Campology Tutorial.

I posted a couple of cards on the  Stampin' up demonstrator face book page yesterday and the response was phenomenal.  I have been asked  many times to do a video on colouring the stamped images, in this instance the tent,  but my blog won't allow me to upload videos. The nearest I can come to a video is a photo tutorial. 

So I don't have a finished card for you today. The purpose of this post is to show you one of the ways I have been working with the Campology set. Which hopefully will answer all the questions left on FB. The actual cards will be posted  here on Tuesday,  which is Hubby's birthday. As he follows my blog,  I can't have him seeing his card on here before then. Hence the delay in posting the actual cards.

 If you are a visiting demo you will probably have seen the cards already and they are probably the reason you are visiting here.  I hope that this post will answer your questions.

First I stamped the tent onto my piece of basic white card and again on the sticky edge of a post it note.

 I cut out the tent from the post it , cutting on the inside of the stamped line. I placed the post it over the stamped image, to protect the tent from the blending process. You really don't want to get any ink on the tent.

I used Blueberry Bushel and a blending brush to create the sky. I load the brush with ink then tap off the excess in the lid of the ink pad, I can come back and collect the ink from the lid next time I need to load my brush.  I also work on a sheet of laminated card, this is so I can brush the ink from the laminated card onto the  piece I am working on, meaning I don't waste too much ink.  If I was working on paper the paper would soak up a lot of ink and I could never reclaim that. Yep! I am a tightwad.

Always start work from the top edge of your card and blend down towards the middle. The top edge will absorb most of the ink on your brush, as you work downwards the  less ink you will have on your brush, which will give you a graduated look. This will help to give the scene a little depth.

The next step was to stamp those trees. I roughly lined up the bottom of the tree stamp with the back edge of the tent, so as not to stamp over the guylines holding up the tent.

 I moved the tree stamp over and planted another row of trees on the opposite side of the tent. One set of trees looks great, but I decided to go with two sets on this sample.

Using a piece of torn scrap paper and Soft suede ink I brushed in some shade at the base of the tent and under the trees. I used the edge of the torn paper to brush in  some extra shading or contour lines.

 You can add the stars  with a white Posca pen now if you wish or leave it to the end.

 With a Mellow Moss ink pad  and a brush, I completely covered  the foreground in green ink.  This time working from the bottom upwards so the intensity of the green is darker at the bottom. You can still see those contour lines I brushed in but they are nowhere near as obvious. They give the impression of uneven ground without hitting you in the face.

                           Now we can colour that tent. So remove the mask. Take a pale yellow alcohol marker  The paler the better. Draw a circle with the marker and colour in the middle. 

With  a  slightly stronger, more intense yellow, draw another circle around the first circle and overlapping the first slightly.  Do not colour it in this time. You're creating a bullseye effect with the markers.

With a stronger  golden yellow, draw another circle around the first two,  slightly over lapping the last circle.

 With   a light or mid tone orange marker draw  another circle and fill in the corners of the tent with light orange.

Going back to the lightest yellow marker, gently blend the  hard lines between the circles. They don't have to disappear altogether, you just want to soften the edges.  

Don't go over the middle circle, you need to keep that as light as possible. 

Warning..... If you blend too much, you will washout all the darker colours. You are  also in danger of flooding your card with ink.  The good news is, if you do blend out too much colour,  let your card dry and then you can put it back in.

    

If you want a little more shading on the edges, try adding a little mid brown in the shaded areas and blend to soften the edges a little. Once you've achieved the look you like,  add some stars with a white Posca pen. if you haven't done it already.

I am including a photo of the marker pens I used  to give you an idea of the colours I used.

However I think I should have swapped the pale yellow Y11 to canary yellow Y02 or something even lighter.

 I do hope this information has helped and answered all the questions.

Masculine card

 I am quit pleased with the way this one turned out. I used blending brushes and three different inks to create a multi-coloured sky.  I stamped the boats and I placed post it notes across the top of the two thirds  to create  the horizon and a blended several blue inks to create the water. taking care not to put too much ink over the boats. I could have masked off the boats but I was short on time and really couldn't be bothered with the hassle of cutting out masks. I could have brushed over the boats with a little water and blot off the ink, but I didn't. A white Posca paint  pen was  used to bring the sails back to a white-ish colour and to add highlights in the water.

Masculine cards

I have been playing with inks again. Blending various colours of inks to create colourful skies  for the silhouette stamping. The die for the lighthouse is in the set that coordinate with the sailing home stamp set. 

Normally you would stamp the lighthouse and die cut the image with the matching die. But I needed the negative of the lighthouse die for a video tutorial, which meant the positive was waste. After some thought I decided to use it as a silhouette on my blended backgrounds.

But then  I decided there wasn't enough foreground on the die cut for what I had in mind.

 I didn't want my scene made up of lots of pieces.

So here's what I did.

I placed the die on black card leaving lots of space at the bottom of the die.

I placed the cutting mat over the die, leaving the base of the lighthouse uncovered and ran it through the bigshot.

This method cuts out most of the lighthouse but not all. Which means you can go in with a pair of scissors and cut the rocky landscape in a way that's pleasing to you.

To create the impression of the rocks, I blended patches of white craft ink into the card stock. and then blended a little black craft ink into the white until I had something that resembled  misty rocks.

Masculine card

I have had this Thanksgiving stamp set for some time, but have been putting off using it. 

Something told me that colouring this stamp was going to be  challenging.....And I wasn't wrong.

My first four attempts went in the bin and the stamp set almost followed them.

Then I had an idea to a use a chocolate chip stamp and write pen (water/dye based) to draw in all the dark feather markings before using my Copic markers to colour the image. 

Once coloured, I turned the card over and with a large ball tool and working on the cover of a leather bound diary, I rubbed over the bodies of the pheasants using small circular motions to make those breasts really pop out. Using a slightly smaller ball tool I ran it along the tail feathers, the neck and head for a partially embossed look. I am not sure how well it would stand up to the postal system though. So it might be best to hand deliver this one.

Copic markers bleed through the card, so when you turn the card over you can see exactly where to emboss.

I have to say I am  quite please with the way this turned out. I haven't added a greeting yet.

 I will decide on a greeting once I know who is going to receive it and what the occasion is. 

           I forgot to say this set is in the current catalogue.
 

Golf Themed card

So Hubby came home and said it's the governor's birthday tomorrow, can you knock up a quick card for him. This is what I came up with.

No stamping involved on this card, I bought the DSP  that goes with the Club House stamp set. This image is on one of the sheet of dsp. It's  not coloured so you can choose to colour it or not. As you can see, I chose to colour it and layered it on a second sheet of dsp from the same pack. The sentiment came from the club house  stamp set.  Apart from the colouring this was an ultra quick card to make.

I forgot to say there are images of female golfers on this dsp too.

Masculine Card

The truck stamp I used for this card is from S.U. I think the set is called Country Living.

I messed up on this one.  I didn't quite line up my layer properly, so when I tried to prize them apart I tore the image.

I did a small repair but the tear could still be seen slightly.
That is why my sentiment is in the position it is. 




I had originally planned to place it across the bottom of the oval aperture. 
Which is why I didn't bring the grass colour down further.   I will have to go back and fill in that white space now.