Coloring with distress inks

Hi everyone, this is Stine giving you a tutorial on how I color my stamps with Tim Holz Distress inks.

Find yourself a stamp and some of Tim's gorgeous colors and join me in coloring. 

Just a warning to start with - this is picture heavy even after I did some editing... (you can click on my pictures to see them bigger)

I am totally in love with the cute magnolia stamps, most of all because they are so easy to color, 

so I am using one of my favourites from here as an example for this tutorial. 

You can use borth the stamp pads and the refills for coloring, and I will give you examples of both ways.

For start you need a stamp (any stamp!), a waterproof stamppad (I prefer Archilval ink - Jet Black), watercolor paper, watercolor painting brushes, Distress ink refills and/or pads and a can of water.

 (I don't recommend to use a drinking glass - as you might end up drinking the water - it does not taste good...)

I use a piece of glass from a broken picture frame as a palette, but you can use any hard surface. One of the great things about distress inks is that they won't dry out - the drop of ink is not wasted if you don't use it all, just keep the plate stored till next time.

I always paint the skin areas first, starting with Tattered Rose. I start with just following the outline with color like this...

...and then I use water to move the color inwards of the area. I repeat this till I am satisfied with the color "strength".

Next I use vintage photo and do the same process again (I know that some blend their colors beforehand, but I never do. I layer the colors I am blending because that way I can better control the outcome.)

The last thing I do with my face is to make a rosy cheek. For this I use either Aged Mahogany og Victorian Velvet, just placing a little color on each cheek, and then using water again to blend it with the rest (not a good picture here, but you will see it better below).

I continue then with the rest of the skin color (here - the arms) with the same technique:

I am kind of stuck in a pattern when it comes to hair color - I almost always use Antique linen for base and then Walnut stain for shades. I start up by painting a layer of Antique Linen:

I then continue painting the edges with Walnut Stain - blending it with water in the same way as earlier:

The result is a dark brown hair with highlights on top:

For her dress I wanted to use a mix of Milled Lavender and Dusty Concord. The last one I do not own as a refill, so I needed to use my stamp pad.  On the edge of my plate of glass I press the pad down and I have a new color on my palette :)

I always start with the lighter color (I actually often use two colors - one for base and the other one for shadows), and as you can see; again I fill in my colors from the edges and inwards (is that a word??):

On the next pictures you can see how (the bottom of) her dress turned out with Milled Lavender in the middle and Dusty Concord for the shadows. For her stockings I have used Pumice Stone - one of my favourites from the "new" colors.

Here you can see the last details of the coloring. Her bow, and the leaves of the rose. 

Here she is!! 

If you look closely you can see that I have used Stickles (diamond) on her wings and on some other details. Not easy to see in the picture, but that is a great tip. If you check out this post on my blog - you can see her used on one of my latest cards.

Hope you got some inspiration to get started with your Distress Inks. I bet most of you own some of them if not all 36 ;o) Then there is just one more thing to be said from me for now:

GOD HELG!!

(meaning have a great weekend - todays lesson in norwegian :)