Coloring Glowing Glass Lanterns

Here is a quick video with tips about making a lantern look like it has panes of glass. I also show how to make them look like they are glowing.

                                         Colored by Ronda Francis

Enjoy! Hope the videos are helpful.

xo

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Eek! Quicky Coloring GIVEAWAY!

Hellloooo!!

Congratulations to MIMI GAREAU, the winner of my witchy GIVEAWAY!

This one is super easy--just click the YouTube video below--it's only a minute--then SUBSCRIBE to my channel and leave me an email. Voila! You're in.

                                              

           Important! Click YouTube logo on bottom when video starts. You will be taken to YouTube and you can SUBSCRIBE and leave email address.

OR

Click HERE to be taken right to YouTube.

The winner will receive one PENELOPE'S GARDEN Coloring Book, and five runners-up will receive a downloadable coloring page from my Etsy shop.

Good luck and Happy Halloween!

xo

Coloring Schedule on YouTube

I am so happy to announce my new schedule for YouTube!

                                   Watch this video HERE.

From this time forward, I will be creating two coloring videos each week...one on Wednesday and one on Sunday.

These videos will contain how tos, color-alongs, and some interesting and helpful tips.

I posted two this past week, and showed shading, highlighting, and how to color a large area in one color and add depth and dimension.

                                            Coloring Penelope
                                                                                                       

                                            Coloring a Large Area

I am looking forward to this new program, and I hope you enjoy it as well.

Please leave me a message below if you have any suggestions for what you would like to see.

I will also be working with the incredibly talented colorist Ronda Francis--I can't wait!

See you on Wednesday!

xo

Coloring is the New Black...and Orange, and Pink, and Blue...

I remember coloring in the basement of my aunt's house in New Jersey with my cousins as a child. We all had the same Casper coloring book, and despite the mostly adult party going on all around us, we were in our own very happy colorful world, creating, and feeling great.

My images were boldly outlined, then colored in with a lighter hand. My sister loved brights and it made her pictures eye-catching and fun. A cousin didn't follow any type of guidelines--her own or any other--her trees may have been pink and the sky possibly purple.

The point of telling this is just that we all had a great time, we all did a different version of the same picture, no pressure, and it was awesome.

We spent time together, kind of like a youngster version of a quilting circle. No one had to entertain or impress anyone...we just did our thing. Sometimes we cracked jokes, sometimes we chatted about our lives, and sometimes we said nothing. We were just together.

I think this is missing in the world today.

We get together, but there is a lot of social climbing, and fancy Pinterest table setting, and fancier recipes than I could ever cook. I miss getting together just for the sake of getting together...nothing fancy...and I think coloring is helping us do just that.

Yes, it is a digital world, but it is a good thing here. We find groups on Facebook or Instagram, or follow our favorite artists and find other like-minded colorists.

The world is a crazy place right now, and coloring is a gentle place to sit, create, and be yourself. 

I think we all have an artist inside. Picasso said all children are artists, and the problem is how to remain one once we grow up. Coloring books take the pressure out of art. Many get canvas confusion...when they look at a blank page or canvas they don't even know where to start. When we color, someone has started the canvasfor us, and a little of the steam is released so we are free to just go for it and have fun.

Some see a therapist, some meditate, some do yoga. I think we are seeing a new way to relax...and that is coloring.

xo

Join my Facebook group if you like...coloring friends abound!

Click here to join in!  

PENELOPE'S GARDEN GIVEAWAY!

Only two more weeks until the spookiest time of the year!

For the next 48 hours I am running a giveaway for one Penelope's Garden coloring book.

Please enter below. You do NOT have to take part in all three options to be entered in the giveaway. BUT, there is a bonus entry for anyone that already follows me. If you share my new coloring page, Penelope's Haunted House, or this blog post, you will receive it in a PDF form to color. 

Penelope's Haunted House

Just leave your name and email below if you share, and I will zip the file magically to your mailbox.

ENTER HERE!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Happy Halloween and Good Luck!! xo

Compare Coloring Styles and Get Creative

As a coloring book designer I have the privilege to see many talented colorists use many different styles in my books.

When I design a coloring page I have an idea of what it will look like completely colored...well, I have an idea of my version anyway.

I have drawn hundreds of images, and I am still surprised on a regular basis at some of the styles and color schemes used on my images--and I have to say I love them.

Here are some examples of the exciting ways my images have been colored:

Penelope's Pumpkins, uncolored.

Colored by Karikaribik on Instagram:

This was colored with Ploychromos pencils and Posca Markers. The colors are very earthy and rich, and very similar to what you would see in real life. Pumpkins are (for the most part) orange, and leaves are green. The flowers of a pumpkin plant are yellow. There is white highlighting throughout the picture done with a Posca marker, and the shading is done realistically, too. The ground looks dimensional and rolling because the shadows surround the objects on almost all sides. Love this.

Colored by colouring_inner on Instagram:

This was only marked as "colored pencils" so I can't even be specific which ones! It is very soft and pastel, and very original for a Halloween image. The sky is black, the ground is grey, and the pumpkins are periwinkle! Love!

Colored by me:

This was colored with Poychromos pencils, and blended with a Faber-Castell blender. The shadows fall in the direction the light of the moon would cast them, and the highlights are done by leaving them white, and not coloring there. The depth of this one is somewhere between the previous images.

Colored by Kimberley Calaminici:

This was colored with Derwent Inktense pencils, activated by water. It gives the impression of watercolor, and allows the colors to be very bright. She also used a white gel pen for highlights which is a lovely touch. She used a deep aqua blue for the sky which gives the impression of early evening. Very lovely.

It is interesting to me that we all made the mice the same color, and we also made the cat black.

This has inspired me to try and change up what I think a picture should look like, and make it into something new and different. I also want to try water-activated pencils, or maybe even paint.

I hope this inspires you to try new things while coloring. You can always make a copy of the images that you have, so you can do them in more than one way.

Show me your finished work! I'd love to see.

You can buy PENELOPE'S GARDEN HERE on Amazon or at my ETSY Store.

xo