November Mail Art

...Pomegranate... 

    I've just finished one of my November partner's Envies. Thought that I would do a walk through with you on it, but also an update about the 5 Things Challenge. There are two projects that I'm going to make with the things that Sandy gave me. One is small and easy to make. The other, with the fish tray, a little more complicated. I'm going to be using a drill on the tray! Oh no! Power tools! LOL! I've got some elements worked out for each project already, but I'm still going to need a bit more time. So, without further a do, here's the Pomegranate walk through....

    Yup, you guessed it...it starts with a simple sketch. I'm using a kraft envelope from The Paper Studio.

I sketch the pomegranates in pencil. Then line in a black Micron pen. Cleaned up the pencil marks with a kneaded eraser.

    So now the fun part! I'm using mostly color pencils this time. I have three different brands of pencils! I was fortunate enough to have a friend gift me some Prismacolor Pencils. (Thanks Tracy!) Besides that I have Sargent Art and Crayola. I use as many Prismacolors as I can. They blend the best. However, If you're like me and can't buy the best....don't think that the cheaper brands can't do great work! I like that my cheaper brands leave lines, instead of blending. They give my work texture. :) 

    In the above picture, I started with my deep red. I thought of where highlights might go and went a little gentler with the color on those spots. I brought in some yellow and orange. I used those colors where I thought the fruit need highlight and where the fruit might have a lighter color naturally. 

I used two different kinds of purple to do some shading and a white pencil to add shine. I layer all of the colors. If I don't like how dark something is I layer a lighter color over it. To make the branches look a little more realistic, I used two different kinds of brown. First a dark brown. Then a lighter brown. Black goes where there are shadows. I finished those with touches of white. The leaves were done with a blue green color first. Then lite green in spots. Finished with some yellow. I hardly ever use one color on an object. 

I want to enhance the drawing with a simple water colored background. I'm using a Derwent Inktense water color pencil in Iron Green. I color around the Pomegranate fairly dark. Lighter as I get further away from it. Oh, forgot to mention, I used a scrap of kraft paper to see what my color would look like. So don't throw away those little scraps of paper peeps. They come in handy as a sampler. Anyhow, I took a brush loaded with water and activated the color pencil. I brush water gently in the dark areas. Scrubbed in tiny circles and dragged the color outward. 

Here is the front completed. I added the address, highlighted with my white pencil, outlines with my black Pentel Color Brush pen and added some stippled sparkle from a Sakura Stardust pen. Finished it out with a date stamper and rubber stamp.

Here's the back with a wax seal.