Mouse among blackberries

Time for mum’s birthday again and I’ve used most of my critter stamps in the past, so this year I’ve done something a little different.

A couple of years ago she was running low on her card stash and hadn’t been able to get out to pick up a card for my other half’s birthday, so she’d had to send him one of her favourite cards that she’d been keeping for herself — a photo of a chubby mouse hanging out among the blackberries. Straight away I had the idea to try and recreate it for her. Of course, finding the confidence and the time to make it ready for a birthday was a different matter. This year I actually got organised and started work on it in plenty of time.

I set out by scanning the original card and printing it out at the smaller A6 card size. Then I did a very light, sketchy tracing with a pale TriPlus fineliner and my light pad, just enough to give me some basic lines and positions. Then I jumped in the deep end and set about colouring the mouse — the last thing I wanted to do was to create a perfect background and then mess up the focal image.

The mouse on the original card is a bit more orangey than this one, but that’s what happens when you use the print copy as a colour reference rather than the original… it’s still cute!

Once I’d finished the Copic colouring, I got out my Polychromos pencils and added a few fine details and shading on the mouse, along with the highlights on the blackberries.

Copic markers:

dark blackberries – BV23, BV25, BV29
red blackberries – R89, R56, R85, glazed with BV23
branches – E21, E23, E25, E27, E29
leaves – G99, YG17, B34
mouse – E30, E31, E33, E84, R000, E04
shadows – T7, T5, T3, T1
sky – B21, B91

Polychromos pencils:

101 white, 103 ivory, 131 medium flesh, 183 light yellow ochre, 186 terra cotta, 283 burnt siena

Supplies:

• paper and card:
  Neenah solar white 216gsm
  Hunkydory Adorable Scorable matt-tastic white