Coloring with Pencils

Lately I have been playing quite a bit with digital stamps. I received a super cute one from Digital Delights by Louby Loo and wanted to use it on a card. I love the shading that you can get with Copic markers, but haven't had the chance to invest in any yet. What I do have plenty of though, is colored pencils. And with my colored pencils and some odorless mineral spirits, I can get some nice shading too.

Here is what you will need.

Colored Pencils, odorless paint thinner (also known as Gamsol, odorless mineral spirits), paper stubs or cotton swabs, and your image.

Begin by outlining the area you wish to colorize. You don't need to be precise.

Apply the blending medium to your cotton swab or paper stump. You can dip the swab into the liquid or invest in a pump type bottle. Using a circular motion, drag the color from the outline toward the inside of the area.
As you can see, the center spaces are lighter than the area you outlined to start. You can continue dragging the color with your stub or swab until you get the desired effect.

You will want to change stubs or swabs as you change colors.

To color the cheeks I added the pink color directly to a swab that had the mineral spirits already applied.
If you like, you can add a shadow to the image in a similar way. Begin by coloring a line around the outside of your image.
This time, instead of dragging the color toward the center of the area, drag it out.

And here is my final project.
Hope you have fun with coloring.