Special Guest - Heidi Jakobs

Let's give a warm welcome to Heidi Jakobs as she shares another fabulous creation with us!

Building a Snowman 

 

Hi everyone, I’m back with my second guest design project for Whimsy Stamps and today I’m going to show you how you can color a white area realistically! 

 

Step 1: 

I started my card project by printing the Whimsy Stamps digital image called “Penguins build a Snowman” onto alcohol marker friendly paper. Next I die cut around the image, creating a rectangle panel two sizes smaller than my card base, leaving enough room for my sentiment on the top. 

Now I can stamp my sentiment, which is from the Whimsy Stamps stamp set “You’re my Jolly” using black ink. When your stamping isn’t opaque enough for your liking and your paper moves while stamping, then just fill in the remaining areas with a black marker. 

 

Now I can start my colouring process! The white areas in this image are the snowman itself, but also the bellies/faces of the penguins and the snow areas. A white area is never just white. There are shadow parts and reflections from the colours around it (if you want to make it really complex). For today let’s just focus on creating depth in the white area’s using only cool grey and warm grey tones. All of todays colouring is done with the Spectrum Noir Illustrator alcohol markers. 

 

Let’s start with the snow and the snowman: you can see in the picture that by only placing a couple of grey lines you can create the illusion of depth and dimension. You only have to know what parts are in the shadow and what parts are in the light. Where the hat of the snowman covers his head, there is a shadow area; where the scarf is around his neck, beneath that will be a shadow area. Even small areas like buttons can create a shadow part or dent that is darker. I used IG1, IG2 and IG6 (which are cool greys) to create these shadow parts, leaving most of the snowman uncoloured! 

You will see, if you know what to do, it’s quite easy! 

 

For the cheeks I used FS8 and for the other orange parts I used FS8, BO3 and BO4. 

 

Step 2: 

Onto the penguins' bellies and faces: I first used a bit of the BG2 (which is a warm grey) and than added some IG2 (which is a cool grey). For the fur on their clothes, I used IG2. These areas are not very large, so they don’t need much. Now you have coloured all the white areas, and you can colour the rest of the image. Colouring the areas that your eyes see as white will make a lot of difference to the total project! 

 

For the rest of the penguins I used a combination of cool greys: IG2, IG6 and IG10, trying to preserve a highlight instead of creating an entire black area. 

 

Step 3: 

For the blue parts of the snowman's clothing and the feather, I used TB1, TB4, TB5 and TB8. And for the sky I used IB1 (which is a slightly different light blue than TB1). 

 

Step 4: 

For the brown parts I used: GB1, GB5 and GB8. For the red parts I used PP4, DR2 and DR3. And finally for the green parts I used LG1, AG2, AG4 and JG7. Like with all the other colouring parts, try to keep in mind where your highlights (where the sun hits first) and where the shadow areas will be. You can draw an arrow in one corner of the image to remind yourself of that (or when there is a light source in the image, like a bonfire or a candle, you can use that). Just enjoy the colouring; this is not exact science. If you placed a shadow area not exactly in the right spot, no man is overboard! 

 

Step 5:  

Now that all of my colouring is done, I can add in some highlights using a white gel pen (this of course is optional, I like the effect this gives, that is why I do this).  

 

To finish my project, I die cut a slightly larger rectangle mat from dark red card stock, and I adhered both rectangle panels together using liquid glue. And now I only have to adhere this combination to my white linen textured card base using one millimetre thick foam tape.  

 

 And that is it for my second and last guest design project this year! Thank you for having me; I had a blast while creating these fun projects for you all! 

Heidi Jakobs