over and over and over and…

There’s a difference between complex and difficult.

When something is difficult, you physically have problems completing the task. You can’t perform at the level demanded; you’re unable to complete the project.

That’s different than a job with lots of simple little things to do.

Don’t let your first impression of a stamp turn you off. Don’t let the petal count dissuade you from trying something that’s actually a ton of fun.

Lots of easy looks complicated but it’s never hard.

4. Watch your style evolve

We’ve been marking our kid’s height inside a kitchen doorway since they were old enough to stand upright without tumbling over. My 6 foot tall son doesn’t remember being short, but we have proof.

Long slow projects like this hydrangea heart are growth charts. I’m not the same artist I was when I started and I can see that here.

I started coloring at the point of the heart. I worked my way counterclockwise around the outside edge. I did the interior large florets last.

And there’s an obvious difference between my first petal and my last.

As you color big images, you get more efficient. You also discover things that look great, you stop repeating mistakes, and you learn to color better and better.

Repetitive images are strangely addicting. It’s fun to make your way back to the beginning and see how your coloring has evolved, grown, and improved.

I don’t remember being clumsy but I was.

Long slow coloring images are practice exercises but they’re far more rewarding than a page full of practice strokes. Don’t ask me to blend a row of squares and then shade a row of circles; I’d quit after two of each.

But I could color flower petals for years and still find new things to explore.

5. It’s okay to get bored

A lot of people look at large coloring images or the ones with lots of fiddly components and think: “how am I supposed to get that done this afternoon?”

Whoa. Back up there, lil' doggie.

Who says you’re supposed start and finish today?

I worked on Annabelle’s Heart over five days. The background in one sitting, shadows in another session. Then the florets over the next four days. A little bit here, a little bit there. Do some now, come back later…

Otherwise, I’d go nuts.

I know the romantic version of an artist is someone locked in their Paris flat painting for six days straight.

But seriously, that’s crazy. Marathons are for runners, not artists. There’s no prize for finishing it all in one sitting.

Take your time, take breaks, go do something else, live your life!

When your mind starts to wander, that’s natures little way of encouraging you to take a walk, grab lunch, and go be normal for a while.

It’s natural to get bored after the 10th petal. It’s good to stop and come back later.

The good stuff? It takes more time to color. That’s how it gets good.

So here’s my Artist’s Notebook challenge for you this month...

Try coloring a Power Poppy stamp that has previously scared you.

Maybe it’s a complex stamp with six different kinds of flowers in it.

Or maybe it’s one of the simpler, single blossom images but you’ve always wanted to try it larger and color the details yourself.

Long slow coloring is a great way to learn and grow PLUS expanded length projects also feed your spirit and allow you to express your unique self.

Set aside the artificial deadlines and stop talking yourself out of big projects.

You can do this!

Want to color Power Poppy’s Follow Your Heart with me? 

Remember, this Hydrangea version is part of the new update to the original stamp pack, don't miss it!

My Annabelle’s Heart class is part of the Vanilla Livestream series for intermediate to advanced Copic colorers. This lesson covers the visual planes concept and shows you how to maximize dimension on three different levels using just our beginner level Push & Pull technique.

You can find out more about Vanilla Livestream classes here.

And I’ll see you back here next month for another glance into my Artist’s Notebook!

Previous Artist's Notebook articles:

The Secret to Eye Popping Color Palettes

Blessed with Color!

What is Artistic Coloring?
Add Realistic Texture

The Artist's Notebook: What is Artistic Coloring?

Psssttt… Confession time: I spend a lot of time doing something without a name.

Yep, I spend hours coloring highly detailed projects with Copic Markers and colored pencils. They’re little paintings. Lots of other people do it too— some working with digital stamps and others with their own original line art.

You’d think there’d be a name for this… Hobby? Pastime? Obsession?

When I tell people I teach coloring classes, it doesn’t feel right. Strangers assume I mean card making or coloring books. But I’ve never made a card in my life and I haven’t owned a coloring book since grade school.

So I started telling people I teach painting classes, which feels a lot more accurate, except that it started freaking out the students. "Who, me? I’m doing what?”

For want of a better term, I call it: Artistic Coloring.

