Aurora Christmas hair

Well, my plan to have finished all my Christmas cards by the end of October was utterly derailed by me not making any Christmas cards at all in October. In fact, I only made one card of any sort in October and that one really had to be made as it was for my mum’s birthday which is right at the start of November!

So. November. I am going to finish making Christmas cards this month. I had a couple of ideas for some more small batches which will fill out the stash and then there are the individual cards for close family and friends. And anything else that takes my fancy along the way.

It has been made easier by having the added motivation of the Daily Marker colouring challenge, so I suspect I’ve actually made enough cards; now I just have to write them all up for the blog!

I didn’t really have anything in mind when I started making this card, I just had the idea that the two images would fit together quite nicely and decided to give it a go. It did give me the opportunity to try out a more pastel style of colouring, so that the wreath would provide a subtle background for the main image. And I also experimented with the hair — adding red to the curls at the ends — which worked really well.

One thing that I am finding particularly satisfying at the moment is adding pencil detail over the top of the Copic marker. Nothing much, just a bit of extra fine texture on the hair and refining the shading on the face, but it does make a surprising difference to the finished effect. As did adding the glossy accents to the poinsettia in her hair.

I played around trying to come up with a nice layout for the card, but eventually had to admit that it really needed fussy cutting out around the wreath. With fiddly outlines like this, I have taken to sketching the cut line in with pencil first, that way I avoid too much variation in the thickness of the border.

I was determined to use some of the Christmas paper pad I picked up (yes, I know, I said I wasn’t going to buy any more patterned paper, but it was part of a bundle okay) so I chose one of the patterns for the background. I recently rediscovered the glitter card in my stash and thought that would provide a nice bit of contrast. I popped the main image up on fun foam for a tiny bit of dimension and, as I’m not in the mood for sequins and fuss, that finished off the card.

Copic markers:

background – B0000
Aurora:
skin – B60, E50, E21
hair – R29, E07, E25, E27, E29, E49
poinsettia – R29, R08, YG03
wreath:
leaves – G0000, G00, G12
wood – E43, E84
pom poms – E70, W00
berries – R01, R21

Polychromos pencils:

hair – 175 dark sepia
poinsettia – 225 dark red
skin – 189 cinnamon

Supplies:

• digital stamps:
  The East Wind – Aurora Christmas hair
  Power Poppy – wreath (felt leaves and fruit)
• embellishments:
  Wink of Stella – clear
  Ranger glossy accents
• paper and card:
  Neenah solar white 216gsm
  Hunkydory Adorable Scorable cotton white
  Papermania glitter card
  Polkadoodles heartfelt Christmas paper pad
• miscellaneous:
  fun foam
  Beacon 3-in-1 glue