Watercolored Holly

Hello Again!

Have you been participating in Kathy Racoosin's coloring challenge?  I snuck in a couple of projects this weekend.  Coloring is my favorite thing to do and there just is not enough time in the day for it!  I am making a special effort to join in as often as I can this month.  You can find details on the 30 day challenge HERE, on Kathy's blog.

I fell in love with this Ellen Hutson holly as soon as I saw it.  It is just gorgeous!  Love the script sentiments as well. 
I used Arches watercolor paper and started out with Gina K Amalgam black ink, followed by a base of watercolor using Inktense Pencils.  Once I had a few layers of color down, I switched over to Arteza brush pens as I was not getting the deep color that I wanted.  Annnnd now it is a little too deep, lol.  I added details with Prismacolor Pencils.  The background was done with the Arteza brushes.  I used white gel pen and then Crystal Effects on some of the holly berries. 
The sketch I used is from Freshly Made Sketches~

I learned several things in doing this card.  First, if you are watercoloring an image with smooth leaves, do not use cold press paper.  When using colored pencils, avoid cold press paper.  Lastly, do not overwork your image! We keep doing to practice, practice, practice, right?

I still love how this turned out! 

Thanks for stopping by and have a blessed week!

Lee Ann