Hello, my name is Amy Shulke and I’m the illustrator and art instructor over at VanillaArts.com. Today I’d like to show you behind the scenes of my latest coloring project, All is Bright.

Hopefully, we can better define Artistic Coloring. It’s a sub-niche of something fine-artsy, almost like watercolor but crossed with illustration, the step-child of paper crafting, and cousins to card makers and art journaling… whew!

What would you call it?

See? We’re the Duckbilled Platypus of the coloring world. And hey, maybe you’ll want to join us!

1. Artistic Coloring is larger than most coloring projects.

As I said, I’m not a card maker. Die cuts and glitter powders? That’s some strange voodoo stuff.  When I do see cards, I’m always amazed at how people color such cute little itty-bitty teeny-tiny stamps.

We work large.

For All is Bright, I printed Power Poppy’s Snowy Church digital stamp large enough to fill a full sheet of 8.5 x 11” Bazzill cardstock. If I was teaching this for a retreat, I would use my oversized printer to fill a sheet of 18 x 24” Cryogen Cardstock. In artistic coloring, the size of your project is limited only by the size of your printer.

We use digital stamps or original line drawings because cling and clear stamps are not large enough to accommodate the shaping and details we add. Power Poppy digis are perfect for us!

We go big.

2. Artistic Coloring relies on photo references and observation

I've noticed that Copic fans enjoy the marker techniques-- blending, smooshing, pointillism. They're in love the physical process.

Meanwhile Artistic Colorers are in it for something a little harder to describe.

They notice more nuanced color when they look at the world around them. More than shaded edges and single light sources. They want to incorporate what they see into their coloring projects.

They’re flirting with the concepts of realism.

So we use photo references rather than tutorials. Students learn to color what they observe rather than following step by step instructions.

The cool thing about using photo references is that you can color Snowy Church many times in hundreds of variations. It wouldn’t be hard to remove the snow and add a glorious burst of apple blossoms and green grass to the image. Add a northern lakeshore or a field of sleeping sheep. It could be sunrise or sunset if we wanted.

With photo references to guide your coloring, you can color anything!

3. Artistic Coloring takes longer

If you'll allow a little snark, I’d say Artistic Coloring is basically overthinking the simple stuff and taking hours to color what most people do in five minutes.

But it’s fun!

The images are larger, so they take longer to color. And we add lots of detail which slows us down even more.

All is Bright took me about six hours to color, spread out over four days. I also spent a couple hours in the pre-planning stages, hunting down a great photo reference and testing out possible color palettes.

But it was fun.

So much fun!

4. Artistic Coloring uses mixed media

• Copic Markers provide intense and vibrant color, but it’s hard to color thin window frames with a big fat marker.

• Technical pens are great for crisp texture and moderate detail but they’re too small to color a whole pine tree.

• Colored pencils make beautiful highlights and subtle color gradations but they’re painfully slow, especially on nighttime backgrounds.

• Colorful paper can add a beautiful smooth background but that same color can dampen the vibrancy of your markers, pens, and pencils. It's hard to glow on cool colored paper!

There isn’t one medium that works best for everything. Artistic Colorers don’t mind. We pick and choose based upon the needs of the day.

5. Artistic Colorers blend but they don’t use blending combinations

Remember when I said that Artistic Colorers view color differently than most colorers?

A traditional Copic Marker tutorial might instruct you to use three different piney greens on the trees here— a light, medium, and dark green. That’s a standard Copic blending combination.

But Artistic Colorers look at shaded green and we don’t see more green in the recesses and niches, we see less green. Most of the time, Copic doesn’t even make the murky shady colors we see. We’re the group that says “G99 isn’t dark enough!”

The trees here were colored with a magenta marker layered with a green marker. The unusual mix of pink under green is called Complimentary Underpainting. Pink and green are opposites on the color wheel and together, they make the realistic muddy color that you’ll find in the shady crevices of a pine tree.

To see more unusual Copic underpaint colors, see the Vanilla Undercover series here.

6. Here’s the best part - Artistic Coloring does not require special skills to start!

I’ve mentioned many artsy words today like scale, value, and underpainting but the really cool thing about Artistic Coloring is that unlike a lot of drawing and painting classes, you don’t need any skills or talent before you start.

