Progress Check: Colored Pencil Goldfish Then and Now

I started my colored pencil class just under a month ago, so I figured it was time for an assessment. A midterm, of sorts. In the interest of doing my best to compare apples to apples, I went back to a colored pencil drawing I did over the summer during my 30 days of drawing food and redrew the exact same image. I used the same paper, but for the recent drawing I used higher-quality colored pencils that I didn't have back then. 

I drew this in June 2021:

This is from October 2021:

It's clear to me that I'm making progress, particularly with blending. Given that I didn't even know burnishing was a thing before, that's also a major area of growth. I'm not happy with the shadows in my more recent drawing. I was rushing, but it's also a weaker area for me and something I will continue to practice. 

Oval Faux-Framed Calavera for Dia de Los Muertos

So far, all of my colored pencil work since starting my class has been on white paper. For today's project, an oval-framed calavera for Dia de los Muertos, I started with black paper. I love the way the colored pencil pops against the black! Affiliate links below. 

Oval Faux-Framed Calavera for Dia de Los Muertos

Materials:

• black chipboard
• Prismacolor colored pencils
• Fiskars oval template
• Fiskars microtip scissors
• gold trim (not what I used, but would make a pretty frame)
• craft glue

Steps:

Use a white colored pencil to lightly sketch the outline of a skull on the black chipboard. Add two large eye sockets, a nose, and a mouth.

Test your colored pencils on a scrap of the chipboard. Use the most vibrant colors to add flowers, swirls, dots, and other decorations to the skull. 

Color the skull white, leaving the eye sockets, nose, and mouth black. Add teeth, then draw oval vertebrae. Then add clothing at the bottom. 

Position the oval template over your calavera and lightly trace a cutting line. I used the largest oval on the template. 

Cut out the oval, then glue the trim to the back. 

Using my colored pencils (particularly the white) on black was a fun experiment. It was a departure from my other Dia de Los Muertos crafts, which are all black (and other colors) on white. I'm definitely going to be experimenting with this again. 

Framing Multiple Colored Pencil Images

One nice thing about moms (or my mom anyway) is that they love everything their child makes and happily hang their kid's creations all around the house. Even when their child is 49. 

When I asked you guys for ideas about what to do with these coloring page images I'd cut out, my mom suggested that I put them in a frame and give it to her. So I did. I had to play around a bit to get the best composition possible with the different colors and sizes. The fact that the margins aren't even really bugs me, but I know my mom won't care. Or notice. 

In retrospect, I wish I hadn't cut the images apart. It would have been much easier to frame the intact pages. Everything about this was a learning experience!

Roundups: Owls, Scarecrows, Fish, Beans, and Halloween

I've finished another batch of roundups for Fun Family Crafts. First, owls. We have 93 owl crafts and recipes on Fun Family Crafts... and 13 of them are mine. I was surprised that I had so many. I chose three of mine for the roundup. Can you spot them?

Scarecrows are another fall favorite. Of the 31 scarecrow projects at Fun Family Crafts, 3 are mine. One is in the roundup. 

Next, Fish Crafts and Recipes. We have 141 fish crafts on Fun Family Crafts and it was really hard narrowing down which to features. One of mine is on the graphic below; you can see all of my fish crafts here. 

Next I did Bean Crafts. This one was tough because a lot of bean crafts don't have visible beans (such as bean bags and noisemakers). I tried to pick the best mix of visible and hidden beans. One item on the graphic is mine. 

Finally, Halloween Crafts. We have over 1000 crafts, recipes, and costume ideas, so no matter what you're looking for, it's probably there. I used two of mine for the graphic. 

I'm constantly going through our crafts to make roundups that I think will appeal to our readers. If you have any ideas for roundups I should add, let me know in the comments!

Colored Pencil Flowers for World Cardmaking Day

Saturday was World Cardmaking Day. Because I'm in the middle of my colored pencil class, I celebrated by incorporating my coloring onto a card. The image is from Leisure Arts' Love Grows and colored with Prismacolors (affiliate links).

I tried two new things with this coloring project. First, I colored in the whole image very lightly to work out my colors. Previously I would have fully colored and burnished one flower at a time. I liked having the whole color scheme mapped out. 

Second, I colored an object white (actually three objects- two flowers and the vase). This was my first attempt after watching Sarah's video on coloring white objects. It was a really interesting exercise. Looking at it against the uncolored white background, I wasn't sure if I liked it...

... but once I fussy-cut the image and layered it on the pink polka dot paper, I decided I'm pleased with the white. I have room for improvement, of course. 

I'm continuing to work my way through all of Sarah's videos. I'm learning so much. Click here to subscribe and enter to win her 100K giveaway!