Scene Colouring: Playful Penguins

Not many sleeps ’til Santa now! I have another festive card for you today and the last in my Scene Colouring series for this year. This time, I coloured up some playful penguins in a snowy scene. One was halfway through building a snowman until he saw a friend who couldn’t reach the post box. What could he do but deconstruct the snowman and use it to reach the post box and post the letter? 🙂

This card features the Wanna Build a Snowman, Yappy Happy Mail, Santa’s Village, Who Let the Dogs Out and Holiday Sentiment Duos stamp sets. A couple of these are not Christmas-themed sets, but make wonderful scene builders!

As with any scene card, I started by planning out my scene onto some alcohol marker friendly cardstock. I stamped it out in order using some Lawn Fawn Jellyfish ink, starting with the foreground elements (the penguins, the snowman, post box and fence) and then finishing with the trees in the background. I had to use some Heffy Tape to mask off bits of the scene, though because the ink is so light I didn’t have to be too picky. I drew some hills in the background lightly with a pencil to fill up the scene, making sure I had enough room for the sentiment.

I started out colouring the background with my alcohol markers, using some muted blues for the sky and some blue-greens for the hills. I wanted the feeling of soft and fluffy snow over the hills, so I kept my shading to the very edges of the fields.

For the ground immediately in the foreground, I needed to add some texture to the snow where it had been rucked up. I used random dabbing touches of the markers, building up the most colour in the shadow areas and adding other occasionally deeper ruts. I came in later with my coloured pencils to deepen up the shadows and give more definition to this area.

I chose some warmer tones for the foreground elements to help pull them into focus and away from the cooler background. Some nice festive reds (my favourite red combo is R89/R37/R24/R14) and bright orange beaks and feet help to achieve this.

I loved the vintage feel of the sentiment I used in my last card so much I used the Holiday Sentiment Duos and Lawn Fawn Yeti ink again for this card.

I then came in with my coloured pencils and a white gel pen to add depth, dimension and lots and lots of snow! I have three different size gel pens and love the look when all three are used to give different sized snowflakes. Really brings the playful penguins to life!

This year has been a bit of an odd one so I hope that wherever you are you can enjoy at least a few moments of the festive season, whatever you celebrate!

See you next year!