Colouring Christmas Tilda With Puppy
This describes in detail the process I used to colour the image for the first time with Spectrum Noir pens. You should be able to colour different Tildas with the same colour combinations, or use the process to select first-time colours yourself.
You may like to work through the Spectrum Noir blog section on Palette Blending, and to look at Tip-to-Tip colouring to familiarise yourself with techniques I am going to mention. After each of these techniques MAKE SURE you CLEAN OFF the light pen or blender pen by wiping repeatedly onto scrap paper until pen is back to original colour.
After stamping the image onto blending card with Memento Tuxedo Black ink, I grabbed my Spectrum Noir colour chart (printed onto blending card and coloured with my pens). I used the chart to select Earth Brown tones for her shoes and hair and the basket, True Blue and Blue Grey tones for her stockings and dress, and Flesh and Tan tones for her skin and the puppy. I also added Coral CR3 for her cheeks and the pup's mouth.
Colours used are - Hair, Shoes and Basket - EB1 and EB3 + blender pen
Stockings and Dress - TB1, BGR1 and BGR2 + blender pen
Lace trim on dress - BGR2 + blender pen
Face - FS2 and FS3 + CR3 cheeks
Hands - FS2, FS3 and TN2
Puppy - FS2, TN2, TN5 + CR3 tongue
Bows - BP1 and BP7
I started with the hair, colouring the left side of her head. I put EB1 over the entire area. I then scribbled EB3 onto an old CD for palette blending and repeatedly picked up the EB3 with my EB1 pen and stroked it onto the darker areas of her hair. (NOTE - when palette blending, land the pen where you want the darkest colour and move towards lighter area). I also put EB3 from the EB3 pen down the centre of her hair then stroked it out with the palette EB3/EB1 combination. I repeated this for the right side of her hair. Next I touched the blender pen over the areas that looked lightest on the magazine image. If it went too light after drying I re-touched with EB1.
The same technique was used for the shoes - EB1 over all the shoe, palette-blended EB3 on the EB1 pen onto darker areas. Blender pen onto lightest part of shoe; retouch if necessary.
The woven basket was done differently - I coloured most of each small square on the basket with EB1 then dotted EB3 into each top left corner and blended it with the EB1.
For the stockings I 'coloured' with the blender pen the area that would be lightest, then coloured over the whole stocking with TB1. I put BGR1 onto the shadowed areas and blended with TB1, then BGR2 onto the darker shadowed areas, blending with BGR1 and TB1 where necessary. This was repeated for sleeves and dress.
On the lace vest and dress trim, I touched the tip of the blender pen onto the BGR2 pen and lightly touched it onto areas that would be shadowed. After cleaning off the blender pen I softened any areas that needed it.
Face was done with FS3 around hairline (also on top left of neck) blended with FS2. CR3 dotted onto sides of cheeks and blended with FS2. I repeated the FS3/FS2 step to increase colour.
Hands were TN2 to darkest part, FS3 beside that, FS2 rest of hand - all blended.
Puppy was FS2 in lightest areas, TN2 around dark edges, blended with FS2. TN5 touched around darkest areas, blended with TN2 then FS2. The pup's face only had one layer of FS2 to keep it light.
The bows were coloured with BP1. BP7 was touched onto darkest areas then palette- blended with the BP1 pen from dark areas out.
An Atyou Spica pen (02 Pink) was touched over the bows when all colouring was complete, to match the magazine image. (I could also have used Stickles at this stage).
Remember not to add anything non-Spectrum to your colouring area before finishing with the Spectrum Noirs as you will probably contaminate your pen nibs. I should have put in shading around my image and will now have to fussy-cut her out and overlay onto a shaded background image.
