Welcome Spring !!

Hello Friends ,

Its Monday morning and I am back today to share with you a creation that I loved making :)

As a Scrapbooker I always like using scraps and each tiny piece of pattern paper which is preserved and given an awesome look with a layout

Today I'm creating a layout for journaling my latest getaway trip with CHEVRON IN AQUARELLE paper pack. This paper stack is filled with lovely, beautiful, watercoloured textures perfect for spring:)

I have used 4 different shades and designs from the stack and hand torn it to give it a lovely effect .

I layered them and tried all combinations till I was happy with how it goes with my pictures .

Further I have stenciled the lovely design using modelling paste.

Once the layout and background is decided its easy to go with the flow and embellish it :)

I have used the chipboard heart colored with chalk paints

The sentiment is from the L’AMOUR DES FLEURS PAPER PACK

Hope to have inspired you to transform ordinary things into pretty stuff with just few craft supplies in hand :) Wish to see more of my creations for inspiration, please click here 

Supplies used 

CHEVRON IN AQUARELLE 12X12 

L’AMOUR DES FLEURS 12X12 INCH 

STENCIL BAROQUE DESIGN

HOME DECOR CHALK PAINT LEMON CHIFFON 60ML BOTTLE

SILICON LIQUID GLUE

ADHESIVE FOAM DBL SIDED TAPE

CHIPBOARD DECORATIVE HEARTS 

BLANCHE OCEAN MIST 11PCS IB

Happy Crafting

Sharada Dilip Acharya

Colouring Tips

Hello All!! Welcome to another Itsy Bitsy tutorial. Itsy Bitsy has just introduced Colour Yoga, Colouring Books for Adults - Nature, Geometrical, Damask, Classic and Floral. These books will allow you to start your day most creatively or let you relax after a hard day's work. It's an excellent arena for colour yoga & is an excellent alternative to meditation, letting you relax, de-stress and rejuvenate.

Colour your favourite design using a marker, colour pencil or by combining both. You can also add dimension to your designs with shading. In this tutorial, we shall show easy techniques of colouring using coloured pencils.

But, before we get to that, let us understand colours first.

Understanding Colours :

There are three types of colours –

Primary colours – Red, Blue & Yellow

Secondary colours – Orange, Green & Purple (created by combining 2 primary colours)

Tertiary colours – Yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, blue-purple, red-purple & red-orange (created by mixing adjacent primary & secondary colours).

A tint is a colour plus white & a shade is a colour plus black.

We can further classify colours as warm (red, yellow & orange) & calm colours (green, blue & purple).

So, let’s get started & master this art!!

Materials required:

Colour Yoga Coloring book

Colour pencil – Lemon yellow, orange, light green, cobalt green, red, pink (you can choose the colours of your choice)

Method :

Step 1: Use yellow and orange colour pencils to colour the head of owl. We recommend that you use light pressure and colour in circular pattern. Sharpen the pencil to a fine point and draw very small overlapping circular marks.

Step 2: Colour the entire area as shown using orange and yellow colour gently. The best way to shade is to just alter pressure on your pencil.

Step 3: Using two or more colours and blending it to bring a smooth finish is essential in colour blending technique. In this case, use orange and red colour and blend thoroughly. The trick is to put a lighter shade and then overlap it with a darker colour, burnishing the previous colour. 

Step 4: Colour the flower pink. Darken the shade towards the middle of the flower and shade lighter as you move towards the petals.

Step 5: Intensify shading towards to edges. Try to cover the area smoothly at the light end and then increase pressure as you colour towards the darker end.

Step 6: Colour both the wings yellow followed by 2 different shades of green. Each colour should smoothly blend with the previous shade. Layering darker colours over light or medium shade is recommended as it adds colour and darkens and not vice versa.

Step 7: Use yellow, red and orange to shade the body. 

Relax your way into one of these patterns & you can find yourself twirled together with cords of colours in a fantasy land as beautiful as your childhood dreams. Bid adieu to stress forever with our colouring books. :-) :-)

Links :

Itsy Bitsy Colour Yoga Coloring book - http://www.itsybitsy.in/store/books/colouring-books

Colour pencil - http://www.itsybitsy.in/store/index.php?main_page=advanced_search_result&search_in_description=0&keyword=14581

Oil and Chalk Pastels on paper - Part 2

Hello again! This week I will be continuing my post on using pastels on paper.
Chalk pastels are the simplest form of soft pastels that contain more pigment and less binding material ( like oil in oil pastels).Hence giving out brighter colours as compared to oil pastels.

