Coloring Samples Binder

Happy Sunday everyone!

I hope you are all having a wonderful day!  The weather here in North Carolina is finally getting nice out!  I had been really spoiled living in Southern California the past 10 years with their gorgeous weather and I sure do miss it!  Of course, we moved here to NC 6 months ago and have had the worse winter in ages!  Not an ideal way to start out here, but it's finally spring now!

Today I thought I would share with you a binder I put together to keep track of pencil coloring samples I use.  I really love to color with my pencils and having just the “right” colors for a project is important to me.  I started this binder a few months ago so I would have these combinations of colors at my finger tips instead of having to search for them in previous projects or reinvent them again.

I use the small binders, 5 1/2" x 8 1/2", with the sheet protectors the same as my samples binder you may have seen me use here.  I cut card stock 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" and stamped flowers on each page (I did 3 on each).   The flower I have used here is from Heartfelt Creation's Posy Patch Flowers Set, but basically I just picked a flower that had good size petals that I could work with.

Here's a view of some of the purple color combinations I have put together in my binder.  (You can click on the photo to see it better.)

What I do is number the flower petals that correspond with a specific color that I list out.  Starting with 1, I add the color and blend on each petal, then 2 added to petal 2 and up and blended, then 3 added to 3 and up and blended, etc.  So I end up with a sample of different color shades on each petal that I can match up to and use.

Here's a close up of one of the combinations I did so you can see it better and in case I'm not making sense.

So on the sample above, petal 1 has only Rosy Beige, petal 2 has Rosy Beige, then Clay Rose, petal 3 has Rosy Beige, then Clay Rose, then Black Cherry, petal 4 has all four colors.

You can see a little note I added on this combination that I used the steps 1-3 color combination for the Raindrops on Roses samples I made.  Here's a card I made with this color combination.  (I do believe I also added a little black on a couple of spots on this one too and burnished with Black Cherry.)

Some of the combinations in my color samples have dates written on them which is the date of the project I did with that color combination.  Most of the samples are done by using minerals spirits to blend the colors.  Sometimes I will burnish the colors, especially when I'm adding black, and I'll usually note that on the sample.  I often use a tiny amount of black at the last step of coloring to intensify the shading a bit in some places.  Usually, I will burnish the black with the color I used before it so that it retains the color and doesn't just turn to black.

I'm by no means an expert on coloring, but I thought I would share some of what I do when I color and what has helped me to be more organized with color combinations I have used.  I've found it really helpful when I'm trying to match colors to designer papers I'm working with.  Hope someone else will find this useful too!

Thank for stopping by to visit!

Blessings!

Kathy