Geometric coloring, adding beautiful details - AECP post

My idea today was trying to come up with a way to quickly add color to a card in a very soft way without spending a lot of time on actually coloring.

I love to make cards and I completely admire artists like Sandy Allnock and Debby Hughes or  Marika Rathu whos class I took in Altenew Academy this week, but I often do not have the patience, skill and time on working with my coloring adding beautiful details to cards like they do. I wish!

So I tried to come up with an alternative.

I wanted these cards to be very soft, like Marika's cards are, so I stamped images from the Engraved Flowers set in a lovely gray ink, Charcoal Suit. Then to add color I stamped the hexagon shape from Simple Shapes XL in Citrus Burst, Frosty Pink and Frayed Leaf. 

Then to add some details I shaded inside the hexagons using some corresponding Polychromos pencils.

For my second card I tried something else, stamping and die cutting the lovely Angelique Motifs in Gentleman's Gray colors and glueing them on top of hexagons stamped in the above colors on the card base. I again used Polychromos to color the edges of the die cuts. 

If I were to remake this card I would stamp the Angelique Motif on the card base and add the hexagons on top. Not my favorite, still it is a version of this technique, coloring with geometric shapes.

For my third card I stamped three flowers from the Tulips set, adding the shaded layer on the actual blooms only. Added my three hexagons and used Prismacolor pencils to add color to the parts of the images within the shapes. I did use some Gamsol to smooth out the pencil.

I have decided to enter this tulip card into two challenges;
The Altenew Inspiration Challenge for March 2019.

And the Less is more Challenge # 391 - Take 3

On my last card I did go a little bolder, using darker shades; Pinkalicious, Fresh Lemon and Parrot. 

For my beautiful details I added gold using a Signo gold pen. Quite striking, isn't it?

So that is my four cards for today. They were all stamped on 110 Neenah Solar White and the gray card bases are made from Altenew Pale Gray smooth card stock.

You might want to take the Altenew Academy Class called Beautiful details to learn more about Marika and her gorgeous coloring techniques!

I hope you have enjoyed today's post, please let me know what you think in the comment section below.

Hugs,
Helen