Thomas Kinkade and Copics

I just adore this Foxglove Cottage stamp from Cornish Heritage Farms. A gorgeous Thomas Kinkade stamp, the image is beautifully detailed and incredible to stamp. The shading on it is remarkable and does half the work for you. For this design, as part of my recent Craft Critique article, I tried out coloring the images with my new Copic Markers. I think this was my fourth project with these markers and I was really pleased with how it turned out.

Foxglove Cottage in Copics

For this card design, I stamped my Foxglove cottage onto some Very Vanilla cardstock with my Black Palette Hybrid ink. I then worked carefully on the design. The best way to color this image is start really light and build up. By this I mean, color in all the greens with a light green color, the pinks the same, etc. Then come back and build up the color with darker markers where you need to deepen the shadows etc. For the flowers and foliage, I used a dabbing style of adding the color to get a more natural look instead of flat color. Think impressionist style here…it really works well for these images. At the point of coloring this image, I just had the 24B folder of Copics from Ellen’s store so my palette was limited. I can’t wait to try it out again with more range. Yay! My 24A has now arrived and I just have to find some free time!

For my card base design, I used a 5.5″ square card base in Very Vanilla cardstock and layered it with this Daisy D’s paper. The edges were stitched for definition in brown thread. After matting the image with chocolate chip and very vanilla cardstock narrow mats, I searched for an appropriate embellishment. I decided to add a simple, homey touch. A large button from My Mind’s Eye (they carry the most darling little jars!) was tied with some brown gingham ribbon. Note to self…go buy more at Wal-mart! It may be difficult to see in the photo (you can enlarge by clicking on it) but I punched a chocolate chip cardstock circle with my EKSuccess circle punch and then stitched around it with my sewing machine. The thinking of you sentiment…comes from one of my favorite sentiment sets… Simply Sentiments by Lizzie Anne Designs.

Edited to answer…. This design took me approximately an hour to color in. I know it seems like a lot but if you factor in that I really hadn’t had much practice with the Copics and I was making this design for a Craft Critique article and knew I needed to have a good end-product, it wasn’t too bad. From what I know now… I’m sure I could cut that time by half, easily. I know that I want to do this again soon. So when I do…I’ll time it for you. 🙂

Hope you enjoyed this design as much as I did. It was fun trying a different style of coloring with those Copic markers. I think the more I use them, the better I’ll understand their capabilities. Have a great week! It is going to be a busy one here. Lots to share so stop back in! 🙂