We use digital stamps, so there’s no drawing involved.

Most students start Artistic Coloring classes with little more than a few Copics and the desire to use them differently. It's strange, but if you walk in the door with years of coloring experience, you spend a lot of time unlearning before you start learning.

I'll be honest, my All is Bright online class is an advanced coloring lesson. It's not an entry level project. But every student in the Vanilla Livestream system started as a beginner and within a year worked their way up to this kind of challenge.

This is totally doable. You can learn to do this!

So here’s my Artist’s Notebook challenge for you this month...

But maybe it’s something you’ll want to think about into the upcoming new year.

Artistic Coloring is something that you absolutely, positively can do.

You must be willing to work larger, on projects that take longer, and with less supervision and demonstration to guide your way.

But for detail oriented people who dream of coloring digital stamps with a completely unique style and voice… whatever we call this Duckbill Platypus coloring hobby… this is the art-form for you!

Want to color Power Poppy’s Snowy Church with me? 

My All is Bright class is part of the Vanilla Livestream series for intermediate to advanced Copic colorers. This lesson covers how to use white sparingly and intelligently for maximum depth and impact. The overuse of white gel pens and white colored pencil flattens your projects, so let’s learn how to highlight the classical way.

You can find out more about Vanilla Livestream classes here.

And hey, I’ll see you next month for another glance into my Artist’s Notebook!

Previous Artist Notebook articles:

Eye Popping Color Palettes
You Are Blessed!

Creative Confetti: Get Krafty!

EDITED TO ADD: Oh my gosh! I forgot to choose a winner for our $25 Gift Certificate for July! Check back next Tuesday for the official announcement! Sorry to keep you waiting! 

Hello all and happy Tuesday! With most of us out enjoying all that summer has to offer, I have been trying to keep our weekly challenges, well, not too challenging! I want to keep things on the simple side so that you can enjoy the process without blowing brain cells along the way! Hehe! When there's nice weather to be had, we need to be out enjoying it too as well as all our creative pursuits!

So, this week's challenge is almost as easy to play along with as last week's! Check it out sweet peeps!

What inspired my challenge was actually seeing the beautiful coloring that Amy Shulke showed off yesterday on Inspire Me Monday! If you didn't check that out, goodness, when you are done here, click on over HERE and see what I mean! She gave some really wise advice on coloring glass as well as adding texture to images as you color. It's good stuff!

So... on to my creation! 

For my challenge card, I decided to color up the floral vase grouping from Power Poppy's Fortune of Fall stamp set! It's just such a warm and inviting illustration that I think it will be great to have on hand for cards this upcoming fall.

I started by stamping on my kraft cardstock by using Versafine Black Onyx ink and then heat set it before I dove in and started to color with my Prismacolor pencils. Here is a trick that I did to start. I used my MISTI stamping tool to stamp my initial image. Then, I took time to color. You can see with the image below, some of the crispness of the image was lost. You can really see on the white petals and white vase....

That's why I love the MISTI stamping tool folks! Because, I just lined up my image again right up in the corner, inked up my stamp and stamped right on top! Look at those crisp lines emerge once again!

I will say that because I was using pigment ink, and I had a waxed base medium with my colored pencils, I did have to lay a scrap paper overtop to rub off some of the ink that was just sitting on top of my image. See?

It ended up picking up quite a bit of ink. I thought that If I didn't do this, I might actually have enough ink laying on top that it could either muddy my image or smear. Neither one is a good thing! After that, I layered everything up, keeping my layout simple. I added a little sentiment flag as well using one of the sentiments from the set and... tada! Fini! 

Here's a closeup of the coloring for you all!

And that, my friends, is it! So, let's see what you've got in this little "krafty" challenge! Simply create, post and then link up using the linky below! As we always say, if you get those fingers inky and play along, each and every link is an opportunity to win a $25 gift code to the Power Poppy Shop!

Until next time, happy stamping! 

