Remember, I post updates about my blog on my personal facebook page, and on this page:  615 Rocks Sumner County.  Anyone is welcome to join, and participation is a treat to me!

I am not satisfied with the color of this photo; it was taken under my Ott light.  The room was actually dark, aside from it.  I suppose here would be a great place to post about the Ott light, too.  This is a magnifying, LED light that helps you see the lines you've drawn, and it is something I love and never want to do without, because light has always been a big thing for me, and I can see everything well with this when I'm painting.  Often times, I sketch things with a pencil, very faint lines, and not complete ones, but more like a shadowy light ghost of a line to use as a guide.  My Ott light helps me so those faint lines perfectly.  They are pricey, but remember you can use a 40% off coupon at Michael's, JoAnn, or Hobby Lobby to purchase one.  Word from my experience:  Spend the money and get at least a standing desk light, nothing smaller, because it's too small and doesn't serve the purpose you need.  Again, that's just my thinking and experience, but one I would have found helpful if I had been able to ask someone before purchasing my first one.  Amazon had some that were less expensive, but with the coupon at Michaels, what I got was a better deal.

When I was making this, I knew it would be my next post, because this is such a simple look to replicate, but it looks so...well...fancy.  Time-consuming.  Advanced?  Or maybe all of the above, but really, all it is is lines and coloring.  You can do this with anything you make....add the black and white (or in this case, I used lavender) to make a "film strip" looking outline.

Here are the steps:  trace on the edge of your drawing.  Trace it as close and as steady as you can...but don't worry if you waiver.  It can be part of the dance.  You can see that mine is thicker in some places than it is in others.  Once you get that outline done, leave however much space you want around your outline, and outline that.  Again, don't worry about being perfect.  Next, just pick your color and start coloring a space and skipping a space, until you meet up with the point at which you started.  I color according to my shaky-ness in the lines.  You can see that some are skinnier than others, and some are wider.

Here is a closer-up view:

I played with some white in the striping, too, and didn't like it, so I mostly covered it back up.  Like I said in a previous post, I just keep painting until I"m happy with the way what I'm working on looks.  Some of the white still shows, and I am OK with that.  Also, as I previously posted, I love to layer and mix colors until I get what is pleasing to my eye.  At first, I didn't have the leaves on there at all.  Just the flower petals, and the center.  I colored the center yellow, but thought that made the petals look like they needed some, so I started just drawing some yellow lines and just drew until they looked ok to me.  (So scientific, right?)  I added the black to the center and then added the little pucker-y lines of yellow coming out from the center, then a few black spots here and there...then a little hither-skither white lines about.  My art is sooooo not-perfect!  After that, I decided that a leaf or two were in order, and started in on those.  THe "stripes" you see in them are just from a different paint marker, and that's the look I got.  I kinda liked it, so I just left it that way.  Last, I had a gold glitter gel pen laying there, so I ran it over all the yellow lines in the flower.  I tried to make the sparkle show in the photo, but it just didn't quite work.

My challenge to you?  Start with something simple, just an outline, and go from there...keep buildling, layering, drawing until what you see is pleasing to your eye!

I have a new how-to for tomorrow that I am REALLY excited about, and trust me when I tell you that it will open up a WHOLE NEW WORLD to your artwork!!!!