Make It Colourful - Blending Outside the Colour Family

Hi everyone... wow where has the last month gone...  How did you like the cast shadows challenge.
we have yet another new challenge for you over at Make It Colourful.. 

 All the details and fabulous inspiration from the the girls can be found over  on the challenge blog...

 I have done a few projects this month and I will be sharing them throughout the challenge with some detail on how I did them, as I have had a few enquiries on how I use my Ball point pens...

My first project I will share is...

The Kingfisher

This one of the fabulous new images Zoe has in the Store

  I have used ball point pens, for the challenge part I have blended the blue and the green and also blue with purple.. this is just my version of how I use the pens I haven't been using them very long so they are still new to me.

To get started you will need..

your image

a selection of ball point pens

I always work with a piece of old cardboard/cereal box card under my work 

a piece of kitchen roll to rest my hand on and to keep wiping the tip of the pens onto

 I always start with the lightest colour, it may not always be seen when I've finished but it just work as a guide for me..You need to use really light feather like stokes and build them up, sometime it seems like you are not making any marks at all... but you are.. I work from both sides of the image at once so I can create an area where there will be shine or light reflecting from it.. so I started with the light blue making quite long stokes. I also follow the shape of the iumage with my stokes it helps create shape and depth and movement

 My second colour was a dark blue, but not making the strokes as long, again working from both sides and I work towards the middle, it helps if you turn your work around so you can create the same amount of pressure on your stokes to make them even.

 my third colour was a medium blue I had a turquoise and the went over from the dark blue extenedit but not as far as the lightest blue, you should see the colours start to blend... you may need to add some more light blue if  think you need to... it's just playing and getting used to a different medium.
I then added some orange on the bottom of the beak so I can try and get a colour balance between the top and bottom, I usually work on more than one part at once so I don't make  it too dark and I can add shading when I finalise the image.

 I have added a slightly darker orange over my first colour to get some depth, again not colouring over it all.

 I have added some red in light stokes where the darkest parts of the beak are, and also some black into the darkest parts of the upper beak...

As black can be a little harsh on light colours I used a brown th help blend the darker part on the orange and red  and some more light blue to close up the white parts on the top.

It just takes practise like with any medium and some patience..

Again with the wings I use the same principal of using light strokes and making them  curved..

I used a light blue on the top part of the wing and a light green on  the bottom part,, making the strokes quite long again I want to create a lighter area in the middle, where the light will bounce off.

shorter strokes with a darker blue at the top and a darker green at the bottom

Then I start to  blend the two colour families together, I used the lighter green  to feather over the blue area and the light  blue   to feather over the green, make the strokes really light or it could go too dark...

I did also add a little lilac colour on the blue as kingfisher are a solid colour but there's a lot of irridescence and you can see lots of colours.

On the green part I added some yellow, you may want to try on some scrap paper first as this can really change the colour of the green, and then it's just a case of blending between the colours untill your happy

 My first colour was a light pink, in really light feather strokes...

 I then used quite a bright cerise  pink in short strokes.

Where I have created some veins in the petals I used purple to deepen the shadows...

I then go back to my lightest pink and blend the colours together...

 I hope you can follow this and I'm sorry it is long... I will be posting some more shorter tutorials soon if any body would like to use them...

Please don't forget to head over to the Inspiration blog and take a look at the awesome work the girls  have done.

Thank you so much for stopping by

Hugs for now

Kay