Technique Tuesday - Blending Colored Pencils

Everyone loves to learn new techniques, or brush up on techniques they may have forgotten about or need a refresher on.  That's why I'm going to dedicate Tuesdays on the blog for techniques.  Technique Tuesdays each week will feature a technique for stamping and/or scrapbooking.  
For our first Technique Tuesday, I'm going to show you a new technique I learned.  It is like the Gamsol colored pencil technique, which I taught at the store, but instead of Gamsol I am using Hero Arts Ultra Cleaner.  It's their clear design stamp cleaner.  I don't know how to do videos yet, so I had to take some pictures.  A couple are a little blurry, but you will get the idea.  This is the technique I used on the flower on the 8 x 8 scrapbook page I blogged about last week. 
 

Colored Pencil Blending With Hero Clear Design Ultra Cleaner

• Stamp image to be colored with permanent ink.  I use India Ink Black.

• Choose three colored pencils in graduated shades.  For this card, I chose a light orchid, medium lavendar, and deep purple.  And, yes, there is a difference in colored pencils.  I use Berol Prismacolor - it's an artist quality pencil, with a consistently soft lead for smooth color.
  

   




Color image lightly and completely with the lightest color (light orchid).

   

Add medium tone (medium lavendar).  Color part of the petal near where it attaches in the center with the medium tone.  Do not cover the entire petal.  Leave 2/3 of the petal with the light orchid.  Do not worry about the 'line' between the two colors.  We will blend that in the last step.

  




Add the final darkest shade (deep purple), using just a small amount where the shadows would be.  The petals underneath, and the place where they meet in the center would be darkest.  Again, do not worry about the unblended lines. 

  



Blend shades with a blending tool (I use a Dove Blender pen but instead of the Dove blending fluid, which won't work with colored pencils, I filled it with Hero Arts Clear Desing Ultra Cleaner).  You can use blending stumps or tortillons. I find the Dove Blender works really well, as the tip is firm and will not mush quickly.  Also, I don't need to keep dipping the tip into the fluid to use it.  I used an eye dropper to fill the pen with the ultra cleaner.

• To blend, start at the lightest part of the design (petal) and rub the fluid into the pencil pigment.  You will see it liquify and blend like magic.  Pull the light color into the medium and darker color.  Keep doing this till all the color is blended nicely.  You can clean the tip of the blender by rubbing it on scrap paper.

That's it.  It's easy, fun, and very elegant.  I learned this technique on the Hero Arts Blog.  If you haven't joined yet, be sure to check it out
http://heroarts.com/blogs/club/.


This is the finished card:

The flowers were "colored" using this technique.  I stamped the flower frame once on the aqua cardstock.  I stamped the flower portions three times on white cardstock.  I colored the flowers with the blending technique, cut them out in sections, and layered them with foam tape.  I distressed the card layers, punched the bottom of the green layer, punched the butterflies, and added gemstones. The purple strip behind the frame image is from the frame stamp.  I just stamped the background portion onto the strip.
 
This is the stamp I used, Hero Arts CG116, Thinking of You.


Hope you liked this Technique Tuesday.  Stop back often to check out other fun things I'll be doing on the blog.