How many shades of grey do you really, really need!!?

Hello there blog friends - Happy Tuesday

Today I've got with a quick tutorial  that I've done for Inky impressions about two things really 

1. You don't need a Christmas image to make a Christmas card
2. You only need one shade of grey - or one colour infact - no matter what that book says!!

I've made a quick and easy Christmas card with the Inky Impressions stamp

Hazel baking cookies

you can find her  here

I coloured her with copics - not particularly carefully (whoops!) - but that doesn't really matter when you use a prismacolour pencil to go back in to add shade and depth to the image. And to shade the whole image all you need is 

One shade of grey!!

Infact prismacolor 70% warm grey.  You could use any grey or even black (and if I want an even deeper vintage look I do use black- it does great things when used with red - but thats for another day)  but for this particular card I wanted a warm look and thats what the 70% grey gives to this image.

Here is the image coloured with copics - it looks ok - but lacks any depth and as you can see I havent done a great deal of blending with the colours and it all looks a bit too bright in places

Next I added lines of grey where I wanted to add the shade with the pencil you'll notice I have not added any to the centre of the face

I then started to blend the pencil with Sansodor solvent

You can now see that there is a lot more depth to the image also I added shade to the centre of the face just by using whatever colour I had already picked up on my blending stump and blending it into the centre of  the face.

I then cleaned off my blending stump (with an emery board) and used just Sansodor to further blend and thin out the grey in places

All of the colours are now muted - which was the effect I was looking for- and there is shade and light to the little bears fur and the clothes and bowl.

I then trimmed the card and shaded with distress ink before I mounted the image onto green card and added  papers, ribbon  and embellies  to make this cute Christmas card - and there she is

Hazel baking her Christmas Cookies

This is what I used to make this card

Image - Hazel baking cookies from Inky impressions

Coloured with copics - fur E40,41,43  ribbon and apron trim R37,35,32  apron G28,07,00  bowl E53,51,       cookie mix E11,21, eyes B93 Inside ears YR 20,21

And ....Prismacolor pencil - one shade of grey 70% warm grey

Papers - first edition - festive treats (cookies were also cut from these papers)

Distress ink - Tea dye by Tim Holtz 

Sentiment - LOTV

Shaped card - craftwork cards

Heart charm - Inky impressions

Gems and ribbon - from my stash

Challenges i'm entering with this card

Loves rubber stamps -anything goes

Now go and have a look at your stamps! There's lots of stamps you could use that aren't Christmas stamps that will make a beautiful Christmas card.  Hope I gave you some inspiration

hugs

Judith xx