Hungry hamster

The hungry hamster is another of those printed-out digis that have been in my to-colour pile for quite some time. When I’d finished colouring him, I fussy cut out his sunflower seeds to take the photo for Instagram, but then I started to worry that he would get separated from his seeds so, rather than putting it straight in the coloured images stash, I decided to make a card (which may well end up being my youngest nephew’s birthday card next month).

Often when I have a fairly simple stamp to colour, I like to take the opportunity to try out different texture techniques. With this one I started out by creating the shading with stippling — the texture worked nicely, but didn’t feel right for a hamster. Rather than start over, I just added tiny flicks of fur over the top.

I wanted to get a good depth of colour in the mouth without going too dark, I also didn’t want it to be too pink. So I put down a solid layer of red and then shaded over the top of that with some darker browns.

I fussy cut out the hamster and then created a heat-embossed sentiment speech bubble. Although I was happy with the individual elements, I wasn’t loving it when I arranged them on a plain card front… I just don’t naturally create CAS layouts…

To create a pattern over the card base I grabbed a small piece of natural sponge, dabbed it in some green Copic refill ink and lightly tapped that all over the card front. I used two different greens for a bit of variety.

When that was completely dry, I glued the hamster in place and popped the sentiment and seeds up on some thin foam tape.

Copic markers:

hamster – E30, YR31, E11, E33, E35, E77
mouth – R27 (base), E37, E29
sunflower seeds – W00, W1, W3 / W5, W7, W9

Supplies:

• stamps:
  Avery Elle – cake & candles (sentiment)
• digital stamps:
  Useless Trinkets – Terry the hungry hamster
• colour:
  Copic – various ink – G09, G46
  Distress ink pad – wild honey
• inks:
  Versamark
• embossing powder:
  Wow! – copper pearl (WE04R)
• paper and card:
  Neenah solar white 216gsm
  Hunkydory Adorable Scorable pearly shimmer
• miscellaneous:
  natural sponge

This image was coloured on 9th February 2018; day 26 of The Daily Marker 30 Day Colouring Challenge