Sister Act - Challenge #67

This week's Sister Act challenge is sponsored by A Day for Daisies.  Coloring this image put me in seventh heaven!  She's called A Special Flower.

I had so much fun creating this card.  Once the coloring was done, I decided to use my Lil' Inkers Stitched Oval Mat dies to frame the sweet girl.  I loved how it looked, but the downside was framing her cut out the flowers - and then the experimentation and problem solving began, including feeding my current obsession with the inlaid technique.  All of the ovals are inlaid, and the flower and grass are glued on top. The PTI sentiment is heat embossed and popped out.




I used E50, 51, 53, 35 for her hair.

Her skin is E000, 00, 21, R11.





Coloring in general and when using Copics takes a lot of practice.  My journey has involved a willingness to "let-go" and allow myself to experiment as I improve my skills.  So I thought I'd use this post to show you some of my process.


I generally start by printing multiple images of different sizes on my paper.  This gives me permission and freedom to experiment.  (I had to let go of feeling like I was wasting paper!)  Two images I narrowed down as my "finalists" are in the cut out section of the paper.

After deciding which sized image I want to use for my card, I began playing.  As much as I feel confident with hair, it is still something I work at for contrast and highlights.  I started with the largest girl in the upper left.  This allows me to decide what's working and what's not for my card's image.

I decided to make a pink dress, but in the end, this one with R11 was too much like her skin color, so I nixed it.









 
Knowing I wanted to keep her dress light, I thought about a white dress and giving the bottom some folds and a more defined waist.  These three pictures show me playing with the idea of folds.  Using Cs made the dress more gray than I wanted, so I tried R000. . . loved the soft pink!

This girl didn't make the "cut", but gave me another chance to work on hair, the idea of a white dress using Cs for shading, the flowers, grass and shading around her with BGs.

I used G000, 20 & 24 for the grass and BG0000, 000 and 11 for the bg shading around her.  I wasn't thrilled with the color placement of the flowers on this one, so I went back up to the pink dress girl and tried a more deliberate visual triangle of colors.

The girl on the right in my last picture is where I practiced coloring the dress.  She also happened to be the one I experimented with the die cutting and fitting those pieces into the puzzle for the final layout.  She's on my desktop waiting to be used in a future card.

I know this was a long post, and if you hung in with me until the end, I hope one person is inspired to keep trying and be patient with yourself as you work through the process.
Whether it's coloring with Copics, another medium, or trying a particular style of card making (such as CAS), learning takes persistence, practice, and just the right amount of skill-stretch. Thinking like an artist means tackling one thing at a time and not comparing your work to others.  Since art is personal, our challenges are likely not the same.  I hope you enjoy your journey as much as I'm enjoying mine!

Challenges Entered:
Pink Elephant #260 - Summertime
Through the Craft Room Door - AG
Crafting from the Heart #28/ - AG
Party Time Tuesday July Challenge - AG
Fan-Tastic Tuesday #45 - AG
Inky Chicks #34 - Birthday
Creative Inspirations #275 - Here Comes Summer
Crafty Girls Challenge #23 - AG
Scribble and Scrap #23 /- AG
That Craft Place - AG
Little Miss Muffet #90/ - AG