Rijacki's Workshop: Bathing Beauty colouring

This post is a companion to Bathing Beauty showing the colouring stages for Brigitte, retired stamp set from Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps with Prismacolour pencil colouring. While I am by no means an expert at colouring, I thought it would be fun to show my process.

I stamped the image on Bristol with Party Peach so the stamping wouldn't show when I was done. This is called a "no lines" technique. You still have lines, they're just not visible directly in the end.

For colouring, I use an embossing lightbox without the light. This gives me a rigid slightly slanted raised surface which is good for the ergonomics, i.e. I don't bend my neck over as far. I can also pick up the lightbox to bring it in closer for details (or when I don't want to bend my neck much at all).

I also wear magnifying glasses 'cause my close-in vision is not as good as my younger days *laugh* I've been far-sighted my whole life and still am, but close in is getting fuzzier (and the print on packaging is getting smaller, of course). When I look further away than 15ish inches with my glasses, it's very disorienting and oddly blurry and curved. So, glasses on for close, glasses off for far, it sucks when I drop something, like a pencil that twirls and leaps out of my hand like an acrobat on a trapeze.

For fair skin, I usually use my own blend: Clay Rose, Rosy Beige, Light Peach, Seashell Pink, Cream, and White. I often start with the second darkest colour, Rosy Beige, in the shadow areas then progress out toward the centre with the lighter colours to an overall smoothing with the lightest non-white, i.e. Cream for this blend, and/or White. I then add the darkest, Clay Rose, in the shadow. If the skin was getting overall a bit to sallow (yellowish), I added in Light Peach overall. Since there is a layer of pencil covering the paper, this mellows to a blend rather than a direct Light Peach. I build the shadows using the two darkest colours while smoothing and blending with the lightest until it's about the colour I want though a bit dark in the shadows on its own. For the non-shadowed edges of her skin, I used Light Peach then a little Rosy Beige if the curve needed a bit of a nudge. I keep my skin colours out of my case while I work on the rest 'cause some times I add a little more shadow or light as needed (or find a fleshy area I missed). I added Tuscan Red for her smile and used Clay Rose for her eyes.

I wasn't sure what I wanted for her hair colour so I decided to go on to the rest. I used Cool Greys and White for her white porcelain tub. I started with the second darkest shade I wanted in the shadows, 50%, then progressively lighter before adding the darker 70% then shadow to light again. I used a lot of 10% and White to smooth and blend to keep the white look. When trying to get a white look, I try not to get too grey.

While colouring, I was considering going over the tub with a clear gloss such as Glossy Accents or Nuvo Morning Dew but decided against it in the end as being a bit too over the top.

Looking at the pictures, I could have added a darker shadow area under her dangling foot, arm, and towel without losing the white effect. It's actually a bit more shadowy in person than in the pictures.

Still waffling on hair, I decided to brassify the tub feet and faucet. I used French Grey with Metallic Gold to build the colours and give it a bit of shine. At this point, I wasn't entirely happy with how the feet turned out but left them for later.

While colouring the towels, I added Metallic Bronze to the tub feet and faucet which worked to finish them. For the towels, I went with blues with black because I was originally considering this project for a Kraftin' Kimmie challenge relating to Ravenclaw creativity, but I am rather happy with the sumptuous blues. I started with Slate Blue and Blue Slate in the bathwater bubbles. I knew I was going to use something dimensional over them so wanted watery stand out shadowing. For the towels, Indigo Blue, Indanthrone Blue, China Blue, Cerulean Blue, and Light Cerulean Blue with Black and dark Cool Greys for trim and fringe. Like before, I started with the second darkest, Indanthrone Blue is a colour I hate to spell but love to use. It's gorgeous. China / Cerulean Blue is the colour I wanted the towels to appear. I love Cerulean. I always think of Tiepolo and the cerulean skies of his ceiling frescos in Venice (some of which I was lucky enough to see in person in the late 80s). I used 70% and 90% Cool Grey with Black for the trim and fringe for elegant Ravenclaw colours style.

And then, hair. I finally gave in to my predilection towards red hair *laugh*. I love colouring hair in shades of red because of the vibrancy. For pencil colouring, I often use a bunch of colours in the hair. For this flaming red gingery goodness, I used Dark Brown, Chocolate, Sienna Brown, Burnt Ochre, Pumpkin Orange, Mineral Orange, and Sunburst Yellow. Like before, I start with the second darkest, Chocolate, to define the shadows and start the flicks in from the shadow areas. I then add the lighter colours pulling the shadows toward the tops of curls over which I used Sunburst Yellow. Like the skin, once I have the basics laid in, I go back to the darkest, Dark Brown, for more shadow definition and then the other colours for colour using the Sunburst Yellow and Mineral Orange for smoothing and blending. Looking at the picture, there are a couple areas I would have added a bit more darkness to, but overall I am pleased with her flaming ginger locks.

Her hair is also a good contrast to the blue towels, blue-ish bath, and the blue background of Cerulean and Light Cerulean lightly applied for a chalk-like look.

I did a loose fussy cut around the bathing beauty and then, to give her bubbles dimension and iridescence, I added Nuvo Cloud Dream Dops. I love the Dream Drops line but only have three of the colours... so far. The iridescence is so very shimmery pretty in life with the drops having rounded dimension, just like bubbles.