Monday

Colouring Moonlit Winter Snow


Hello Power Poppy Friends!  It’s Christine greeting you here and I’m kicking off a fabulous week of Power Poppy November Releases!  Today you’re in for a very special treat....I get to super-sneak-peek a stamp set coming out on November 1st with today’s tutorial.  It’s a stunning set called O Holy Night, and it celebrates all that I love about the Christmas Season.  

Because this stamp set depicts a gorgeous Church scene on a winter night, I wanted to show you how to colour it in a really serene, but dramatic way.  


I began by stamping the scene onto Cougar Opaque Ivory cardstock with Memento Tuxedo Black ink, and then also stamping the scene onto some Eclipse Masking tape, trimming it out,  and creating a mask to go over the image (see above).  I like Eclipse Masking tape for this type of technique because it sticks to the whole image and won’t move.   You will also want to put your image on some scrap paper, ‘cause you’re about to get inky!  Or at least your paper is!  



Then I took my brayer and some Nautical Blue Memento Ink and in an oval pattern I brayered the dark night sky onto the image.  I brayer in layers building colour bit by bit.  Because it is a moonlit sky I wanted it to maintain light around the moon so I avoided too much brayering in that area.  This helps to give the moon a glow.   In this scene the moon is essentially backlighting the Church, so the glow would come around and behind the Church.  The top corners and sides have the deepest colour of sky so there’s lots of brayered ink there.  


Here you can see what it looks like when I was done brayering.  



This picture shows the look of the scene when I lift off the mask, before I start colouring.  See how the glow works for the scene?  

Now I have a white moon, a white Church and white snow.  How can I bring life to these whites and distinguish them from each other?  Let’s keep moving on!

  


Since I want to add some definition to the snow and to the Church I need to add some colour.   The moon and snow aren’t just plain white, they would have tones off all sorts of other colours that bring life to the white.  Above you can see I’ve coloured up the greens peeking through the snow on the trees (YG93, YG95, YG99).  Now with my C00 and B21 Copic Markers I colour in the shadows of the snow on the trees.  The C00 smoothes and softens out the blues in the shadows.  




Next, I want to give the gorgeous full moon a glow.  It doesn’t take much colour so I used some really soft yellows to sweep some colour on the bottom left area of the moon, around the moon and onto the sides of the trees near the moon.  



Then I want some light to be coming from the Church windows so I added some Y00 in the windows and as you can see in the picture below, spilling out of the windows onto the snow.  


Finally,  you can see I’ve added some cool greys and blue to the Church - still making it appear white, but moonlit at night.  I love the peaceful feeling of the scene.  



Here is the finished design.  I added some Picket Fence Ranger Distress pen dotted over the yardstick to create stars in the sky, and then paired it all with My Mind’s Eye Joyous designer paper and some pretty accents.  



And now you can see that white isn’t just white.  It’s all about what you add to it to make it shine on this beautiful night!

Thanks for joining me today.  We look forward to the Sneak Peeks starting tomorrow!  You will love them!  

10 comments:

Karen W said...

This is gorgeous and so is the stamp!!! Beautiful job of coloring this.

Melanie Ann MacKenzie said...

Great Tutorial Christine. The moon really does look like it is glowing and spreading light on all it touches. Cheers.

Julie Koerber said...

STUNNING Christine!! Oh my!! You make this look so easy! I am going to give this tutorial a whirl for sure! Thanks lady for always sharing your amazing talents! :-)

Marcella Hawley said...

Is it possible to knock a church out of the park? It sounds kind of harsh ... but I mean it with the most heartfelt intentions. The subtle and well-though-out treatment of the image is so delicate, yet so warm and mood-setting, you really knocked this church out of the park!!! xoxox Thank you, Christine, this is WAY inspiring! xo, marc

Auntie Em said...

Beautiful work and great tutorial. Makes using the brayer look like it might not be too difficult.
Thanks for sharing! :)

Linda Sodano said...

Christine you did a beautiful rendition of a moonlit winter scene. I am awed by this card!

CherylQuilts said...

Oh, Christine!! This is gorgeous...absolutely gorgeous! And, yes, it looks like a cold winter's night with the beautiful full moon gleaming down on the snow, trees, and this wonderful church!! You are amazing, and thank you so much for showing us step by step how to achieve this effect! I totally love this image and can't wait for the November release!! Woohoo! Hugs, sweet friend, and thank you, Marcella, for your beautiful artwork!

Barb said...

This really is stunning! I feel chilly just looking at it! I love how you've distinguished the various shades of white, by adding color! It's just lovely and your finished card is gorgeous!

Allison Cope said...

Absolutely glorious Christine! Your night sky is AMAZING! I never think to pull out my brayer to do techniques like this. It's brilliant!!!

Carol Ann said...

Beautiful, I have a stamp that is similar, I do not have copic markers yet, but will try with the ones I have from Michaels, a long time ago. Thank you for this.