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Sometimes less is more.
I find when I am watercoloring, no matter the subject matter, I have a strange comfort zone of 5-6 pigments, chosen for that subject, that end up in the sketches I love the most. It's odd how that tends to repeat itself.
This weekend, without too much conscious thought, I did the same thing with colored pencils and this sweet, sized perfectly for coloring, Christmas bunny image.
When I looked at the image, it occurred to me that the bunny and the peppermints sort of set the color mood of red and white, so I decided to keep just those as the focus, and not color the tree green, the star yellow etc.
I used - surprise - 6 Polychromos pencils in the end: red, dark red, white, grey, pink and kraft.
Here are my basic tips for colored pencil work. I always wear a coloring glove when I use colored pencil so that I don't smudge my work, or leave oils from my hand on the paper - this is especially important on kraft, which is uncoated and will absorb/print from the oils on your skin more readily that smooth white cardstock. I have a fridge bin that has the glove, erasers - regular and electric for tiny areas, sharpeners - electric and manual - at home I have a pretty blue glass sharpener, but I have two sharpeners in my travel bag - a Blackwing and my fave compact one - all the things I need to do colored pencil work. I put all my pencils in these cases, because they store like books on my shelf. I use wine charms and these chalkboard tags to label each case - just put the wine charm with the tag on it through the zipper pull. (Photo below). I prefer Wheat for coloring - it has a lighter, warmer color than a lot of kraft cardstock - it makes the pencils a bit glowier. Pencil work takes longer than markers - so I take Kathy Rac's advice - use a clipboard so you aren't hurting your neck, sharpen often, and put down light layers with light pressure to build up color. I always buy open stock single white pencils in whatever brand of pencil I buy because layers of white under colors brightens them up considerably, and you need to sharpen often.
I made sure the grey was a very light grey and the dark red wasn't too much darker than my primary red, so the shading I did gives dimension, but isn't the first thing you notice. The kraft pencil makes the envelope look 3D. The little bunny - adorable - remains the star of the show. I love that this is nearly A2 sized - that made the coloring soooo much easier! What a sweet illustration. There's tons of other cute Christmas stuff out with the bunny too.
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Here's how the pencil cases store in a bookcase. It's so uniform, it makes me happy.
LOTS of people are firing up their Christmas crafting this month - it's sort of a July tradition. Do you do this?
I start to make mine now, when companies start putting out the images, and that way even if I just make a few every month, I will have a good stack of them by Thanksgiving. I don't sit down and do a dedicated Christmas session in July or the following months. I just make them when I find cute things like today's bunny.
Whatever you're crafting this month - enjoy it!
Loveyameanitbye.
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