Today is Release Day! :DD 

I’m always excite when its time to release some more stamps (the clear especially bc there’s so much more work involved) but for some reason these 2 have stolen my heart. When I draw up a design, they seem to take on a life of their own so I end up talking about them like they are their own person/animal/thing. That may seem kind of weird but that’s just how I roll 😉 So anyway, our 2 new Nouveau Girls, Royal and Renew, seem so full of poise and that innate feminine grace that I totally love them. 

When I create a card I usually create the card first then color the image that goes with it. For this particular card I got everything all done and for the life of me couldn’t decide what colors to color her with so I decided to do a B&W, mind you I had never done a B&W before so that was added fun lol. The toughest part of it is do make the different areas (skin, hair, dress) look distinct with a very limited tonal range while still keeping a good range of highlights, midtones, and shadows. This is actually a topic we talk about in our Advanced Class at Created for Color so I won’t bore you with all the specifics but I did a speed coloring video, that I’m going to share later this week, when I colored this. If you haven’t done it its really a great way to practice that! It makes you think more than a normal image does about those things. And then you can take that thinking and apply it to a regularly colored image.

I used papers from AC, Sass and Cosmo Cricket with Twinery Twine and Memento Ink on X-Press It. Royal was colored with the whole range of Ns (N0-N9), colorless blender (0) and RV91 for a hint on her cheeks. This might be one of my fav cards I’ve made in a long time!