Hello Bellas!

Amy here, and with the current heat wave I couldn’t help but be pulled back to the beach for this week’s Scenic Saturday card. I inked up the long and lanky Uptown Girl Sandy has a Sombrero because she looks like a gal who knows how to keep cool in more ways than one. I know on island time it’s always 5 o’clock somewhere but that drink in her hand lead me to color in a warm sunset sky behind Sandy. What better way to end a day of sunning and swimming than with a sweet, icy cocktail? Because the Summer Sentiment that I chose mentions making memories I figured Sandy needed something going on around her. So, on her way back to the cabana I decided to have Sandy stumble across some local wildlife. I ended up grabbing Uptown Zodiac Girl Cancer and selectively inking only the crab she holds in her hand. I did have to use a black multi liner pen to sketch in a leg here and there as I tried to avoid some of Cancer’s curly hair, but all in all it was pretty easy to get a small cast of crabs scuttling across the sand. The texture on Sandy’s straw sombrero was another easy trick… that hat was actually the first thing I colored so that once I had it shaded to my liking, I could grab a scrap of an old cotton sock and dab some Copic Colorless Blender solution on it. Then I simply pounced the fabric on the hat and the wet fibers push the colors until the texture is revealed. The reason why you want to do this before coloring anything else is because the same texture would be added to any skin, hair or sky that the cloth hit as well, and you don’t want that to happen. So, with just a couple simple tricks I was able to take this card from a simple, pretty beach scene to creating a bit of story that captures the imagination.  🙂

Stay cool and stay crafty my friends!