Chalk pastels,as they are very dry and chalky, tend to leave behind a great amount of  dust after writing just like how the blackboard chalks do. So having them in the form of a pencil not only makes our lives easier, it can also be used for sketching the fine details which is very hard to do with pastel sticks. However, it is still a colored chalk and one must be careful not to rub off the sketch while resting the palm on the paper.

I’m using the Montmarte black paper sketching pad , the paper quality is exceptional for all types of sketching and Montmarte AUTUMN pastel pencils for my sketch. This pack mainly consists of great autumn shades i.e. tones of orange, red, green and blue. I have chosen to sketch a kingfisher bird to show that you can sketch anything with the autumn pack pencils and not just landscapes!

I have started off with a basic sketch using a graphite pencil. The autumn pack contains two great shades of blue and green, which I have mixed to get the below shade of the bird. Chalk pastels are very easy to blend, either by hand, a neutral colour or blending stumps .White pastel can be used to modify the shade to a lighter tone. 

I have also started the sketch from the top of the page, so I can avoid resting my hand and smudging the surface. 

The chalk pastels leave behind dust on the paper, so always blow the dust off instead of using a paper towel or your hand. You may also have to reuse the color several times to achieve a dark and bright shade.Since I have used pastel pencils, I'm able to bring out the details of the feathers of the bird and the fish its holding. 

The completed sketch is as below. I have added some green shading, so the background isn't  jet black anymore: 

Chalk pastels are very hard to preserve unless they are protected with a glass frame or have a protective coating on the surface. Make sure to spray the picture with a fixative. But due to the chalk property of the pastels, its better to be cautious, as fixatives may impact the color or texture of the sketch. 

Pastels are a great way to start, so grab your set and start sketching! 

Let me know what you think of my tutorial in the comments below.. 

Oil and Chalk pastels on paper - Part 1

Hello Everyone, This is Pooja here and I am back with my third art tutorial for Itsy Bitsy! This time I will be talking about using soft oil pastels and chalk pastels on paper. I will use both black and white paper to show the effect of both media.

Part- 1 : Oil pastels on white paper:

Oil pastels are usually buttery and contain more oil content, so they can be blended more easily either by hand or with a neutral colour pastel. Oil pastels work great on good textured paper, for a smoother blending effect we can use our normal sketching paper which is less textured. I have used MontMarte A3 size sketch book and MontMarte Oil Pastels. Since oil pastels work differently than paints, it is important to start with a good quality pastel that works and blends smoothly.

There are many techniques to use oil pastels. In today's sketch, I am going to use a technique called Layering, where you gradually build up the layers of pastels to achieve the colour and depth you want in your sketch.

I have sketched a scene of a small café in Europe, using a graphite pencil. Once the initial sketch was ready, I started with the basic shades in the picture. In this case, I start with pink/peach for the walls and tables, grey and black for the door, floor and parts of the background.

Its necessary to start with the basic shades as we can blend in more colours to produce gradients and we can also use contrast shades to highlight. You can either blend with your fingers or use blending stumps. I have used blue to highlight the chairs & tables and light/dark shades of green for the bushes and yellow for the flooring and door. (It is important to wipe your fingers and the pastel sticks in between so you do not end up transferring one colour to another)

Make sure not to use too many shades in the same area, as the colours stop blending at one point after which the pastels start to stick . So plan for the shade you require and work towards achieving it with less than 3 colours.

You can notice the shadow of the window grill on the wall and shades of yellow on the right part of the sketch which indicates that the light source is on the left top corner. Paying attention to light sources and their effects on the object can bring about a great difference on how the finished sketch looks.

The final part of the sketch is the flooring. I have used shades of yellow to show the light on the ground and the shadowed areas are dark brown. The blue highlights are used to break the monotony of browns on the tiles. 

After the major areas are completed and blended, I have outlined the details of wine glasses & plates on the tables. The completed sketch is as below. 

Since oil pastels are of oil medium, the sketches don't stick to other surfaces and hence don't need to be sprayed with a fixative. Though you could spray fix it if you like. 

Oil pastels can also be used for 'Underpainting' of water colours or for making patterns by scraping into built layers with a sharp tool, a technique called 'Sgraffito'. Another great way of blending oil pastels is by using a solvent medium like turpentine or linseed oil just like an oil painting. But this requires a oil sketching paper to hold the oil content.

Do let me know what you think in the comments below!