August 18, 2016
9 Comments
Time for another Design Team Thursday! This week we’ve got a fabulous colouring tutorial for you, from our lovely Kerribella, showing you how to colour Stamping Bella images using Derwent Inktense Pencils. There aren’t any obvious skin tone shades in the pencil range, so if you’ve been struggling to choose colours to use and how to blend them to create a natural skin tone this may help!
Hi, it’s Kerribella, and for DT Thursday today I am sharing my technique for watercolouring skintones with Derwent Inktense Pencils.
Supply List:
Inktense Colors:
After stamping your image using Staz On ink on watercolour paper, leave it to dry. Ensure that the ink is fully dry before colouring.
Take your Derwent Inktense pencils and starting with the Saddle Brown pencil draw a thin line of colour where you would find a shadow.
Wet your brush, making sure it is not dripping with water but just slightly wet. Work the line of colour out towards the center of the face. You may have to rinse your brush periodically as the center of the face should remain light. Before moving on let this dry. For this technique it is important to let the colour dry between each layer as you build up the colour.
Repeat this process for the rest of the skin areas.
You may wish to repeat the process twice to achieve the desired level of colour. I did, but try it and see what you prefer.
Take your Baked Earth pencil and after making sure your layers are dry apply a thin line and work the colour into the center of the face.
In the same way use a little Madder Brown to deepen your shadows, remembering to first ensure the previous layer is dry.
Using either Crimson or Carmine Pink apply a very small amount for the cheeks and blend out.
Here’s the completed image on a card!
TOP TIPS:
Always remember to let each layer completely dry before continuing. This will allow you to build up colour without it becoming a mess, as Derwent Inktense Pencils are permanent when dry.
It is easier to add colour than to remove it, so use colour sparingly and build up slowly.
Kerribella
We hope you’ve enjoyed checking out Kerribella’s tutorial and are feeling inspired to try it out yourselves. If you do, make sure you drop by and share with us! You can get in touch in all the following ways:
Happy Stamping!
While I think what she is showing us is great and I get it, you have to keep letting it dry between doing the layers. Its like when I make cut out cookies. I have to put the dough in the fridge for 30 min. to harden before I can actually bake them! I want to do it all in one process, all at once! I’d like to try this but don’t have this brand of colored pencils. Can I try this with my water colored pencils? Do you have to use water color paper? Does it make a difference if you do it on a hot, humid day as opposed to a dry day or a winter day? I’v found that in the humidity like we are having now stuff takes forever to dry if at all and you end up having to wipe off your wet pots and pans because they are still wet the next day. Inquiring minds want to know!
Hi Gail. It doesn’t take a particularly long time for the layers to dry in my personal experience. The reason is because Derwent Inktense pencils are not like watercolour pencils. After they have been activated with water and have dried they become permanent. By allowing them to dry, you can build up layers of colour without the layer on top reacting with the layer below.
Yes, watercolour paper would be best for this technique. Watercolour pencils can of course be used to colour an image, but they will behave somewhat differently to the Derwent Inktense pencils for the reason I outlined above.
Humidity probably would have an effect, yes, depending on the degree. One way around the drying issue would be to use a heat tool to speed up the process. Under normal conditions however, I have never found the drying time to be a particular problem. If colouring the entire image, rather than just the skin as Kerri has shown here, you could simply work on another area and switch back and forth as you layer on each. Or, you could be working on two images at the same time.
It doesn’t take long to dry..You can dry it as well with a heat gun..Myself I move onto another section..Yes I do use water colour paper..I also do the same with my Distress Inks by Ranger..I colour it all types of weather and if need be I use my heat gun..hope this helps thks
Thanks Kerri – I’m going to give this a go, my skin colouring always looks rubbish. Would love more tutorials with the inktense pencils 🙂
Oh thanks so much for the tutorial! I have seldom used my intense pencils…probably because I use too much color (to thick of a line) and then I can’t get the line to blur. I’m going to try this again, this time using a small line…..we shall see! LOL! But thanks for the tutorial….this is another “bookmark”! 🙂
Hey Nancee, if you still have difficulty it might be worth trying the method of picking up colour directly from the pencil using a wet brush.
You can scribble some of the pencil onto watercolor paper and pull color that way..Elaine way is another way I do it as well by pulling directly from the pencil..the size of brush I use is 0 and I use a Tim Holtz Detail brush with no water in it..thks for leaving me a comment have fun
Thanks for this tutorial. I have the Inktense pencils, but, could never come up with a good flesh tone combination. So, thanks for that. Beautiful coloring, BTW.
Why not use inktence pencils the way I would use my Inktence blocks ?
As you would not wet the pencil, scrape a little of the desired colours onto a tile and add a drop of water.
They can be used like watercolour paint but once dry they are fixed and can be painted or coloured over.
A little goes a long way and you can layer to your hearts content without loosing the tooth of the paper.
They do not usually bleed through good paper but test first.
Have fun trying,