Fall/Autumn 2018: "Thankful to be me" Coloring Tutorial

Welcome to my blog!

Hi everyone it's Elina here.

I hope you are enjoying your evening.

Today marks the finale of my Fall/Autumn 2018 series.

The project featured is a deeply personal one for me.

I started this series to highlight the season.
This time around I decided to use this series to pay tribute to
the special people in our lives.
So my last project featured a tree to represent family.
This time of year we give thanks for our family.
We remember those who have passed, celebrate the newest members
& embrace friends who make life worth living.

But what I've noticed is that we often forget the most
important person of all: Ourselves.
It was with this idea in mind that I decided to
draw a portrait of myself.
This was not an easy one for me to do
let me tell you.
Just trying to capture my appearance as a drawing was horrifying.
To keep things simple I tried to capture the most
distinguishing characteristics that make me me.

My glasses was an easy one to draw as well as my
usual updo.
Where it becomes difficult is trying to translate the look
to reflect the season.
So I opted to draw myself as slowly dissolving into a pile of leaves.
A little trippy but it captures the fall theme.

For the coloring I tried my best to match the tone of my skin,
hair, eyes & glasses.
But then I chose to fade out the coloring on one side of my face
to create the illusion of dissolving away.
That part of the coloring was the trickiest.
I feel that I could have achieved that look if
I would have tried some different techniques but
it is what it is.

You can check out the pic below:

You can check out the coloring tutorial below to see how this came together:

It's taken me a long time to try to accept the person that I am.
And for me it's still a work in progress.
I have my good days & my bad days.
My days filled with regret & my days filled with joy.
But I try to take everything day by day.
I still judge myself pretty harshly but I'm
slowly learning how to lower that negative part of
myself that says, "You can't..."

My hope is to be able to love myself flaws and all
& just be happy.

I hope you enjoyed this project & thanks for stopping by.

Hugs,

Quick Update:

Hi everyone & welcome to my blog!

It's Elina here & thank you for joining me today.

I hope you are enjoying your Saturday evening.

It's hard to believe that in the next 6 days we will be 

kicking off the start of the holiday season.

Say whattttt?!!!! 

Honestly I haven't even begun my holiday card making.

I always say I'm going to start off early, get it out of the way.

But I get caught up with doing day to day things and next thing 

you know the holidays are peeking around.

Dang it!

I can tell you that it will be a mad dash to get them done in time.

Hopefully they will get mailed out too because I had one 

year where I made cards & forgot to mail them.

So it was Merry Christmas to you in February. :)

Anyways, so yeah, the holidays.

I'm trying not to overwhelm myself too much this year.

So I will work on what I can when I can.

And that has been my mantra for this year.

So that's pretty much it for this post.

Just a brief rant on what I would like to accomplish.

I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening.

Hugs

Fall/Autumn 2018: Easy Watercoloring w/ Inks & Color Burst

Welcome to my blog, it's Elina here.

I hope you are enjoying your extended weekend.

Today's post features the second installment in my

Fall/Autumn 2018 series.

If you missed the video premiere last night,

you can click the link below...

I'm pleased with how the final card turned out.

During the filming, I encountered a few issues & was pretty close 

to scrapping the whole video.

My spray ink was clogged.

I love using my spray inks for various projects

but it drives me nuts when they clog constantly.

So once I cleared the nozzle & began

spraying it sputtered & left blotchy patches.

My spray bottle filled with water was the 

saving grace this card needed.

Not to mention, it got all over my desk top

which had to be cleaned. Ugh.

Now I did enjoy using the Ken Oliver Color Burst powder.

I know that there are those of you out there

like really his stuff is amazing.

And I will totally agree with you on that.

I thought it was cool that after it's been dry

you can still spray it with water to soften the look.

Cool!

Enough rambling & ranting let's get back to the card.

Here's a close pic for you to check out:

I hope you enjoyed this card & video.

Stay tuned for the next video coming out soon.

Thanks for stopping by & enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Hugs,

Fall/Autumn 2018: Llama with Java Coloring Tutorial

Hi everyone, it's Elina here.

Happy Sunday & welcome to my blog!
Today marks the start of my Thankful 2018 series.
I have been doing this series for the past two years.
I think it's a great way to celebrate the season &
remember the things we are grateful for.

To start this series off I decided to use an original
character I drew.
It's a cute little llama who is thankful for
the cup of coffee she's about to enjoy.
Let's be honest, we have to be thankful for
the things in our life that help us get through.
For me, Coffee is that beverage I am most thankful for.

You can check out the coloring tutorial below...

Mmm.. I can just smell the coffee goodness.

Here's a close up pic...

I kept the card design pretty simple to showcase the main image.
I will probably use this image again for my Holiday 2018 series.

The measurements for the card are as follows:
Image panel- 4 1/2" x 6 1/2"
Brown card layer- 4 3/4" x 6 3/4"
Black card base- 5" x 7"

I did add Wink Of Stella to the glasses, nose & eyes.
I like the sparkle it gives to the finished image.

I hope you enjoyed this post & video.
Thanks for stopping by & enjoy the rest of your Sunday!

Hugs,