Color Me Creative - Challenge #85 - Use Texture!

The newest challenge at Color Me Creative put me to the test and really stretched my skills.  Paper Temptress is sponsoring our use texture challenge.  I honestly don't think of using texture when I color with my Copics.  Luckily, I had time available to "play around".  When I'm unsure about how to do something with my Copics, I turn to You Tube and watch a video.  That helped in this case too.

Using Birdie Brown's Winter Bear image, I figured I could work on creating fur and give the sweater texture too.  The image is a simple line drawing. You can see an older colored version on the artist's blog.

The thing I love the best about my work on the fur is the snout.  There isn't one drawn on the face, it's created using texture.  My original vision was to make a polar bear, but this guy has a whole lot more gray than any polar bear I've seen!  Oops!

The other texture I worked on was using a scrap from an old cotton sweater to give the bear's sweater a look like it had been knit.  The technique is pretty simple.  After coloring the image, wetting the scrap of sweater fabric with Copic Colorless Blender Solution and patting it on the image should give it the look of a knitted sweater.  My trouble came when I couldn't find my bottle of Colorless Blender Solution.  I resorted to trying to saturate the scrap by coloring it with my colorless blender marker.  It didn't saturate the fabric enough, but if you look carefully you can see texture on the sweater.  I then had the idea of coloring on the sweater scrap with one of my Copics and then tapping it on the image.  You can you see how that idea turned out on the bear's hat.  If I was feeling ambitious, I would have started over - but the whole image was already colored - and I was d-o-n-e!

The purpose behind telling you this story is because I hope it will encourage you to take a risk and try something new. The whole thing doesn't have to be perfect, but like me and my little bear, I learned some new things along the way and had moments of great satisfaction!

I am super-excited to visit the blogs of folks playing along with our texture challenge at Color Me Creative.  I know that I will be inspired by your work.

Challenges Entered:
Clear it Out - Layer it up/patterned paper stash
Creative Inspiration - Anything goes
Crafting By Designs - anything goes
Southern Girls Challenge - something new (new technique)
Digitally Sweet - anything goes
Digi Haven - Baby It's Cold Outside!
613 Avenue Create #55 - anything goes with an optional twist of winter blues
Make It Monday - anything goes