CLIPART IMAGES = There are companies like
Dover Publishing who sell books and/or CDs of copy-right free images that I can use. In the crafting world, we call them digital stamps or Digi's. Some artists will give away a freebie image that they have created on their website and that's what is up in my
freebie tab - websites I've run across with free clipart that's available for download.
I could print and cut digi's out and then save in whole sheets or cut them down in zippered file folders. That way, an image is always at hand.
DIE-CUTS = On my very first Grace & prayer card, I used a scalloped circle die to cut out white cardstock to place over the middle of the striped lines I created with a ruler and pencil/Sharpie marker. When it was photocopied, I liked the appearance of it being elevated or popped up a bit from the background.
Just saw another idea for die-cuts. Foliage in black paper, like sprays of leaves and branches or floral images. I'm not real fond of coloring sheets that have those teeny-weeny spaces for sharpened coloring pencils only, because most of those are computer generated, so a bit of die-cut foliage in the right place would look nice.
Another idea would be to use black paper and die-cut or stencil small, skinny alphas as title headers for a coloring sheet.
DOODLING = I had a request to show how I doodle, so here's my video tutorial showing how I did just that:
Click Here.
DOODLING SURFACE = I had been using a clipboard to hold my paper while I drew on it, but decided I needed something a little wider. I liked the clipboard as I could slip it into my backpack along with a pencil box to take with me any place I've had to wait, like for a doctor's appointment or in the car waiting for hubby to come out of that hardware store or when visiting my in-laws. It's a boredom buster!!! It was kind of cramped though, so decided I needed a little wider space to doodle on and when I saw
Wendy Vecchi's Magnet Board, I knew I had to get it the next time it went on sale at Hobby Lobby, Joann's or Michael's. I have since purchased another board and have attached it side by side with a piece of duct tape to act as a hinge on the back to design a scrapbook spread of two pages on, but when I need to use it as a clipboard, I just fold it back to back and attach a large clip to the top. I also have the magnets to hold down paper, or stencils and two plastic rulers with magnets on the back to use as stamp positioners.
GREYSCALE PRINTING = I tried water-coloring a shadow across the middle of one coloring card with a water-brush and a grey water-based Marvy marker. It printed looking washed out and I had to reapply the watercolor after printing out my coloring card. So, depending on how good a printer is for grey-scale, grey may be a little iffy to use.
I tried "water-coloring" a background again on a separate index card back, using a different technique -- a smooched black inkpad on a plastic tile with a spritz of water (a Tim Holtz technique). I had much better results that time.
Grey & Black Folk Art Trees = Getting interested in creating Folk art inside of template shapes on my coloring sheets. I picked up a book at a used book store called “Creative Folk Art and Beyond: Inspiring Tips, Projects, and Ideas for Creating Cheerful Folk Art Inspired by the Scandinavian Concept of Hygge.” It’s a Walter Foster book. Ever since I learned that I have Scandinavian in my DNA, I’ve been interested in learning more about that art culture. Dyan Reaveley has a tree stencil that would work perfect with these folk art trees.
Click here for video. I could make the tree trunks in black and paint in the tree shape with a grey marker or glue down some grey paper in the shape of the tree.
INK = I use a thick and thin Sharpie marker to draw with. And occasionally, when they begin to dry out, I need to replace them. And I really dislike when the nib on the skinny marker decides to split into two, because I have to go over the line again to make it a complete line. Maybe I press too hard on the marker?
KISS = Keep it simple, sister! I was reminded of that last week when I was at a loss for a "fancy" image idea. What did I already know? Put that to work, so I did!
LIGHTBOX = In my first doodle class, I learned to make an off-line idea scrapbook from a spiral bound school notebook. The teacher said to doodle images and different fonts in there that I run across. She said she liked having her idea book handy when she sat down to create a doodle sketch.
However, I have a lightbox I received for Christmas one year. I keep all my original coloring sheets in document sleeves in a
3-ring binder. If I think of an idea and can use a certain portion of another previously doodled coloring sheet, then I use the lightbox to trace the image onto a new piece of paper placed over the previous coloring sheet with the lightbox turned on.
