Santa's Hat

Although we're well and truly out of the holiday season, I still wanted to show you my method for colouring Santa's hat on a piece of kraft cardstock. I did two versions, one in the traditional red we all know and love, as well as a blue and brown version for when Santa feels like travelling incognito.

1. Start by printing the hat on a piece of kraft cardstock, and add one of the matching sentiments if you wish. Add a light layer of white pencil to the entire image.

2. Using a black or very dark grey pencil, add in some shadows, concentrating on the areas behind the fur and in the folds of the fabric.

3. Use your darkest red (black raspberry) to increase the size of your shadows. Feather the colour outward as you work by reducing the amount of pressure you place on the pencil.

4. Add a layer of your mid-red (crimson lake), applying a little more pressure to the shadow areas and a little less pressure to the highlight areas at the top of the hat and in the middle section.

5. Blend everything together with your lightest red (poppy red).

6. Use the black pencil to add some shadows to the fur. Keep the pressure very light when colouring over the white, you barely need to touch the surface.

7. Now build up the highlights with some more white. You can apply more pressure here as the fur is actually white in colour too.

8. Add a shadow beneath the hat using a dark grey (French grey 90%), then feather it out a little with a slightly lighter colour (French grey 70%). The shadow will help ground the image.

9. Mount the image onto a piece of red cardstock and then onto a kraft base card.

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