Garden Dirt: Tulips in Hobnail Pitcher, a Swatch for Underpainting with Copic Marker

 

Green is bursting everywhere!

We're still a bit early in the season to have many flowers blooming here in my small corner of the world, but the green spouts and buds are out.

Tulips are one of my favorite flowers and I thought I'd force a few bulbs (artistically) for this segment of The Garden Dirt. Let's get ready to talk about green!

Hello, my name is Amy Shulke and I'm the illustrator and art instructor over at VanillaArts.com. Welcome to another edition of my color swatch series here at Power Poppy.

If you're new to my lessons, you're probably wondering why I'd name a beautiful flower coloring series after dirt. We want to think about pretty colors right? Certainly not dirt. But we're talking dirt because every garden needs dirt, it's the foundation for life. We need dirt for coloring too, dirty colors are the foundation for realism.

You can read more from my Garden Dirt series here.

Think about the parts of a flower...

Most people don't think deeply about flower anatomy. You've got a general idea about leaves, stems, petals, and the funny things in the center that the bees all like.

Close your eyes and picture your favorite flower. No cheating, don't go sneak a peek at one, let's just think about a flower you know really well... Now tell me about how the flower petals connect to the stem.

Hmmm. This is harder than you expected, right?

We're so used to thinking about the blossoms and leaves that we rarely think about the stems. When we do think about stems, they're just some random tube shapes coming from somewhere under the blossom.

Admit it. Right now, you're not really sure how flower petals connect to the stem. Most of you are thinking about silk flowers where you can pop the whole flower head right off the plastic stick.

Ahhhhhh, grasshopper-- you're missing the most astoundingly beautiful part of a flower!

Real flowers are not like silk flowers!

With silk flowers, you have a green plastic stem and pretty colorful petals glued on top.

But with real flowers, the petals grow out of the stem. With some flowers, it's actually hard to tell where the stem stops and the petal starts.

We all remember chlorophyll from elementary school science class, that's the stuff which makes leaves look green. And if you think about it, chlorophyll makes the stem green too.

But here's the cool part... chlorophyll doesn't just stop dead at the top of a stem.

If you look closely at the base of a petal, you'll see green chlorophyll climbing up from the stem into the flower petal. Look even closer and you'll see the pretty pink, yellow, or red color from the petal leaking down into the stem.

Colorful petals and green stems are connected; they're part of the same system. The color from one body part oozes into the next body part.

Which means that even on the most brilliantly colored blossoms, you'll see green seeping up on the underside of many petals.

That green blend is beautiful!

For more realistic flower petals, add green to your Copic Marker blending combination

I know this idea frightens you. Green blended with red makes blech! Green blended with yellow ruins the yellow. Green blended with orange makes vomit...

I know. I can see you getting squirmy in your seat. The laws of color mixing strictly prohibit mixing light red and green together.

Uh... what exactly is it that happens if you mix light red and green? Does it explode? Does fire rain from the sky? Plagues of frogs, locusts, or IRS agents?

Relax.

Nothing bad will happen if you add G43 to your pretty red blending combination.

I did it in my tulip project here and I'm still alive enough to tell you about it.

Go ahead and try it. Tell the cops that Amy said it was okay. You'll be fine.

It's pretty.

Very, very pretty. And isn't that why we color?

Let's color tulips together!

The tulips shown here are a small portion of Power Poppy's Tulips and Hobnail Pitcher digital stamp but my color recipe will work with any tulip image. Try it on the tulips in Springtime Love Roundel, Spring Border, or Love One Another. This recipe even works with other flowers.

I started by bringing the G43 from the stem up and into the base of each petal. Then I softened the G43 with a few flicks of G40. Then I continued on with R21 up to the middle of each petal and softened it with R00. I left the edge of each tulip as clean white paper. 

G43 to G40 to R21 to R00. Sounds weird, looks stunning!