MARK-MAKING = I’ve used a technique called stippling to cover the background of a coloring page. One can also use it to add shadows. Basically, it’s making tiny dots with nib of your pen or marker close together. There are other marking making techniques as well such as drawing lines very close together to make shadows or to define a shape with a skinny Sharpie.
MISTAKES = Invariably a mistake or two will crop up or you don't like how your coloring sheet design looks. I've saved many a coloring sheet simply by redoing just that part on another piece of cardstock, cutting it out in a pleasing shape (circle/oval/whatever) and gluing it over the top of the part I didn't like. It will look like you designed it that way! 😄
For smudges, there is a sanding "eraser.” I purchased one on Amazon. It's made of rubber latex and silica grit and the brand I saw is the Tombow Mono Sand Eraser designed to remove colored pencil and ink markings.
There is also an erasable ink pen called a friction pen. I haven’t used it as it’s not permanent ink.
PAINTED DOTS = Use a ball clay tool or embossing stylus to create painted dots. For example, black dots on white paper or white dots on black paper. Dip the tool into acrylic paint or on an inkpad and dot the paper with the end of it. Make single dots or pattern dots in odd numbers such as three dots in a row or in a triangular shape. To make a simple flower, dot large "petals" around a single smaller dot. To make bigger dots, a new pencil eraser would work. You could dot the center of flowers or make a dotted doily.
PAPER = I've been using white cardstock to doodle on that I purchased from Walmart. It doesn't rip or fall apart when you erase it. My last doodle teacher had us use mechanical pencils to doodle with, but those tend to leave dents or cuts in the paper if you are heavy handed like me. I've switched to using an ordinary sharpened yellow school pencil #2 and a fine-line Sharpie marker.
Make use of leftover pieces of black and white scrapbook paper to collage with. I compiled a 2 gallon Hefty zippy bag full of black and white scraps of paper so that I always have something on hand.
Another idea is to use torn strips of black paper on white to frame a coloring sheet or use as "grass" at the bottom of the sheet.
PUNCHES = Been looking for a flower stamen punch that I could use to punch out a center for a stencil or template flower in black to glue down to a coloring sheet.
RUBBER STAMPING = I thought about using rubber stamps to make coloring cards, but unless you have permission from an angel rubber stamp company to reproduce their images by photocopying your one or two hand-stamped image(s), then that is out. I looked into obtaining a Stampin’ Up License one time to make cards to sell, and the license was good for 100 hand-stamped images only.
I could carve my own rubber stamp. I took a class from Stephanie Ackerman on how to doodle a flower image and then carve out the rubber to make my own stamped images. If I had one image that I keep using over and over, this would be a good investment and I wouldn't run into copyright issues then. I purchased a
Speedwell Block Printing kit from Michael's to create my own stamp. An outline image would make a good stamp for a coloring sheet.
Another idea is to use common household items to stamp with such as a straw and ink/paint to make circle bubbles.
I could make my own stamps from pre-cut fun foam shapes also and mount them to soda pop bottle lids or pill bottle lids, but they would be pretty small stamps. A hole punch might make for an interesting foam shape stamp.
SAMPLES = One of the things I learned to do in some of the doodle classes I’ve been taking is to make sample sheets of some of the designs I like. Pinterest is great for bookmarking some nifty graphic designs, but I need an encyclopedia of sorts here at home to thumb through, so decided to create some sample sheets of my own. Also, I thought it might help build up some memory in my noodle of how I doodled the last samples. Also, take a peek at the newest blog that I posted in my “Check it Out” section on my side menu.
SHADING = The shading on my doodles looks dorky to me and I wondered how I could give a little texture to my black and white line doodles. A website I just looked at suggested shading in total black. For instance, on the dark side of a building, color in the whole side black. Don't add in any features to the building on the dark side, just color the whole side in black. Depending on how large the building is, I would have to switch from a fine-line sharpie to a bullet-tip sharpie and maybe mask over the corners and lines of the building, so I don't go out of the lines with post-it-note tape. Or draw around a city-scape template on black paper, cut out and attach to my coloring sheet.
