How to.... Penny Black in Monochrome (Sepia and Greytone)

I can't believe this is my last week as GDT at Penny Black Saturday - that has been the quickest 4 weeks ever! But I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Kath and the PBSC team and of course the gorgeous Penny Black stamps.


Seeing as this is my last week I decided to do a double whammy - 2 different monochrome effects: sepia and grey-tone. So let's get stuck into the Sepia effect first...


Firstly I stamped the image "Wishes for Kisses" with Memento Rich Cocoa onto SU whisper white card...

The first colour I've used is Cinnamon, with very light, short strokes I have coloured over most of his prickles...

Next I did the same with the Cocoa, colouring a little less - but still using light short strokes.

Repeat with Walnut...

With the Tan, I have again used very light strokes over the whole area and coloured all around where the prickles meet his underside. I've also added a wee touch of Tan to his cheeks...

With the Almond promarker I have coloured over the whole of his underside - I haven't coloured over his prickles because I wanted to keep the texture. I have taken the Almond over the Tan areas at the edge of his underside so that there are no hard lines...

I wanted to give him a little more depth so added some more Tan to his underside...

And blended this with the Almond...

Next, onto his scarf... I've started by colouring every alternate section with Tan, plus I've also coloured the shadow at the bottom of the other stripes... 

I've dotted on some Cocoa at the bottom of the Tan stripes to create a shadow... 

Then I blended it slightly with Tan on the darker stripes and Almond on the lighter stripes... 

Finally I coloured the wee birdie, and gave him something to stand on....

let's get straight onto the 2nd of my monochrome tutorials for Penny Black Saturday Challenge.
This time I've used grey tones...and I chose the Ice Greys to work with, but the same principal applies to the Cool Greys and the Warm Greys, just the finished image will be a slightly different tone.

As always, I have used Memento Tuxedo Black to stamp the image from Jolly Friends clear set onto SU Whisper White card...

I have started with the darkest of the greys, Ice Grey 5 and lightly coloured the areas I imagine would be furthest from the light source or in shadow...

Then with Ice Grey 4, I have coloured over the IG5 and a little into the white area....

Moving a little further into the white area this time, I have coloured over the IG5 and IG4 with Ice Grey 3...

Repeat with Ice Grey 2...

And lastly colour over the whole area with small circular movements with Ice Grey 1 to blend everything together...

I have used IG2 to colour the bottom of the heel and toe of the stocking...

Then blended this with IG1...

I have added light touches of IG1 to the lower edge of the top trim of the stocking to give it a little dimension...

The mouse I have coloured with IG3....

Then IG2...

Then blended with IG1

 Next I have coloured the holly berries and the central vein of each of the leaves with Black...

Then blended the line on the leaves with IG5 to soften it...

Then blended with IG3 to soften it a little further...

And finally coloured over the whole leaves with IG1 to blend out the hard lines...

I felt the main body of the stocking was still a little light, and there wasn't much contrast in the image so I added some more IG5 (you can repeat these steps until you are happy with the depth of colour)...

Then blended outwards with IG4...

Repeat with IG3...

And IG2....

And finally IG1...

And here's the finished image - I have added a dot of white gel pen to each of the holly berries...

And here's the image made into a card...

Image: from Penny Black "Jolly Friends" transparent set, coloured with Ice Grey promarkers
black and white cardstock is all core'dinations, snowflakes are punched from glitter paper using MS snowflake punches, the branch punch is also Martha Stewart and the greeting is Craftwork Cards. Adhesive gems and pearls are all Prima e line.


I'd like to enter my card into the following challenges...


Crafty Catz - Christmas
Totally Papercrafts - Untraditional Christmas
Fussy & Fancy - Xmas without red/green
Cute Card Thursday - Challenge 37 Snow/Snowflakes
ABC Challenge - Ice & Snow