When designing the Kingfishers clear stamps, I was careful to leave enough space between the little bird and the blossoms to make masking easy. I knew I would eventually want to create cards featuring other types of foliage, including eucalyptus leaves and gumnuts. Today's tutorial is a step-by-step guide for doing just that.
1. Choose the cardstock, ink and papers that you want to use for your project. I'm going for a neutral, monochromatic colour scheme, with black and warm grey cardstock and black ink. I'll be adding some additional colouring with grey toned alcohol markers and white pencil.
2. Place the stamp on an acrylic block or stamping platform. Use a sticky note, some tape or masking paper to cover the little blossoms. You might need to cut away some of the mask if it covers any of the bird image.
3. Ink the stamp, remove the mask, then stamp onto the cardstock.
4. Choose the foliage you want to add to the design. I find it useful to lay the backing acetate from the stamp set over the cardstock to see how the images will merge.
5. Use the same masking method to remove any details that will obscure your little bird. In my case, I had to mask a leaf that would cover the bird's beak.
6. If necessary, use a black pen to fill in any lost details, such as the branch the little bird is sitting on. Make sure you take it up into the foliage too.
7. Time to colour. I used the darkest shades of grey in the background and the lighter shades on the bird and foliage. This helped to bring the images forward.
8. Add some white pencil in the highlight areas, including the top of the bird's head and beak, the high areas of the stick and leaves and the gumnut blossoms. Don't forget a little touch of white in the bird's eye.
9. I finished with a liquid layer of mica dust to give my little bird a sparkle.
Stamps:
