Summer Selfie - Distress ink watercolouring

Summer colours in the middle of winter, yes please. Oh Snap! Are you ready for the summer selfies?

The Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps image is coloured with Distress ink and waterbrush with just a touch of Perfect Pearls. The stencil background is from My Favorite Things and done with more Distress ink and Clarity brush.

I decided to show how I do watercolouring with Distress to colour images, so the Putting It Together is a bit picture intense.

Putting It Together

I love water-medium. I love love love Distress ink. This is my favourite medium for colouring and I use techniques similar to those used with alcohol ink markers and coloured pencils.

I squish the minis on a plastic sheet as my palette and then use waterbrush to pick up the colours. I work with a fairly dry brush so I can control where the colour goes.

When I need to 'lift' some of the colour, I usually wipe the brush between my thumb and finger to pull the colour off the brush to use a clean brush on the image. 

For most areas, I work dark to light. For Caucasian skin, I usually use Victorian Velvet for the first colour, the shadowing.

I bring in Tattered Rose as the second colour, going over the Victorian Velvet and extending further in.

Spun Sugar is the third colour of the skin blend. I lift colour from the centre for a lighter highlight.

For the green hat and shorts, I started with a shadow of Peeled Paint.

Crushed Olive is the second colour I used.

Twisted Citron is the bright for the third colour in the blend.

For the blue socks, I started with Faded Jeans..

and added Salty Ocean.

I finished the socks with Tumbled Glass.

I decided I wanted to have the top blue, too, so started with Faded Jeans..

and Salty Ocean,..

adding Tumbled Glass to finish.

For the hair, I started with Scattered Straw over all to use darker colours with a light base.

I added wisps of Walnut Stain..

and Wild Honey. While painting the hair, I also did the eyes using Salty Ocean and Faded Jeans. This makes them darker than the blue in her outfit while staying in the same palette.

I used Ground Espresso to finish the hair.

I added her smile with Fired Brick.

For her purse, I started with Aged Mahogany...

and finished with a light application of Fired Brick. I used Aged Mahogany on her shoes and added definition to her eyes by outlining them with Black Soot (which I missed when writing the colours) and Weathered Wood in the corner.

I used Weathered Wood and Black Soot on her phone and gave the phone and her shoes a bit of sparkle with Blush Perfect Pearls.

I added Black Soot pupils to her eyes and touched them with white Uniball dots. I used black pen and Gelly Roll for her bangle. I forget that Gelly Roll takes a bit of time to dry so smudged the bangle which made me glad I planned to fussy cut.

I used Tim Holtz scissors to fussy cut the image with a narrow margin..

then used a craft knife to trim the inner areas.

For the background, I used a stencil to create a sun burst.

I used Clarity brushes with Ripe Persimmon and Mustard Seed.

Brushing from the sun up the stencil rays gives a soft sun look.

I used a patterned paper for the background matted with value cardstock from Micheals. I also added a bit of washi tape with summer words.

I added the image with foam mounting tape for dimension.

Inside, I used some of the same washi on the bottom to pull the colour inside and added a second sentiment from the set.

Supplies

Challenges

Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps Krafty Krop: #2 Sketch

Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps Saturday: Summer

Try It On Tuesday: My Favourite Things (favourite medium)
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday: Add a Sentiment
Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper: Anything Goes

Crafting From the Heart: Anything Goes
Happy Little Stampers Watercolour: Anything Goes