And hey, we're coloring tulips over at Vanilla Arts this month. My Tulip Wreath project uses a very similar blending combination. Join us there for a little bit of advanced artistic coloring.

All Vanilla Workshop classes are immediate access. Work at your ow pace, color it as many times as you want!

Have fun adding green ink to all your blending combinations!

Happy Coloring!

Inspire Me Monday: Easy Breeze Coneflowers!

 

GOOD MORNING EVERYONE! Well spring has finally arrived, at least according to the calendar. We spent last weekend at our local garden supply store to get ideas for our backyard. My husband is the gardener, but I get to pick out the flowers. It's a division of labor that I enjoy! 

It's too early to plant anything here - our garden relies on a combination of containers and raised beds. We have a small water feature which my husband wants to redesign so we've been busy rearranging our equally small backyard to accommodate all the changes. But it feels good to be outside again and planning for what we hope will be a more normal future.

I plan on adding coneflowers into our backyard this year but it will be a few weeks before they are available in our garden store. In the meantime, I have to be content with coloring them so today's post features the Easy Breezy Coneflowers Digital Stamp Set in anticipation of my summer garden. 

Often, I'll enlarge a digital image so that it takes up most of the card front, but I decided to downsize the image and color it on a smaller scale. But the smaller image didn't take up much real estate on the card front so I struggled awhile with the card design. I changed the card orientation from portrait to landscape and that change helped me view the layout in a different way. I've always loved the critters that Marcella adds to some of her drawings so I cropped out one of the bees in the Asters Abuzz Digital Stamp Set to add to the background and used one of the sentiments from that set. I added a honeycomb stenciled background inked in pale pink and suddenly the card came together.

Since the image is small, I didn't worry about adding a lot of detail into the petals. Instead, I stuck to a simple dark to light blend with my Copic markers. 

That's all for me today! Be sure you get out and enjoy the sunshine!

Nancy

SUPPLIES

• Easy Breezy Coneflowers Digital Stamp Set
• Asters Abuzz Digital Stamp Set

Garden Dirt: Flowering Clover, a Swatch for Underpainting with Copic Marker

 

Need a quick bit o' luck?

Saint Patrick's Day is almost upon us.

Uh oh... so soon? Already? Wait, what month is it anyway?

If you're anything like me, you've totally lost track of days and months. Luckily, I've got a quick coloring project for you today, just in case you need to pop a card into the mail, pronto!

Hello, my name is Amy Shulke and I'm the illustrator and art instructor over at VanillaArts.com. Welcome to another edition of my color swatch series here at Power Poppy-- The Garden Dirt.

Are you wondering why I'd name a collection of beautiful color combinations after dirty ol' dirt? It's because in realistic coloring, we take pretty colors and cover them with other pretty colors to make muddy colors. The real color of shade and shadow is always a little yucky, a little muddy, and a little dirty.

You can read more from my Garden Dirt series here.

Sometimes I color for realism. Other times, I color for fun.

If you're a fan of Marcella's stamps and digis, you're pretty darned used to coloring leaves.

So even though shamrocks and clover are cute as the dickens, they're still... ho hum... sigh... just another green leaf using the same old green Copic Markers and colored pencils.

Unless we have a little fun with the underpaint.

Check out the shady spots on my green clover leaves here. See that funky shade color? What is that weird color?

Would you believe it's the same color as the clover blossom?

Pink under Green makes a shady green

I know it sounds weird but weird color is what we're after.

Last month I shared with you about layering green under pink. This month we're reversing the combo because this magic trick works both ways. Green and magenta sit opposite of each other on the color wheel and when opposites cross paths, the color get a little wild and funky. 

To color the Shamrock n' Roll digital stamp, I started with RV55 and layered two leafy green markers over the top. I have no idea what to call this new color. Gink? Preen? I don't know but it sure is fun to make.

And guess what?

