Hi friends! Today, I have a video over on the Pinkfresh Studio YouTube Channel with some tips on how to achieve simple shading on objects with lots of straight lines, like these Christmas presents! Watch the video below or HERE on YouTube.
With geometric objects like boxes, one of the important ways that an artist can add depth is to keep location of the light source in mind while painting. When I am painting or coloring, I am envisioning the light source coming straight at the image from the front, so that the areas in the “back” are shadowed, while the areas in the foreground are lighter. For these holiday gifts from the Christmas Presents stamp set, I used concentrated ink from Tombow watercolor markers on the shadowed edges of the presents (that is, no dilution with clean water) and then used diluted color on the front of the boxes to create that contrast between the dark and light. I die cut the finished gifts using the Coordinating Christmas Presents Dies.
I knew that I wanted to create a shaker card, because who doesn’t love a festive shaker card, and I love adding subtle textured details to the shaker background. I trimmed down a panel of blush cardstock to 5″ x 5″ as well as a panel of pearlescent blush cardstock from my stash. Using my Fiskars trimmer, I trimmed out a square from the center, creating a thick blush cardstock frame, and added some clear acetate to the back to create my shaker window. To add the subtle texture to the background, I ran the pearlescent panel through my die cut machine using the Stitched Christmas Star cover plate die. This die is sized to work for an A2 card front, but because the blush frame was a bit thicker around the edges, I was able to hide the edges of the panel that weren’t completely covered by the stitched cover plate die.
I filled my shaker with sequins from my stash in coordinating shades of pine green, dark teal, and pink, then closed it up with foam adhesive. I arranged the die cut and watercolored gifts in a little trio on the corner of the shaker card, popping the gift in front up with some foam adhesive. For the greeting, I used a sentiment from the Brushed Sentiments Hot Foil Plate, hot foiled with matte silver foil and die cut with the Coordinating Dies. To keep my color scheme cohesive throughout all of the elements, I lightly blended some Ballet Slipper ink over the top of the hot foiled greeting. I popped the sentiment pieces up with some more foam adhesive!
Well, that’s all for my project today! Normally, my watercoloring is filled with lots of curvature and organic movement, but it was fun to challenge myself to see if I could do some simple watercoloring on these boxes with so many straight lines! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day.
Very pretty!