Promarker Tutorial - Skin & Eyes

PLEASE ALSO SEE MY NEWER 2012 TUTORIAL SERIES IN THE TUTORIAL SECTION HERE

After much thought and being asked lots of time about the colours I use to colour faces I thought I'd do another tutorial for those with more than a couple of pens.

This tutorial is designed for people with a reasonable selection of promarkers as I use several.
The image I am using is a Sweet Pea stamp - Seeing Through which I selected as its a huge face area and eyes so you can see what I'm doing!

So are we sitting comfortably?

The colours I use for faces are....

IVORY (BASE COLOUR AND BLENDING)
BLUSH
VANILLA
SANDSTONE

Now then this is my colour choice for Sweet Pea stamps and more "realistic" images. If I'm colouring a more "cartoony" image such as magnolia I tend to swap the sandstone for oatmeal to make the skin more pinky.


You need to look at your image and decide where the light source is i.e the imaginary sun and if you've got the memory of a goldfish like I have then put a little mark somewhere away from the image to remind you!

I start off by colouring most of the skin tone in ivory. I leave a part white which is nearest to the light source.


I then colour over nearly all of the ivory with the blush again leaving the white bit (on the forehead in this image)



Next I use the VANILLA and create some darker areas so I've coloured over the parts I want to be the darkest leaving quite a lot of the blush showing and the white.



The next thing I do is go back to the IVORY and starting from your DARKEST colour (i.e VANILLA) blend this in towards the lightest colour. To blend simply move the pen in small circles or lines and push the darker colours inwards. Go over the bit you left white now and colour all over the skin.

See how the harsh lines blend in and disappear?







Next I use SANDSTONE to add shadows. If it was a Tilda or similar I'd use oatmeal instead which makes the image pinkier but sweet pea images I tend to do a more natural looking skin colour so I go for sandstone.
Add small lines of this in areas of shadow such as below strands of hair and along the face line as shown below.


Blend this in as before with your IVORY starting on the lines you just drew and working the colour in to remove the harsh lines then I've used PALE PINK for the cheeks (Most pinks are ok such as baby pink or sunkissed pink)

I colour in a triangle shape starting below the eyes as shown below.

Again using the IVORY I've blended the cheeks in and gone over the whole flesh area with IVORY to finish it off.

EYES

As eyes are usually quite small and the promarker nib is quite big then you need to be careful with small areas like this and literally feather the pen on the image. The harder you press down the more ink comes out so using a light hand colour in the iris part of the eye with the lighter colour (ARCTIC BLUE) leaving a small white spot as below. Use a light and a dark colour such as ARCTIC BLUE and AZURE.



Take a darker colour out (AZURE) and starting from the pupil colour in a small amount leaving the white spot and part of the ARCTIC BLUE showing as below.



Next use a BLENDER PEN and run over the eyes just a couple of times. This will blend the two blues together and tone down the white spot you left leaving a very pale shade of blue.
Hope this has been some use, I'll show the hair next week!

Thanks to Teresa at Crafts and Me for sending me the stamp to play with!


This one is a Tilda and I've replaced the sandstone for the oatmeal which gives a pinker look.
Also I tend to follow the shape of the face with the cheeks so the sweet pea is more of a
triangle face so I do the cheeks to match whereas Tildas are more rounded so I put big round
cheeks on and blend them less.

Crafty Cardmakers 17 DT - Spring into Spring

And its time again for another challenge over at Crafty Cardmakers! We have cardmaking ROYALTY in the house this week. Oooooh you'll have to pop over and see who's special guesting for us but we're all really nervous, we even gave the blog a lick of paint and tidied up before she came! This is one thing I love about blogging, there are so many people willing to help out where they can and especially with our challenge blog which is designed for newer cardmakers and bloggers to find their feet and its so nice that people take the time to share :)

I was late putting my card on today which is a first because I went to upload it from my camera last night only to find my camera had gone AWOL!!! DD1 had asked me earlier on yesterday if she could borrow it for Blackpool today, I ummed and ahhed as I dont like anyone borrowing it as I'm so reliant on it so when evening came she'd disappeared along with my camera eeeek!

Anyway its here now and the challenge is Spring into Spring! I chose a green and yellow colour combo as my interpretation of spring. Judie knows what my interpretation is and is probably having a right old chuckle!

I had a delivery from Sheenie Towers on Friday as my OH had got me a voucher for mothers day so thought I'd give my newest promarkers a whirl. I also got one of the Prima wildflowers pillar packs and gosh these are LOVELY! I'm so impressed with mine :D I'm still rubbish at flower embellishments unless I'm physically looking at Tab Robinsons blog! If my flower arrangement looks quite good and is glamour dusted you can put money on I've been stood in the kitchen with Tab's blog open on my blackberry!

I followed the sketch from Passion for promarkers this week and coloured using promarkers in the following:

Skin - Ivory, blush, vanilla, saffron, pastel pink (oooh a change!) Digressing a bit here but do other peope change their usual colour choice or style depending on the brand of stamp? I tend to do magnolias a lot more pinker so go heavier with the blush....

Sorry lol! Hair, I used my new ones for this, vanilla as the light and the new tan and caramel this time with cocoa for the shade.

Clothes - Primrose, buttercup, pastel yellow and the teesiest touch of gold and I put some ice grey 3 on too.

Jeans are Soft lime, lime zest, lime green with marsh as the shadow.

The flowers in her hair are coloured with yellow and orange sakura stardust pens.

Entering this into Passion for Promarkers - Sketch

It must be spring!

I've done a bit of stamping recently for a wallet swap I'm doing and I havent used this one for months, she's so pretty I thought I'd give her another run out again!

All DP's are Designer Extreme vol 3, the flowers are yeas old from stash and have been altered with well I started with shimmerz pixie dust but its gone funny in the pot and dried out, its not leaked or anything and the lids been on so dunno! Had to switch to shimmerz angel wings and then added some glamour dust.
Image is Magnolia - Tilda as a butterfly coloured with promarkers with added sparkles from a sakura stardust pen.


Entering into:

The Pink Elephant - Spring
Pile it On - Pastels
Rosie D's - Think Spring
By the cute & girly - Spring is in the air
Pollycraft 36 - Sparkly things

Just Magnolia challenge 11

This one is for this weeks Just Magnolia challenge which is a sketch by Bev.

The background is made with H2O's then I sketched over them (looks kinda familiar lol!) Tilda is coloured with copics and I added green bows as leaves with the flowers.

Just Magnolia challenge 10 - Summer

This one is for the Just Magnolia challenge - Summer. Really fond of this Tilda as she's really versatile. She's coloured with copics and I used the blender pen to get more shades :)

Tilda & Co Challenge - Cold as Ice

I really liked the idea of this challenge so I did it twice! Love all the DT's work, outstanding as always!

If you'd like a go at the challenges they are here http://magnoliachallengeblog.blogspot.com/

Anyways here's mine. First one is So Heavenly Tilda which was coloured using distress inks. Its on silver holographic paper and has 3 jewel brads.

This one is Christmas Edwin again painted in distress inks

Happy Birthday Jude

From our Yahoo group! Now its her birthday I can show her card ;)



This is a Magnolia (Tilda) stamp called "Summertime Tilda" Stamped with stazon and watercoloured with pencils and highlighted with sakura pens. The blue is Ikandee shimmer chalk then I've stipled the edges in brown. The papers are HOTP and the card is bazzil as are the brown flowers, the smaller blue ones are prima flowers.