Illustration Friday: Waves

It's Friday, and it's time to share another self-made illustration! This week, what I really wanted to practice is my line-work -- i.e. get more comfortable with using a pen to draw directly onto paper. So, my illustration is the swirly sea you see in the image above.

My inspiration for the waves was a painting I saw a few years ago in a World exhibition at our local museum. The painting in question was from Japan and it featured lines and swirls in the sea, with bright Koi fish intermingled into the design. It was both fascinating and meticulous, and I loved the idea of making waves with thin repeated lines and swirls. I've seen the design since in a lot of modern nautical art, and I always enjoy seeing it.

I started this card by cutting out a stitched rectangle panel and stamping the boat from Avery Elle's Knotty stamp set. I stamped the boat in blue ink because I wanted it to be a bit faded and fit into the image in a subtle way. I quickly sketched in some pale color with my Copics. Then I drew in the sea! I didn't plan any of the images, I just started with one swirl and build up from there. Once I'd filled out a few of the swirls, it became a lot easier to figure out the rest.

After that was done, I used Copics to color in the background. I stamped my sentiment onto a thin piece of white cardstock and trimmed one end into a flag shape. I adhered it to the front panel.

For the background, I used nautical striped patterned paper (theme 49 for OHC was stripes!), and I adhered the front panel with foam squares. As a last touch,  I scattered a few enamel dots around the card.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

Hello doll

It is Friday, and that means it's time for another illustration card! My last illustration card was made with a sketchy and loose style, so I decided to go in a completely different direction and go with a more solid illustration - something a bit closer to a stamped image.

Like last time, I went for a cute and simple sort of style, just having fun with some colors and patterns. Once I finished drawing her out, I thought she looked a bit like a doll. I'll probably practice drawing her out again - maybe she will go on all sorts of adventures!

I kept the rest of the card very simple. I used a piece of striped patterned paper along with grosgrain ribbon and some enamel dots for a fun factor. I added everything to a top-folding kraft card base, and there you have it.

Thanks so very much for reading!
~Elle~

Illustration Friday -- Rain, Rain...

It's Friday, and that means it's time for an illustrated card! This week, I wanted to go really simple and sketchy, so I drew in a cute girl with a raincoat and a little snail.

The inspiration for this card came from the patterned paper - Echo Park's Sunny Days Ahead 6x6. This cute and bright paper pad had a paper with rain boots, and I just loved how it looked. So, I decided to draw a simple rainy scene.

I lightly drew the girl, the closed flower and the snail. I used a pencil, then I went over and colored with my Copics. It went alright for the most part, but there were a couple of spots where the Copics smudged the pencil -- mainly around the girl's eye. Next time, I'll go even lighter with the Copics and not color in any parts (like I did with the eye).

Once all the coloring was done, I grabbed a Sakura Micron pen (I used the thinnest one) and went over the outlines. I kept the outlines very loose and imprecise because I love the sketchy look. Once that was done, I penned in the teeny sentiment in the upper corner, and drew a border.

Originally, the panel was just white all the way through, but I didn't like how it faded into the patterned paper, so I colored in a yellow border.

The card is a 4¼x 4¼" in size. I simply adhered the 4x4" piece of patterned paper to the card, then added the illustration panel with foam tape.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~