~Julie

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Inspire Me Monday:

Hi all and welcome to another Inspire Me Monday with yours truly, Amy Shulke. Let me ask you a question Power Poppy fans. Do you want to improve your colored pencil technique? Have you tried a few colored pencil projects only to walk away feeling like you never really got the hang of it? I mean, it looked so simple after all. Let me tell you, colored pencil is deceiving. Those little wax-laden pencils are sneaky! Since this guest post is all about colored pencil, let me share my first six tips to help you get off on the right finger with this craft. You need to get a grip! If you want to read my step-by-step approach on improving your pencil grip, just click HERE for a post I wrote on the topic.

Now let's get to the heart of this post and some additional tips that I wanted to share to light up your world -- literally. I took Power Poppy's Cuppa Cupcake and wanted to do a little experiment with this sparkler-laden delight. I wanted to print and color it up all aglow on black. Let me share the finished project, then I'll get to some tips on how I got the job done thanks to the help of not only a few photos but some key tools as well. (Stay tuned to the end because I'll have details on an upcoming class where I guide you through the entire process.)

Tip 1: To start, the realism here is created by all those folds and shadows. So, tip one is to use a photo reference to help your eye see that detail. The purpose of photo references doesn’t have to be to match color. Here, I’m using the photo to guide me into more realistic folds and waves for the frosting. I’m looking at lights and darks here. It’s not about blue, it’s about shape and shade.

Tip 2: Next comes the pleats and making sure they really stand out on that dark paper. In my experience, tutorials for pleats don’t really work. If you think about it, objects like skirts and cupcake wrappers are wrapped around a body/cake. That changes the perspective of the pleats. In the center of the cupcake, you see into the pleats. From the sides of the cupcake, you see the sides of the pleats. So it doesn’t work to simply color every other line. Stop trying to hack the shape with a technique. Just pull out a photo reference and color what you see. It’s so much easier and the pleats will have an accurate structure.

Tip 3: This next tip is all about having success on dark colored papers. Unlike many tutorials for coloring on colored paper, I don’t recommend basecoating everything with white before adding layers of color. You’ll fill up the tooth too quickly that way. Instead, choose pencils that have opaque cores. By picking your pencils wisely, you’ll get glowing color but also lots of layering potential!

Tip 4: What you see, is not always what you get. Many times, we see a highlight and assume “Hey, it’s a highlight, it must be white!” But that’s not often true. The polka dots on my red cup are very white but the highlights are not. I’m using layers of red and white pencil to create light red highlights which feel crisp in some spots and soft in others, but they are never pure white, anywhere. Also, resist pulling out that white gel pen. You just don't need it!

Tip 5: I'm sure many of you feel you fail at colored pencils simply because these coloring tools shed colored bits of dust. It’s heartbreaking to brush it away with the side of your hand and accidentally leave colorful streaks. That's why I use a small hake brush to frequently dust my project but any soft clean brush will work. In travel situations, a well-cleaned makeup brush from an old blush compact will often do the trick. 

Tip 6: So, you're done coloring. You've just worked your way through a cardio version of coloring. You step away and love what you've accomplished.  Please, oh please, oh please oh please, do not use hairspray to seal your work. Colored pencil projects require a sealant coat to preserve the color and help bond the pigments to the paper. That’s what artist grade fixative does. It preserves the life of your artwork. There are some online who swear by hairspray. I am here to tell you that the only result you'll get with this spray is bouncy, beautiful windproof goddess locks. Trust me. Hairspray is NOT for art!

So, now that you've witnessed a few of my tried and trusted colored pencil tips, who's ready to celebrate? Join me on Saturday, July 13th as we ditch the markers and focus solely on the pencils. As you've just seen, dark paper adds drama and intensity to your coloring projects but if you've ever tried coloring on intense colored paper, you know how dull and dingy the colors can look. I'm here to help you make sure your colors stay crisp and true. It's more than just technique. It's matching your supplies and making sure they are up for the challenge. Keep in mind, this Power Poppy Live Stream lesson will work for black, navy, deep purple, pine green, chocolate brown and even some deep grays. 

Oh, did I hear you're not a fan of pencils? Well, I say why not give it a try! Improving your pencil technique will help your Copic coloring since these mediums together equal beautiful results.

