Lucy Loo ' Blossom sensuality'

Hello again everyone (waving) 

It is release day at The East Wind today and the new digital stamp being released is Lucy Loo 'Blossom Sensuality'.

Here is my sneak peek you saw on Instagram

And here is the reveal. Isn't she lovely? You can purchase this digital stamp here and colour her up yourself :)

I have made a larger card this time (6" x 8") and coloured Lucy with Polychromos. I wanted to make a simple pretty card and embellished it with cut out cherry blossoms.

I will be entering this creation into the following challenges

Crafting from the heart CHallenge #57 - anything goes

Lil patch of crafty friends #8 Anything goes

Love to scrap #52 anything goes

National humor month at 613 Avenue Create

April is national humor month and 613 Avenue Create challenge blog has decided to make a challenge anything goes with a humorous sentiment twist.

I was asked to be a guest designer and I love this stamp from Bugaboo who is also one of the sponsors for the challenge. Bugaboo have a mountain of funny images to use and Stella and Gus would have to be my favourite characters they produce. You can get to their website via this >> link 

The stamp I have used is "Stella love-one person to annoy" and I decided to go Monochrome with brown intense pencils to give the feel of an old photograph. The happy anniversary sentiment is computer generated.

Humorous cards are always fun to make and receive so why not create one yourself and enter it into the challenge.

I will be entering this card into the following challenges

Catch the bug Challenge Blog photo inspiration challenge

Inspiration destination challenge #30 - anything goes

Corrosive challenge blog - #223 hip to be square

Aurora Lost Lagoon

Hello everyone (waving) I see I have a few new followers :) Welcome aboard. I hope I can entertain you all with some of my arty pieces.

This post is about a new digital stamp which has been released from The East Wind today. Unky has drawn up this gorgeous image and as soon as I saw it i wanted to colour it. It gives me a fantasy/ alice in wonderland kind of feel.
The image is called 'Aurora- Lost Lagoon' and you can purchase it as a digital stamp here.
Here is my first sneak peek i shared on Instagram (you can follow me there @ericabruton)
it is of aurora looking into the lagoon.

Here is my second sneak peek of what Aurora is actually looking at in the lagoon, a koi fish with a magical crown, which obviously she has to have.

Here is my finished piece all framed and looking gorgeous, I think :)

I printed the image A4 size as I knew I would need some space to colour it how I wanted. i imagined it to look like a magical/fantasia kind of place. I wanted to really test my boundaries as I have never painted water let alone under water. i was googling underwater ponds, underneath water lillies and koi fish just to get how I would colour this image. I used polychromos in the beginning but ended up moving onto Inktense to really get the look I was after. I have to say it took me about three days to finally finish it. I had to set it aside each day and come back to it. haha and each time i would change my mind about how I was colouring it. I was going to have a glow coming off Aurora but ended up giving the crown a glow instead. It drew Aurora to the pond I think and somehow connected her to the fish. ....now I'm rambling. It's weird I try and make a connection with everything I colour, I think it's what make my colouring work.

Anyhow enough of my rambling make sure you head on over The East Wind at etsy and purchase this image and give it a go. Its lots of fun to colour.

I will be entering this piece into the following challenges

Inspiration Destination challenge #30 Anything goes

Lil Patch of Crafty Friends Challenge #8 Anything goes

SLSlines challenge #8 Anything goes (oh looky at that the same as above)

Love To Scrap challenge Blog Challenge #52 Anything goes

Design Team showcase Challenge 10 April 11- April 25

craft Your Passion Challenges challenge #258 Anything goes (sheesh everything is anything goes...lucky :) )

Anyways, cheerio catch ya next time

Erica

613 Avenue Create Challenge #119 design inspiration

Hello (waving)

The next couple of months i have been asked to guest design over at 613 Avenue Create.

Its a fabulous challenge blog and has many wonderful ladies behind the scenes helping set up awesome challenges like the one i have designed for this week.

It is a anything goes challenge with an optional twist of creating your own challenge from the table below.

I have gone with shaped card, Birthday and gold/metallic.

One of the sponsors this week is Melonheadz and i have used the Three wishes bundle of digital stamps and placed them on a bookfold card.

Here i have coloured with poloychromos the palace and lamp digital stamps from the bundle. The sentiment is computer generated

The inside of the card i have used the 3 digital stamps from the bundle. The genie 3, lamp, stars (behind the genie) and as part of the sentiment. I gold embossed the spellbinder dies on the edge of the card as well as shading a bit of the lamp.

