Thursday, May 11, 2017

The Master Merlin

     Today's card has a fantastic image from Fabrika Fantasy and a long story about how it got colored.  Pull up a chair, grab a cuppa, and settle in for a bit of a read.  When I first started with this image (which I flipped side to side), it was pre-colored but when I printed it, the whole thing was just too dark.  I printed it again on 'bright white' card stock and even then, it looked like this.


     So, I used my MS Word program to omit all the color in favor of a light gray-scale and printed that.  Then, I dug out my Pro-Markers and polychromos pencils and colored the gray-scale image.  I got all the fabulous shadings and highlights of the gray-scale without having to add them individually as I colored.

     I used the pre-colored image as a guide for what colors to use since I wanted to have my hand-colored image as close as possible to the colors in the pre-colored one but I have very little green in the lamp, my reds on his clothing are more of a rusty orange, and I used gray blues instead of royal blues.  I used white gel ink on his beard and hair and in the brightest areas of the lamplight.

    Here's the result.

                              

I used this sketch from Mojo Monday.

 
     I had already spent so much time with the coloring process that I wanted to keep the card design pretty CAS.  I added two different ribbons to the image piece after it was trimmed, and then framed the image with a leftover scrap of dp from my 12 x 12 scrapbooking paper stash.  The sentiment was printed and mounted on a strip of ribbon, then I added one of the tiny bows which I sew by hand and toss into my stash for future use.

     Challenges:
Card Mania
Crafty Cardmakers
Crafty Hazelnut's
Love to Craft
Love to Scrap
Pammie's Inky Pinkies
Simon Says Stamp
World Wide Open DT

     Happy Stamping.  NanaConnie

16 comments:

Doreen said...

Love the fab image,this is gorgeous.xxx

ike said...

Ooooh - super AWESOME ! I love what you did with him... fabulous colouring :-) xx

Fabrika Fantasy said...

The result is amazing! You colored the wizard perfectly. Wonderful work, Nana Connie!
Fabrika Fantasy - Digital stamps and colouring pages
Hand-drawn portraits of people and pets

Glenda Atkins said...

Fabulous work, wow, love this card, Excellent colouring, though must have been frustrating. Well worth the effort though! Thanks for sharing with Crafty Cardmakers!!
hugs
Glenda

Faith A at Daffodil Cards said...

GREAT work on your colouring, love the effect and the Super image.
Faith
x

Linda Simpson said...

WOW your colouring of the image is stunning Connie, love Merlin and your interpretation of the sketch. Oh and I am just loving your header!
Hugs
Linda xxx

Donna Ellis said...

What a great idea, Connie, to lighten a dark image like that. I don't know how to use MS Word in my digitals, and I wish I did! It seems like you can do so much more than I can on my word processor! BEAUTIFUL CARD! hugs, de

Wendy said...

What a great idea with the printing of your image!!! This looks amazing. This is a tip I will try myself in the future!! Have a great day and thanks for playing along with PIP Challenges!

Teresa Arsenault said...

You did a fantastic job on that gorgeous image. hugs, Teresa

Annettes Hobby Rosettes said...

Sounded like a lot of hard work trying to sort out the pre-coloured image but the end result looks great.
Thank you for sharing with us here today at World Wide Open Design Team Challenge and best of luck with your entry.

Annette DT Registered Owners/Admin for World Wide Open Design Team Challenge



Shelly Schmidt said...

I like the way you changed the colors- like it alot! Great card!

Marisa said...

Fun focal image and well done with teh colouring. Thanks for joining us at Mojo Monday :)

crafty said...

A fantastic colouring job. Thank you for joining in the challenge at Crafty Cardmakers.
Mary

chanya13 said...

Love your card and the sentiment. Thank you for joining us at Crafty Cardmakers this week. Hope to see you back here again soon. Agnieszka chanya13

FiestyCrafter (Tina) said...

Wonderful CAS card! You did a fabulous job coloring the image. Thanks for joining us at Love to Scrap! Challenge Blog
Tina dt

Irena Stefanova said...

Just brilliant, I love the card design! Love how you have embelished it. Thanks for joining us this month at LTCCB!