This same marker combination can be used on several of Marcella's clover-ish shamrocky floral images. Try it on Clover and Pansies, Wish You Luck, Asters Abuzz, or the magnificent Lumious Bouquet with its oversized Japanese Peony blossom and clover.

Green, pink, gink, or preen, it comes out a little different every time. I color with gink and preen a lot. When I'm working with a pink blossom, it's really hard to resist the ginky temptation.

Try it, you might be a ginky kind a person too.

Let's color Flowering Clover together!

I've got a special treat for you today. 

Head on over to my site at VanillaArts.com to download the FREE Flowering Clover recipe guide. I've included a few photos of the process plus a couple of tips to help you make the most of this odd blending combination.

Download the FREE Flowering Clover recipe guide here.

And if you're looking for an online class to really explore pink and green, you're in luck!

My Verdant Spring class uses a similar color palette on Power Poppy's Bowl of Beauty digital stamp. We layer green under pink and then green over pink with beautiful results.

All Vanilla Workshop classes are immediate access. Work at your own pace, color it as many times as you want with no expiration date. 

Have fun playing with gink and preen! 

And I'll meet you back here next month with another colorful swatch of Garden Dirt.

Inspire Me Monday - Thinking of Spring!

 

Hello, Power Poppy Fans! It is my turn again to bring you the Inspire Me Monday project. I continue to be plagued with migraines, exhaustion, and joint pain. I appreciate everyone who has prayed for me over the past months! It is so frustrating and debilitating! I have been trying to do EVERYTHING on my good days, which is not that...well that good for me! 

Now, what an uninspiring opening! However, I know that many of you are also battling "stuff" right now, and you can relate. I also know, like me, you are probably looking for that light at the end of the tunnel. For me that light is spring and Easter. I live where the weather is pretty fine all year round, but for those who live in snowy climates, you must be ready for SPRING!

To get that spring feeling, I pulled out a bunch of spring images and printed them in a large, coloring book page size. If you go to the Power Poppy Store, and do a search on "spring" you will see many amazing stamps pop up!

I pulled out some colored pencils and started to color and experiment. I tried this pencil brand on that paper. I tried this color combo of green, and then that other one. I played and flitted around like a butterfly! I spent a lot of time planning, which is my normal mode of operation. 

However, I really needed to just get to it! I knew that I may only have one good day out of three, and here I was fiddle-faddling around! Mercy sakes!

In the end, I settled on printing this image (Lilac and Lemons) onto kraft cardstock to color with colored pencils. This is as far as I got because, I continued to be bothered by the fact that this brand of pencils does not have color names! They each have a unique number, but no names! Because my brain cannot let go of something once I latch onto it, I decided to give each and every one of the 168 pencils in this set a name! Yes, I did! (If you are interested in such things, visit my personal blog on March 11th to see the end product.)

I had a few happy days researching colors and thinking up descriptive color names, and just having a creative party for myself! Which did not translate into a finished project in time for today's post, but it did give me a fun boost of creativity!

At this point in time, I have been allowing my creativity to go off on adventures. If I don't I am simply unable to create at all. But, although I did not actually MAKE anything I still wanted you to have something to look at. Here are a few of my past spring inspiration pieces!

I colored this project last month, over a few weeks time. The image is the Volumes of Beauty digital stamp. I colored this with only Crayola colored pencils! I was proving a point about coloring with inexpensive materials. I love how this turned out, even with budget products!

This is the Shimmering Flight digital stamp colored with Copics and glitter gel pen. I love the different textures on this project!

This bright "pop in the eye" project was also colored with Copics. The image is the Luminous Bouquet digital stamp. This panel is one of  a series that I colored a few years ago. I place these panels on my desk each month for a spot of color and inspiration! I highly recommend surrounding yourself with your own creative efforts! 

I hope that you get inspired to grab some spring images, some spring colors, and have a day of colorful play! Don't feel like you must have a finished project at the end of it. Just explore your creative spirit and see what happens! 

Thanks for stopping by!

Inspire Me Monday - Party Essentials

 

HELLO POWER POPPY FANS! I'm back today with another Inspire Me Monday post. Hope you are keeping safe and warm during this blast of cold winter weather. Please keep our friends in Texas and the surrounding area in your prayers as they recover from the record storm that swept the state. 

Let's take a look at today's project! With the cold weather, I was tempted to pull out my holiday stamps and get a head start on my end of year cards, but opted instead to take a look at some of the digital stamps appropriate for any time of the year. So today's project features the Party Essentials Digital Stamp Set, which includes three images and four celebratory sentiments. 

So here's my take on the pile of packages! I intended this as a birthday card, but with a change of colors the image also work for weddings, anniversaries or even Christmas!

If I had paid more attention, I would have remembered that Gloria also recently colored this image as part of her fabulous Inspire Me Monday post a few weeks ago. Be sure that you take a look at what she did! 

Want to know how I colored the image? Get comfy because I've got a coloring video for you! 

And here are the Copic markers that I used.

Thanks for joining me today! Full supply list for my card can be found on my blog. Be sure you check out my Power Poppy coloring videos on YouTube.

Stay safe and warm and keep on crafting!

Nancy

SUPPLIES

• Party Essentials Digital Stamp Set

Garden Dirt: Bleeding Hearts, a Swatch for Underpainting with Copic Marker

 

Let's color one more heart project!

I know Valentine's Day is technically over but honestly, I'd color heart shapes all year if students would let me.

Last month, I shared with you the Vital Rose digital stamp, colored with red Copic Markers and die-cut into a heart shape. This month, let's tackle hot pink and one of the sweetest species of flowers I've ever seen.

Hello, my name is Amy Shulke and I'm the illustrator and art instructor over at VanillaArts.com. Welcome to another article in my color swatch blending combination series here at Power Poppy-- The Garden Dirt.

Why dirt? I know it's not the most attractive name but that's what we do in realistic coloring. We take beautiful colors of Copic Marker and colored pencil and blend them together to make yucky, dirty colors. You can't grow flowers without a bit of dirt and you can't color realistic flowers without dirty color.

I've got a whole series of artistic coloring articles here at the Power Poppy blog. Here's a link to read more.

Bleeding Hearts are one of my favorite flowers!

Actually, at my house, we call them weeds.

My yard is tree covered and almost full shade everywhere; I can barely grow grass. For years, we had nothing but Hosta, random ferns, and scattered Lily of the Valley but then a little pinkish-greenish scrawny looking weed popped up, out of nowhere. 

If something's brave enough to try living in my near-night conditions, I'm certainly not going to tell it no, so I let the weird little guy grow a while. Eventually the stalk bent over and sprouted the cutest little heart shapes. 

BEST WEED EVER!!!!

When I found myself looking for something to color for this month's Dirt article, I thought of my beautiful little weeds and wondered if Marcella had ever drawn them.

I'm a digital stamp girl, so I isolated the Bleeding Hearts from the Spring Meadow Bouquet to share with you today. 

She also has a few Bleeding Hearts tucked into the Springtime Love Roundel stamp here. 

Today's swatch will work with either version.

Green under Red Violet makes a shady pink

Remember, realistic shady colors are not usually beauty contest winners.

Go ahead, look around you right now. Find something pretty on your desk or in the room beyond and really look at the color of the shady side. Surprised? The color of real shade is always a bit ugly. In art, we call shady colors "neutralized" or "desaturated". They're not the vibrant, gorgeous colors you see in traditional Copic Marker blending combinations.

Green sits opposite of magenta on the color wheel which makes the G marker family a natural choice to underpaint RV markers. I was shocked at how little green I needed to add murkiness to RV29. 

G02 was a bit strong, so I ended up using G00 but I really wish Copic made a G01.

