Coloring My New Tilda Stamps

Ever since I saw this little girl, I have wanted to adopt her and take her home and when I saw her in ballet shoes, I knew it was time to get her. She is in honor of a young lady, who will soon be a teenager!

Colored pencils and Gamsol (a brand of odorless mineral spirits) is a favorite way to color my stamped images. It's possible to use other brands of colored pencil for this technique, but I find that the Woodless Coloured pencils are soft and are heavily pigmented, good for blending.
To blend my colors, I use inexpensive paper stumps. I buy pencils, paper stumps and Gamsol at Hobby Lobby.
I stamp my images on my paper with Black Ranger ink. It is an acid free, archival, fast drying solvent-based waterproof ink and can be bought at Michaels. I start adding color to the places color would be the darkest and for Tilda that usually is at the edges.
I dip my paper stump onto the Gamsol sponge and begin blending the colors in a small circular motion towards the center of the image, pulling bits of color as I go. You can leave as little, or as much highlight area on an image as you'd like. By simply not adding as much color to the edges, or not pulling as much color towards the center of your image, you'll be able to have a bigger highlight area.
It's always better to start with less color and add more as you need it, than to start with too much color.
As you color your image, you'll be able to see where you'd like to add darker shades of color in places you want to emphasize color, or create shadows. Always start with your lightest colors and work with your darker colors sparingly once your lighter colors are in place. Gamsol tends to make colors pop! Color gives images life.

Stamp Tilda with  Jet Black Ranger  Ink

Cut an oval around Tilda using Classic Oval Die by Spellbinders, Nestabilities and the Cuttlebug.

Cover edge of oval with gold Stickles.

Begin coloring the edges of Tilda's costume.

Using Gamsol to blend, pulling the color toward the center of the shapes.

Blending the green background and making it a bit darker nearest to Tilda                              

Edwin looks so handsome at the gate!

Tilda looks so pretty in her butterfly dress.

Tilda and Edwin look so good added to my watercolor scenes. As long as there is a distance between the character and painting the sizes seem to work very well.

I entered this blog post in Tilda's Town Challenge #73 Anything But Square
http://tildastown.wordpress.com/2013/10/04/challenge-73-anything-but-square/