Just click HERE  to learn all about the upcoming class, sign up and grab that supply list! All class participants receive 20% off the Cuppa Cupcake digital stamp!   Can't make the live class? No worries! This Cuppa Cupcake lesson will be available until December 2019!

Thanks so much for stopping by and joining me this Monday. Hope to see you for my colored pencil challenge a.k.a. my next Power Poppy Livestream class this coming Saturday!

Inspire Me Monday ~ Colouring on Coloured Paper

Happy Monday to you all!  I’m Allison Cope and I’m your hostess today for Inspire Me Monday.

Today I’m going to be heat embossing on coloured cardstock and then colouring in my images using Polychromos Pencils.  This technique is very easy and takes a relatively short time to colour.  I decided to use the beautiful “Peony Muse” stamp set for my images and then the “My English Rose” stamp set for my sentiment.

 Come and join me at my crafty desk today for a fun and easy tutorial.

Click here to see in HD.

Here’s a quick peek of the final card again…

I hope you’ve enjoyed this simply tutorial today and give a try sometime soon.  Happy creating!

~ Ally ~

Day 10: Wooden Ornaments

Hello Everyone! Jessie here today with Day 10 of our 12 Days of Christmas extravaganza! If you are just joining us, you have some catching up to do! There are nine other inspiring projects made by the talented Bloom Brigade that you won't want to miss! Keep in mind, if you play along with us during any one of the 12 days and try our project at hand, link up your creation HERE and you’ll be in the running for our Power & Spark 12 Days of Christmas Challenge. You read that right: you’ll have 12 ways to enter. Play along once or try all 12 days for more chances to win a $50 shopping spree to the Power Poppy Shop! 

For the 10th Day of Christmas.... I have always wanted to make some of those little wooden round ornaments! I figured what better time then for this project! I pulled out my Heaven and Nature Sing and Glistening Paperwhites stamp sets! I stamped the images and sentiments on the discs using Versafine Black Onyx. 

I coloured them up with my Polychromos coloured pencils, best part is that on the wood I didn't do a ton of layering, just one layer blending a few colours together. These all came together rather quickly!

Once I finished all my colouring, I took the black pencil and retraced my stamp lines.

All that is left to do is add a bit of string and hang them on a tree. These were super fun to make I may have to cut myself some more discs next year and do some more!

And, it's just that simple! Want to join in on the fun and give any one of the 12 days of projects a try? Just get creating and link your creation up HERE! Whether you make wooden ornaments or any one of the other amazing projects that the Bloomies have created over the last nine days you can play along and are in with a chance to WIN!

I hope you've enjoyed these super easy and very quick Christmas projects and don't forget to pop back in tomorrow! Ally Cope is in the house with a fun way to add a little stamped love to your gift giving this holiday season!

Thanks for stopping by,
Hugz,
Jessie

No Line Coloring using Colored Pencils with Kathy

Hello Friends, how was your weekend? Welcome to another Inspire Me Monday with me, Kathy from The Daily Marker.

Did you catch  February's Power & Spark challenge? It's all about saying 'YES to NO lines' and the card that Cindy Lawrence created  ... well, let's just say I was blown away. I tucked that inspiration in my back pocket and took it out for today. 

Using Power Poppy stamps you can achieve the no line look with ease. Promise! Why you might ask? Because the illustrations have the detailed lines to make it easy for you to see the highlights. Watch my video to see what I mean. 

For my card today I used an image from the "In Praise of Sunflowers" stamp set & the "Prairie Cheer" stamp set. 

If you don't have a beige ink, you can use any light color. I have used pink distress ink or a light blue dye ink before or even a gray ink. One thing to keep in mind is that you must follow through and finish. As you add light layers of color on your flower, it will be a work in progress and you might not be happy with it. Stick with it and you will in the end. 

When you are masking an image, you don't need to spend time masking the entire image.

I inked up only the tops of the small daisies with the beige ink and drew the rest of the stem with a colored pencil. This is a good photo to see all the detail in this stamp. Go over the highlighted areas with a dark pencil to get started. 

A valuable lesson I learned during this coloring session was to color the sunflower bud at the same time as the sunflower. As always, my hope is that you will pick up a tip or two. Thanks for your visit today and have a good week. 

Hugs, 

Kathy