Airbrushing scene and some copic colouring tips

Hi folks,

Today I want to share with you a card I made recently that I just love.  It's using a Cornish Heritage Farm image that I snagged an image of at my Copic Certification class in May (this stamp is definitely on my wish list now!).  I used a few of the new techniques I learned, and experimented a bit, and am really happy with the result.

Firstly, I started out by colouring the sail.  I put a lot of shading on the edges and in the corners to bring to life the shadows, and then I used one of the new techniques which is to spray the blending solution onto a piece of fabric, then press the fabric against the image to get a pattern.

Then, after letting it dry, I coloured the rest of the image.  I used the tip to tip technique for a lot of the areas to give depth, and followed the instructions to try to use 3 colours when blending (ofen I'm lazy and use 2, but it really does seem to work better with 3.

Also, I've coloured my colour chart and have been picking the colours based on that, rather than eyeing up my pen lids and choosing colours that way--it works much better using the colour chart since the lids aren't always a great indication of how the colour will look on paper.

After colouring the main image, I realized I needed to do the background (which I usually do first).  I figured I should use a mask but didn't have an extra stamped image I was willing to cut up.  Then I realized I could photocopy the image, cut the boat/people out, and then layer it over the image and adhere it with non permanent double sided tape.

Once the main image was covered up, I was ready to work on the background.  I asked my hubby what he thought I should do with the background, and he searched online and came up with a picture of the ocean and the sun coming up or down (not sure which).  So using that as inspiration, I sprayed away with my yellows and reds and purples and blues.

I used a piece of scrap paper to mask the ocean area when spraying the sky, then did the reverse for the ocean.  Afterwards, I decided the ocean was too "even" (one of the problems I sometimes have with the airgun effect) so I took a cotton swab, applied blender solution, and then swished over it in circular motions.

In other news, I was very excited to win a prize on a challenge blog!  When I opened my email from Laurie of Clearly Delightful I was floored--my first time winning on a challenge blog!  So goes to show that not only is it fun to play the challenges but there can be fun surprises too :-)