 The fold of this card looks great doesn't it? I cut the card on my cameo but i designed the template myself. There are bunches of tutorials on youtube for this card. Just search 'Bookfold card'

Thanks for dropping by and be sure to stop by the challenge blog for a chance to win some awesome prizes or get some great inspiration. The link to the current challenge is here 

613 Avenue Create challenge #119

Pansy

Warning this is a long post but only as I am sharing a step by step as to how I made this card.

(click on any of the pictures to enlarge)

I am colouring 'pansy' from Aurora Wings Stamps. It is a digital stamp and can be found here.

When i start to colour an image i dunno why but i always seem to begin with the hair. perhaps so i can find the basic structure of the image especially with the aurora wing images as there is always a lot of detail in them and i don't want to come to the end to discover i have coloured half of the curls green thinking they were part of the plants.

Here i have chosen brown hair and used these three browns (walnut, burnt sienna and bistre) from my polychromos. I always start with the darkest shade first and blend out to the lightest.

Here i have decided to finish with yellow ochre for the highlights in her hair.

Google images is my favourite place to find inspiration for natural flower colours. I chose a pink/fuschia pansy and got colouring as you can see. Sorry i must have skipped an image as i was going along. I basically tried to match my pencil colour to the colours i saw in the photograph of the flower i found. The bottom of the flower had yellow and chrome yellow was the best match so that is what i went with.

Next was the leaves. again trying to match the greens to an original pansy leaf and like the hair i usually start with the darkest area of the leaf and blend into the lightest area. The darkest section of the leaf is the creases/veins. the area obviously which isn't getting the most light.

Next obvious section is the face. I think of my light source and where the shadows of ones face will be cast. If you have trouble find some images on google or look in the mirror :)

I start with the cheeks with the colour medium flesh. I colour like i am adding blush make up :)

next i try and define the rest of the face like the nose and upper lip.

Usually at this stage my next go to pencil colour is cinnamon 

Once i am happy with the features i start the shading. Burnt ochre is next. Its a yellowy colour but darkens the feature lines.

Next i start to fill the area with light flesh. this is a very light pink so not the last colour to blend just yet. I usually finish the lightest areas with the second pencil from the whole set, Ivory.

I usually go over and over the shading until I'm happy. I even went  around the edges and cast shadows with indian red.

Her eyes i decided on green to compliment the finished garden look i wanted. I find colouring the top part of the eye in a dark green and then shade just under that with a lighter green works well to give a natural looking eye. A black line directly under along the top eyelid gives the sense of depth to her eye. Don't forget a nice shade of eyeshadow.

 Then last of all i coloured her eyebrows with Van-Dyck brown and a touch of walnut to darken them. 

To finish and smooth the majority of the colouring i went over the skin flowers and leaves with a pencil stump.

Next the background. I bring in my inktense pencils for this. I love these pencils from derwent.

I wanted a garden feel so i mixed a wash of green in a plastic palette  and applied liberally here and there making sure i shaded around the edge of the image.

Looks pretty good if i may say so myself :)

I spray my colourings with fixative just to avoid any accidental smudges and to seal it.

The bubbles in the image needed to pop a bit so i covered them all in glossy accents to give them the glossy 3D look they needed.

Now ages ago i found a sizzix pansy/violet flower die set and thought, hell, i need that, lol. 

It was perfect for this so i got to work cutting out little violet petals and leaves. i rolled, twisted, bent....whatever it is you call making paper flowers and stuck all the bits together to make the embellishments for the card.

All the cardstock i used is from kaisercraft. The green colour is fern and grape and wine are the purple shades.

The sentiment i printed on the image with the computer.

oh almost forgot i used a white gel pen to draw a thin white stripe across each of her eyes for the light reflection. I also used a silver polychromo pencil to shade her earrings.

I will be entering this card into the following challenges

Aurora wings challenge #13 Anything goes

Crafting from the heart #54 Anything goes

Lil Patch of crafty friends #7 anything goes

wish me luck :)

and don't forget you can follow me on Instagram @ericabruton

Erica xx

Rocking Mum

Here is my first Slinky Tart digital stamp all coloured up. This stamp is called Rocking Mum and I thought she would be perfect for a Mother's day card,

I have coloured her with polychromos and fussy cut her out and then foam mounted her onto a step card. Sentiment is from the computer.

Cool huh?

You can grab Slinky Tart stamps here.  There are heaps to choose from.

I am entering this card into the SLSLines anything goes challenge

You can finds me on instagram @ericabruton

Catchya :)

Erica