Basket Color Tutorial #1

Good morning! It's time for that "Holiday Basket" coloring tutorial I promised for my favorite card from the release! I said during the party I thought I used 6 or 7 colors, turns out it was 8 (BUT, I could have done it in 7, two of the markers are almost the exact shade and I only only noticed I used a different one when I looked at my photos that I grabbed a different marker) It looks like more colors though because I add my color in layers to create darker shades rather than separate markers for each, and you can really change the shade of one marker using a gray tone like W-3 over it...so let's begin!

First stamp your basket in brown on White Pure Luxury. (While I ended up using warm tones and Ivory cardstock on the card underneath it, the colors of your markers will be a lot truer when you start with white, and I will be adding warmth to the mat at the end with the distressing inks.) Stamp it on scratch paper and cut out to have a mask you can keep, you will use this mask a lot! Place it over your stamped cardstock.
Stamp the roses directly over it in brown.
Remove your mask. Ta da, the roses are in! I love masking!
So I usually start by filling in my entire image with the lightest color, that's what I did here with E53 Raw Silk. This is a nice deep ivory color, it works great for skin, but also for light woodwork.

Then I filled in the wider horizontal strips with E57 Light Walnut. See the braid across the top and bottom? Did I fill in each little "bubble" separately? Nope, just one careful line straight across with the brush tip, easy peasy!
Now I am adding a second layer with the same marker to shade the edges to each strip, the hump in the middle should be the lightest where the light hits. All you have to do is go over the lines I have already drawn in the the image to give the basket shade and texture just start at the edge and pull out toward the middle in quick flicks. Do this on both sides of each brown strip, it goes quickly.
Now do the same on the vertical strips on the top and bottom with E31 Brick Beige. Also go over the far left and right sides of the basket. (In this case I chose a darker shade for shadows because the lighter Copic shades do not deepen as much when you layer them as the darker ones do like the brown above. The beige can also act as a blender if you want to go over the darker areas of the dark brown ones to blend the lines just a little. Then take the W-3 and do the left and right sides and the handle, concentrating on the ends and creating streaks to give texture and the appearance of wood grain.
Now for the leaves. Color over the whole leaf with a light green like G21. Then go over the middle sections and portions that are tucked under a rose with a darker green like YG03.

Next I went over all the roses with E51 Milky White (also a flesh tone). This color is so close to Raw Silk, just a little paler, either would have worked...) (BTW, the holes on the top look darker because I pierced through them for the handles)Then I added W-3 to the undersides of the petals and areas near the center of each rose. I do thin really quickly, just adding strokes and basically tracing around things, it doesn't have to be perfect (I know you might be thinking "Ack! Gray on a ROSE?!" But it will be okay, it really will! You need to have some dark areas and a warm gray like this is going to look just perfect, especially with that paper, wait and see... :) I forgot to take picture but I also went over the leaves just a bit with this gray to tone down the brightness of the greens to make them a little more muted, you'll see the difference in the next photo.
Now for some color that's going to make these roses glow! I added E95 Flesh Pink over those same areas, and a couple new ones, just dabbing here and there. See how nicely they blend together? You know these color are all going to work because the Basic Grey Curio patterned paper that is the inspiration is so glorious, so color with confidence! The Copics I am using in this post go will work with most of the sheets and prints in this pack. :)

And here is the finished card. Add warmth to the mat with distressing ink, starting with the light ones (Antique Linen, Tattered Rose)and then gradually adding dark Vintage Photo until you have the desired look. I kept holding my basket mat up to the patterned paper in between sponging more on until I felt I had it right. TIP: I didn't bother to mask the basket when I did my sponging because I didn't want to go all the way up to my image, instead wanted to have a little white showing for more contrast between the sponging. One last thing I did was use my W-3 to add a shadow (just a line) under each handle and then a small "puddle" of shadow below the basket.

Hope you can tell from these photos it was EASY to do, no tricky techniques involved! Good grief this is my longest post in awhile, I hope it was helpful! I like doing them but they take a lot more time, so if you like this and want more, please let me know in your comments, thanks!

More overflowing baskets and coloring to come! Have a great weekend!