I’ve been stretching my style a bit lately both in the type of images that I’m coloring and the color combinations. Lately I’ve been inspired by the Laurel Burch stamps from Stampendous both in the colors and the free-spirited images. Patti Euler of The Queen’s Ink requested that I make some sample cards for the shop and challenged me to try a couple of stamp sets from Paper Artsy. I love the quirkiness of the stamps, but wasn’t sure if my technically correct style could loosen up enough to do justice to the off-beat nature of the images.

So I stamped the images on Copic X-Press It Blending with Memento Tuxedo Black ink and devised a color scheme based upon the bright color combinations that I had experimented with previously when coloring the Laurel Burch images. And when I finished coloring they were bright and well blended, but still a little too technically correct. So I pulled out my gold Uniball gel pen and free-handed a few swirls, squiggles and dots. For someone who can’t even randomly position sequins on a card, this was a real leap of faith, but one began to take flight and added a little whimsy to the image.

Supplies

Paper: Neenah Solar White 110#; X-Press It Blending Card by Copic; Borders from the Simply Spring Collection by Bella Blvd.
Stamps: Elenazinski Art ZA09 (*) from PaperArtsy
Copics: Y02, Y15, Y19, YR16 (yellow combination); B21, B24, B26, V04 (blue combination); YG11, YG13, Y02 (yellow-green combination); B00, BG53, BG57 (blue-green combination)

Items marked with an asterisk (*) were provided by a store or the manufacturer. All other items were personally purchased.