A friend told me about Derwent Inktense pencils. Their special property is that they when they are wet, the pigment moves like watercolor, but after they dry, the pigment is permanent, meaning you can’t reactivate it with water like you can with a wet brush on watercolor paint. Since I didn’t have the pencil available then, I used an ordinary black watercolor pencil and water brush to make the shadows in the places they might be after doodling the coloring sheet with a permanent Sharpie marker, then cautioned my husband not to get the coloring sheet wet when he took it out to print for me, because I didn’t have a spray fixative either. We liked the look.
Sandy Allnock has something she calls shading maps. I found a chart of the different marks she makes to shade objects with on her blog and printed it out to keep in my doodle notebook.
SPONGED PAINT = Dyan Reaveley showed a paint doodle idea on one of her videos that I may just have to try. She sponged gray or black paint through one of her stencils, let the paint cure for 24 hours, then doodled lines with a white or black glaze pen across the painted surface.
Different kinds of sponges have different hole patterns. I like sea sponge patterns the best but a makeup sponge has a fine pattern. Could try a kitchen sponge too. And try making patterns with either a damp sponge or dry. Dee Gruenig of Posh Impressions Rubber stamp company used a really dense sponge to swipe ink across card-stock. Unless you can find an old kit thrifting, those dense sponges are no longer available. I found a close foam substitute though - car dice.
STENCILS = I sometimes trace around the inside of a stencil or around a template.
I've made my own stencils using a Bigz Die from Sizzix and a piece of plastic packaging like a plastic lid from an oatmeal carton, however, one idea I saw on a YouTube video, was die cutting a piece of a plastic notebook divider. The interesting part of that was leaving the holes on the left side so that you could store it flat in a 3-ring binder between two buffer sheets of notebook paper.
And I'm finding some interesting mask ideas on YouTube by using the cut-out center piece of a stencil. People use the masks to cover over and protect an image they want to keep and pounce over the mask around the edges to create a background with sponged ink or paint.
Dyan Reaveley loves to stencil within a stencil and then doodle in the 2nd stenciled marks. I’m stretching myself to see if I can apply a similar technique using the stencils that I already own.
I also discovered a scrapbooking company called
Kiwi Lane who creates plastic templates to scrapbook with. I have purchased several and have used them to trace around. If someone wasn’t confident in their doodling abilities, these are great to use to make coloring sheets with. The last two coloring sheets I uploaded to Flickr (tractor, pickup) were made using several of Kiwi Lane templates. I also have a collection of stencils I’ve picked up at thrift stores and hobby stores on clearance to use as well.
I bought an Artist Loft circle stencil from Michael’s. There are graduating sizes of circles from 2 1/4 inch wide circle to 1/18 inch. It’s becoming one of my favorite tools. I can use it to add circles to the center of Kiwi Lane’s flower templates to making curved lines on a bee. Very handy. I think it could very easily make a snowman too.
Then there is Stencil Girl and Lawn Fawn stencils.
STICKERS = I’ve been using my own handwriting and stencils to make words on my coloring sheets, but perhaps I could also use black letters/numbers on white card stock (or the opposite). I wonder if I can find scrapbooking stickers for that purpose?
TOOLS = I have mentioned several tools already, but another one is a T-ruler. The ruler should be, at least, as wide as the paper you are drawing on. Mine is transparent. The T part of the ruler butts up against the side of your paper and is so handy for drawing straight lines.
I just learned about another handy ruler called a centering ruler. I looked on Amazon for one and I saw them in both transparent plastic and stainless steel. An ordinary school ruler is 12 inches long and most of the ones I saw were too, except the very center of the ruler had a round dot and then going out from the center on each side, beginning with one (1) to the edge each side of the dot was marked with the inch numbers. Very handy to find the center of your paper when you want to begin a continuous pattern. In a pinch, I have folded my paper in half length-wise and width-wise and just pinched the edges to give me a guess-timate of where the center of my paper is.
A white eraser and a dry, cheap paint brush are great for erasing without smudging and brushing away eraser crumbs. If your hand is sweaty, another sheet of paper over the top of the drawing paper and under the heel of your hand can prevent the oils from your sweat transferring to the paper and adding extra “texture” to your drawing that may not be wanted in that particular spot.
Sponges and ink blending tools are great for adding in shadows with grey or black acrylic paint or dye ink also.
WASHI TAPE = I have framed in coloring sheet images with black and white washi tape.
