Play time...

I've been very very bad lately, I'm definitely on a very high naughty step 😎

Well, firstly, Crafter's Companion had an uber good deal on the entire collection of Aquatints. They don't come with the pipettes (not an issue, already got loads), brushes or plastic trays but at less than 50 quid for all 34 bottles it would have been rude not to...

Then hubby and I went out to our local Dobbies (also happens to be the home of a CC store 😏) for a Valentine's day coffee date. I'd managed to somehow order something twice off the CC website so wanted to see if I could exchange. The super helpful staff - and they are just lovely there - gave me a refund against the stuff that I bought whilst there and with an extra 14% off for Valentine's day I just had to have the large pack of Pebeo acrylic paint small tubes. I'm going to have lots and lots of playing to do 😍

Colour therapy

I love to colour, it's my "me" time, my relax time, my "oh my God, how did it get to that time" time!

There's loads that I need to do at the moment - replenish my stock of cards, clean the house, laundry, plan meals, shopping, Dad's laundry ... and the list goes on. But, today has been one of those days; you know, those days when you just really cannot be bothered to do the mundane. So, once his nibs was dropped off at school out came the colouring pens.

I bought a colouring book ages, and I do mean ages, ago. It's one of those that is printed on what feels like cheap copy paper. Luckily, this particular book is only printed on one side so it doesn't matter if the pen bleeds through, I wasn't sure if it would take alcohol markers because of the quality of the paper but I was pleasantly surprised with the result

You can see some areas where the paper just couldn't take it and the blending is a bit patchy but what I'm really pleased with is the hair. It looks stunning (even if I do say so myself) and I'm very happy with the shading as, other that a few lines there wasn't much in the way of shading in the print.

I did the face with Kuretake manga markers but I found they did struggle to blend a bit. The pink on the cheek is a promarker that was an afterthought - the straw that broke the camel's back so to speak. The rest are of course my trusty Spectrum Noir markers.  Bit gutted that my CG1 pen has since run dry whilst I was in the midst of colouring another picture 😢

I also fell in love with the steampunk lady from Sheena Douglas' Time Traveller collection. I've only done her once so far but I'm looking forward to playing some more

Not massively happy with the hair on this lady but it's not going to be a chore doing lots of practice, I find her just mesmerising.