In the Bleeding Hearts here, I added G00 where one heart overlaps another heart, where the stem inserts at the top, and down at the bottom where the heart cinches inward. Then I layered RV29, R35, and RV25 over the top of the green to complete the blend.

I printed my hearts large, the smallest heart is almost 1 inch wide. If you color a smaller version, you can skip the R35 in the blend.

Green under magenta sounds weird but it's what makes my Bleeding Hearts look rounded, layered, and pretty darned cute.

Let's color flowers together

I love coloring Power Poppy bouquets! Today's Bleeding Hearts project uses the same techniques I demonstrate in this class using Marcella's Bowl of Beauty stamp and in this class using Marcella's Daffodil Bouquet stamp. 

We use different blending combinations and colors in each class but we always underpaint for depth and dimension.

All Vanilla Workshop classes are immediate access. Work at your own pace, color it as many times as you want, with no expiration date. The techniques are great for any Power Poppy digital stamp.

Have fun experimenting with green under magenta and I'll meet you back here next month with another colorful bit of Garden Dirt.

Inspire Me Monday - Happy Birthday

Hello, Power Poppy Fans! It is my turn again to bring you the Inspire Me Monday project. I have to confess to this not being a brand new project, but it is the first time it has been seen here on the Power Poppy Blog! I have been struggling with some health issues again, and am a little behind in my coloring projects! I do hope that bringing this out of the vault will be excused!

Now for the project!

Since my birthday is in February, I decided to make a fun birthday card to showcase several Power Poppy images! The only thing missing from this scene is a new book...but perhaps there is a book in one of those pretty packages! This is my ideal birthday...cake, a warm drink, and a pile of gifts! Plus...chocolate AND strawberries...yes, please!

For this project I have combined three digital images: the cake and tea from the Tea Cake with Strawberries digital set (also available in a clear set called Tea in the Garden), the gifts from the Party Essentials digital set (also available as a clear set called Party Time), and the sentiment from the Layer Cake digital set. 

If you want more information on how to put a digital scene together, please see my Power Poppy post HERE. 

To get started with a scene, you first need to print your images to the size which fits your card front. (Or, stamp them if you are using clear stamps instead of digital images.) My finished card is 6" x 8", so I printed the image as slightly smaller at approximately 5" x 6".

A color tip: When you are coloring a busy scene like this one, try to plan out your colors ahead of time so that you don't end up with a hot mess of every color in your marker collection! I call it "avoiding the clown party"!

I started out with the red, because...strawberries are red! I chose to "spread the red" around my picture to give the whole scene a balanced look. I then colored the leaves green, but did NOT add more green to the image. I did not want this to stat to look like Christmas!

I knew I needed to color the slice of lemon in the tea cup yellow. That became my second color, which I sprinkled about the scene. I felt that aqua blue would look nice with both the red and the the yellow. To tone it all down, I used brown. Making the cake frosting and the cake stand brown, rests the eye. Creating three white items (the cake doily, the napkin, and the largest box), also helps give your eyes a bit of rest. 

I think the picture is bright, but not clownish. I admit to being a bit sorry about the large ribbon bows, but...once they were glued down, I decided to keep them! Plus, every birthday needs a few big bows!

Here is the list of Copic markers I used. I did NOT use any colored pencil this time.

Background, napkin, cake: E0000, E000, E00, E21, colorless blender
Doily, box: C3, C1, C00
Ribbon, boxes, lemon slice: Y08, Y06, Y02, Y11
Cake, cake stand: E79, E29, E27, E25, E23, E35, E33, E57, R83, R81
Leaves, stems: YG03, G43, G99, YG21, YG05, Y11, YG01
Cup, boxes: B04, B01, B000
Strawberries, boxes, cup, cake stand: R14, R27, R29, R89, YG21 (strawberries only)

I selected some matching paper from my vast stash of printed paper to create a finished card. I will use a padded mailer to mail this card to a special someone....or I will keep it on my desk to enjoy for the month of February!

Thanks for stopping by!