Author: sproatmeyer

Bob the Cow

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This is Bob. Say Hi to bob. He like salty things and standing in the sun. I like Bob. I actually met Bob on the farm while visiting a friend. However, believe me that Bob in real life was a lot more interesting, albeit not as colorful.

For this image, I sketched out my image lightly with pencil then continued to experiment using the Karin Brushmarker Pro watercolor markers. I mainly created a pool of ink then used a watercolor brush to the paper. The white highlights were a combination of a gel pen and white gesso.

Danielle Donaldson Creative Watercolor

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I’ve been getting into watercolor and one of the books I came across was The Art of Creative Watercolor by Danielle Donaldson. She has a fun whimsical style that I like and thought that was a good place to dabble. One of the things she draws are wonky people she calls “Littles” so in this project, I picked out a few of my favorites to color. Some of these are altered or combined but mostly are mostly examples from the book.

Colored with GenCraft Brush Watercolor Markers on Strathmore Cold Press 140# paper.
This one was colored with Brea Reese Watercolor Creams on the same paper, of course.
This Little was colored with Karin Brushmarker Pro watercolor markers, with a direct to paper technique where I wet the paper then touched it with the marker and spread it around with a brush.
The Little on the left was also colored with Karin Brushmarker Pro watercolor markers but it was done with an indirect method – the ink was dispensed on a mixing tray first then picked up with the brush and applied to the paper. The Little on the right was done with the Winsor & Newton half pan watercolor 14-ct travel set.

Here’s the group of Littles all together. I went back in and fixed the blotch on the troll’s shirt then darkened the lines in some places, used a white gel pen and splattered colored water to finish. I didn’t enjoy working with the Brea Reese Watercolor Creams so I’ll skip those the next time. The rest are still on the table and I’ll try this again with another sheet of Littles.

Polka Dot Pals Syeda with Gnome Marci

~ sproatmeyer ~ 2 Comments

I had some fun over the winter break while the kids were out of school and wanted to play around with the faces from the Polka Dot Pals sets (clear stamps from Whimsy Stamps) to see how they would work with other stamps. In the past, I’ve stamped a face on a Magnolia Tilda stamp, Make it Crafty Mushrooms and a DoveArt Hot Sip mug. Now I’ve stamped a face on La-La Land Crafts Gnome Marci and I think she’s adorable.

To get this look, I first stamped Gnome Marci with a light color ink using a stamp press. Then I stamped the face on top using the same color but stamping it one more time to make it darker. This allowed me to do a no-line color while still seeing both faces – however, with the Polka Dot Pals face darker, I was able to ignore the Gnome Marci face when coloring.

It was interesting to me to see that the faces were generally the same size. Seeing this tells me that the Polka Dot Pals faces could be used on all the La-La Land Marci and Luka stamps, perhaps more. Tip: In looking at the above image, you can see that the pupil from Marci doesn’t match up with the eyes from Syeda. So when coloring, completely color the iris from Syeda with your color choice before coloring in the pupil. This will help you get the pupil centered.

I also stamped the head bow accessory from the Polka Dot Pals Syeda set and then penciled in some knitting guidelines on her hat which would be erased prior to coloring.

I usually start coloring the face first then work on the larger sections. For this girl, I wanted to go with a Swedish Tomte which is a mischievous domestic creature responsible for the protection and welfare of the farmstead and its buildings. They are usually dressed in gray with a bright red hat and have gray or white hair.

When finished coloring Gnome Marci, I thought the eyes stood out more than I wanted so I needed to introduce more turquoise to the image. The Polka Dot Pals Syeda set came with flowers too so I added those and began to color but it just wasn’t enough. Plus with Gnome Marci’s hands out like that, I quickly thought of Iron Man and with two and two together, that’s how she got her flower powers.

I hope this was inspiring for you to experiment with the Polka Dot Pal faces – what can you add them to?

Copic Markers:
R12, E0000, 30, 31, 33, 35, 47
N0, 2, 4, 6, 8
B00, 02, 49, 57
C1, 3, 5, 7
R12, 14, 24, 29, 39, 27
Y11, YR23, 24
YG17, 21, 23, 25

Stamps Used:
Polka Dot Pals Syeda clear stamp
Gnome Marci rubber stamp

Polka Dot Pals Syeda

~ sproatmeyer ~ 4 Comments

Today I’m going to share with you an image I colored using the Polka Dot Pals Syeda stamp set available at Whimsy Stamps. When creating the scene, I used the glasses and clouds from the same set but also grabbed a few flowers from Polka Dot Pals Fern.

I like to see a comparison of the image before and after it was colored. I don’t have any progressive coloring photos to add but this will give you an idea on what I started with and how she ended up. The stamps was stamped in a light color for a no-lines coloring look.

She was a fun image to draw as well as the pig. The ears were especially hard to get them the way I wanted them to look – funny it would the the simple ears to cause problems. When coloring this project, I colored the pig with a pink band similar to a Hampshire Pig. For the face of the girl, I stamped the glasses and then colored in my own face instead this time around.

Colored with Copic markers

Stamps:
Polka Dot Pals Syeda
Polka Dot Pals Fern

Create A Scene – Forest

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I’m using the DoveArt line of stamps Create A Scene Forest to put together a quick winter scene. Seeings how cold it is for me right now, I thought this would be fitting. The stamp was embossed in black then I used the Karin Brushmarker watercolor markers to color the background and some shadows.

The white snow was created with a Marvy Snow Marker then heat set to puff it up. The sentiment is a Make it Crafty chipboard embellishment colored with Copic Markers. The background layer of paper was also colored with Copic Markers.

You can find most of these products at Whimsy Stamps:

Stamp: Create a Scene – Forest
Sentiment: Make it Crafty Chipboard Elements

Polka Dot Pals Fern

~ sproatmeyer ~ 5 Comments

Great news! I’m back to drawing and coloring… and the Polka Dot Pals are back too and now available at Whimsy Stamps.

The new Polka Dot Pal clear stamps (in general) come with a character, sentiment, elements and sometimes a face or face accessory. They’re going to be great for building scenes and changing up the looks with all the accessories. I’m loving these and I think you’re going to love them too.

These accessories and faces can be used with these newer Polka Dot Pals from Whimsy Stamps as well as your older Polka Dot Pals from Little Miss Muffet Stamps. I’d love to see your beautiful creations too using any of your Polka Dot Pals – be sure to tag #PolkaDotPals or @PolkaDotPals

For this coloring, I used both of the characters released this month: Polka Dot Pals Fern and Polka Dot Pals Syeda.

After stamping the Polka Dot Pals Fern girl, I added the face from the Polka Dot Pals Syeda set. I used a clear block and aligned the black pupils of eyes on the girl stamp with the center of iris on the face stamp. It took me a couple times to get them just center but you can use the stamp platform if needed otherwise the faces can sometimes look crazy-eyed. If you still want to use it freehand, the eyes that come in the set are on a face-shaped base which can be aligned up with the image’s ears in order to get proper placement.

Between coloring the girl and the background, I had taken a break and was out and about when I noticed an oil painting of flowers and was inspired to create something similar on this.

These are the Copic Markers used:
Reds: R20, 22, 24, 29, 39
Greens: G40, 21, 24, 94, 99
Greys: W4, 5, 7, 9
Oranges: YR20, 04, 07, 09
Yellows: YR21, 23, 24
Browns: E47, 44, 43, 42
Skins: R12, E000, 30, 31, 34, 35, 47
Blacks/Whites/Shadows: BV23, 25, W9, C1, C3

Stamps:
Polka Dot Pals Fern clear stamp
Polka Dot Pals Syeda clear stamp