Animal cards – pencil on kraft
Posted: June 7, 2021 Filed under: Cow's it going?, Lion, Pink Ink Designs, Sea Turtle, whale | Tags: Faber-Castell Polychromos Colour Pencil, Pink Ink Designs 19 Comments
Recently I put together a set of animal themed cards as a gift for an animal lover I know. I did not realise how much I would enjoy colouring these animal images from Pink Ink Designs. I own five of these large stamp sets featuring animals and have only watercoloured them up until now. (the one not featured in today’s post is the dragon). Coloured pencil on kraft turned out to be quite effective for the beasts! I used Faber Castell Polychromos pencils and will always recommend them.
The artist who designs these stamps is very talented and as you can see on the whale there are some whimsical details added to the otherwise realistic image. I stamped the whale in cobalt archival ink then coloured with blue, white and black pencils before adding white dots over the top with a gel pen.
The highland cow is a beauty, no added whimsy but plenty of personality. She’s been on the blog before. I stamped the image with papertrey weathervane ink and rusty hinge distress then added colour with pencils (Faber Castell polychromos).
I don’t remember ever colouring a lion before so I had a reference photo in front of me to work out where the shadows were and where the colours of the fur changed. The stamp has a crown on the lion which I didn’t want for this card so I left it un-inked and filled the gap with more of his mane.
The image is stamped in Papertrey ‘classic kraft’ ink and all the colouring is once again pencil. As I worked on these animals I saw again and again the impact of white pencil highlights.
The turtle has also been on the blog before, in watercolour and pearlescent paint. As with the other animals she looks good in pencil on kraft. She has plenty of whimsy in her patchwork shell. Choosing dark blue for her shell was not so realistic but her underbody and fins were inspired by a photo I found.
I’m sure you are wondering what is next for these amazing animal stamps ( or maybe you’re saying enough already, where are the flowers and trees?!) I think each of these animals deserves it’s own art journal feature at the very least, so yes, they’ll be back.
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Heather Telford 
I get your emails daily, and enjoy seeing your creations. You do such nice work. but….these cards are STUNNING!!! and so life like. How lucky the person will be to get these. You do phenominal work.
Thank you so much for your enthusiastic message.
I love these stamps too and have blended them with alcohol inks and done watercolors.
Seeing the beauty of yours I will have to try the pencil crayons on Kraft. I really appreciate the artists whimsy on each stamp however you played it down a few times and it was such a good decision,they appear so realistic now. Really enjoy your work.
Thank you so much. I have so much respect for the artist’s work on these stamps and I think it is their skill in drawing the images that make is possible to range between whimsy and realism. I’ve now used pencil and watercolour on several of these stamps and loved the results both times. They would probably look great in a single colour also.
The stamps are so life like and your coloring is beautiful!!
Wow those are just amazing!!
Your colors are so vivid on the kraft, Heather! I’m impressed with the intensity and how much the bits of white highlights add to the total design! I look forward to seeing more of these animals.
All r beautifully stunning 😍😍
Wow, WOw, WOW!!!!
these are fabulous!
thanks so much Deborah
Wow Heather, these all look fabulous and the pencil colouring is perfect on the kraft card. I have the turtle and I love it, but all of these are equally wonderful drawings and as you say so realistic and you have added tons of personality with your choice of colours clever colouring. x
These are simply stunning Heather. Your colouring is excellent.
Wow! That is some amazing coloring with pencil- some of the best I’ve ever seen! The smoothness on the whale is unbelievably perfect and love the work with hair and fur. You are as talented with pencil as you are with watercolor! I love the added highlights with white, something I may try to do. Thanks for the inspiratoin!
Thanks so much, Nancy, I really enjoyed working on these panels even though they are not flowers!!
Oh Wow, Heather! What a beautiful set. Sigh!
STUNNING artwork Heather. Your pencil colouring on kraft looks amazing with these animals. I love the colours you’ve used. And agree with you about the white highlights, really adds so much to brighten the images. xx
I can’t remember if I already commented on this post. It’s OK if I did but it bears repeating. I saved the email because I was BLOWN AWAY by how beautiful these are. And I knew I wanted to look at them again and again. I could never do something like this. But I could try! And a girl can dream…!
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