 Hi there, it's Sandy. Welcome to the last of the 24 Tags of Christmas. Four more today in their Forest Choir Tags. So I've got a little choir singing hedgehog from Evelyn T. Designs, a dive set from Ellen Hudson, and a sentiment because you have to have a sentiment that is a song, right? When you've got a little choir dude who's singing. I'm going to show you how to make a real quick and easy background. And I've already got everything die cut. You could of course die cut them after you get the coloring done, but I figured this would make it quicker because I'd know exactly where to end. And I'm starting off with a light YG color and going from the bottom upward. I want the forest to be darker at the bottom, have more light coming in from the top. So I'm just going to do some flicking upward. Some of you might find that flicking works more easily for you when you're flicking downward. So you can turn the tag around or the card or whatever you're coloring and go the other direction. Because for some people flicking is easier when you're going the other way. You're basically pressing the marker down when you start the stroke and then lifting it up as you get to the end. That's how you get that light feather. But don't worry if they're not feathering really well because we're going to feather from the other end as well once we get this base down. So I'm going to start in from the top this time. But I'm not going to do it solid like I did at the bottom because I want more light coming in from the top side. So I'm just basically making some strips that are either the trees or the area in between the trees really depends on whether you see the positive or the negative shapes. But they cross over into where the flicking comes in from the bottom. Now I'm going for a darker color. You might want to do a YG93 instead of a 95 that might be a little less intimidating. But I wanted more dark color at the bottom. So this YG95 is a much more intense color for whatever reason. It shouldn't be. It's still a YG9. But you know I don't understand why Copic makes the colors the way they do. But I'm going to go over them with the YG91 and extend it northward up to the area where there's going to be more light up above and blending out some of this at the bottom. It's going to dull out a little bit of that YG95 while keeping the the darkness of it because I want that to feel like there's light coming in from the top. And this is all helping me as well to keep the joy of the world in the light area by using this light color in between. And now I'm going to use the same YG91 and make some very light and very loose tree branches in the background. And there's not really a science to what I'm doing. I'm just making a bunch of different lines and crisscrossing from the bottom of the trees all the way up. We're going to add some white pen to it as well because you know it's me making tags and there has to be white pen on everything I do in the winter time. But I just wanted something to feel like there's a forest there and then color the critter. And for mine, I'm just going to use a brown to start off with and then do some shading with a dark warm gray because I want a little anchor for him at the bottom. And then I didn't like how gray it looked. So I went over it again with the brown to just do a little layer. And you can see now it's got a little transition from the top color to the bottom. Since his his tummy down below the book would be in shadow because he's holding the book in front of it that would be dark. For his face I wanted to create an area where it looks like his little snout comes out further than his the back of his face. So I just made a little little arc with that and then colored the rest in with a light cream color. You can skip that because it might be a little more work than it was worth for something like a tag. Because as I've talked about tags usually get tossed. So then I made my book brown. You could make yours red and have a little pop of color. I just thought it would be nice to have something very neutral on this one. And then I'm using my white pen to add little squiggly lines kind of to the trees themselves. And then I can also add to them some branches. And so depending on how much detail you want to put in them here I'm doing more the squigglies that gives the almost the texture of birch trees. And as I said you might do that in the dark areas because you can see the white pen. And that would mean your your dark area is the tree trunk or you can do it in the lighter areas so that the dark area is the area in between the tree trunks if that makes sense. But for the most part it's just a really soft forest in the background. Going to add little bits of snow and other branches with the white pen so nobody's going to really care all that much. It's just a tag. Okay. You could also make a card with this same technique because it's a really pretty one for something this simple. And I think this little guy sitting out in the forest singing is going to be a great tag. If you'd like to win this one or any of the tags I've been showing all week long then scroll through the last couple of videos. Make sure you go over to the blog and comment on both YouTube and the blog to have double chances to win and I will be announcing the winners next week. Alright, take care. I will see you again soon. Thanks for joining me for tag week for twenty twenty.