 Hi there, I'm Sandi Olnok, artist and paper crafter here on YouTube, and I'm gonna bring you a funny card today I'm calling it a unicorn surprise party. It's a birthday card using some stamps from Gertis Steiner It's got a couple little standing and then one walking unicorn And I thought the three standing ones kind of went together for a scene But what would the walking one be doing and then there was the surprise sentiment What I did was stamp a bunch of the images and just put sticky notes down in a couple places And then look to see what kind of a scene I could create out of this Because I was thinking all of these little guys could be hiding ready to jump out and surprise the walking unicorn So they're all hiding in this section back here, and I'm gonna throw a sofa in here I've started off just using a light marker So you could do it with a pencil, but marker is something that'll blend back in once you do all your coloring So I'm making a window on one side, and I thought a night scene would be kind of fun So I'm just kind of sketching in where a moon might be in the window Maybe there's a picture hanging on the wall back here Just to give myself a general outline of what I'm gonna do So I have sort of an idea and then the moonlight when it pours in is going to come Kind of down at an angle like where I've sketched it in so I'm gonna have some really strong light and all of these little Unicorns are gonna be hiding in the background in this grayed-out area, and then I thought well What if I did the whole thing in grays so yeah, it's a unicorn card with grays They're all the T markers. They're the toners So you'll be able to see the difference between them. They are just like the other markers you know the number as it gets bigger the color gets darker and Then the toners and the neutrals are not ones that I necessarily recommend that you need But I had the most of these inked up So I was gonna use a whole set of something and try to do them all together. I thought then I'll use these And I started by just knocking back the color on everything that's in shadow Just to give myself a baseline to work from because I'm gonna have really strong contrast here for some people They'll be freaking out already. Please sit down if you have not already if it's upsetting to you Trying to figure out, you know where that moonlight is gonna fall. What's gonna be in highlight? What's gonna be in shadow and Just get it sort of Penciled in except it's marked in so I have a Just some basic shapes and for me when I do a lot of scenes and contrast and stuff It's all about what the shapes are and I'm trying to look for what that shape is that that window is gonna cast as it goes across the scene So now I'm gonna start throwing in some colors To start establishing the scene I'm gonna start with some darks to figure out where the very darkest will be because that's gonna Define a lot of these shapes and then I'm gonna blend from this really dark I think it's a number nine there go to a seven then to a five Just kind of keep skipping down until I get lighter when you're talking about deep shadows the ones that are right under that sofa and right Against that wall be the deepest and then the light disperses a little bit in the room so Down at the very bottom of the card It's gonna be a little bit lighter just because the light from the window will disperse a little bit across there And I'm kind of scribbling a little bit and I'm gonna fix that later But I wanted to sort of at least see how dark it needs to be before I fix it Because going back and over and over and over and over again gets a little irritating after a while So I'm just gonna try to get a good bit of color down here. So then I can determine later Exactly how much I'm going to need So now I'm gonna start putting in some of the other items in here some pillows on this sofa there's gonna be a kind of couple stacks of pillows with that one gift box on it and Just creating Basically some shapes and I'm looking for with this darker pen. I'm trying to Delineate their shapes a little bit better and then I'll go back in with the lighter marker and just add the rest of the sofa and Some more pillows up on top figure out exactly how high they're gonna go as They get up toward my hiding unicorns I hope this is not disappointing that I'm doing a unicorn guard with not with no color on it because unicorn cards are usually Bright and rainbow colored and this one will not be because little the little unicorn that's walking in I'm picturing him just coming home from a long hard day of unicorn work Whatever it is sprinkling pixie dust or whatever that the unicorns do all day. He's coming from a long hard day at work It's his birthday. He's not really happy about it being his birthday, but he's trying to be happy You can see he's got a little bit of a smile on his face the way his little eyes drawn He's just coming home. It's late at night. He's been he's had a long hard day And his friends are all there and they're gonna make his day in just a few moments and We get to watch just at this moment and he as he's coming into his dark house Now if you actually walk around your house in the dark You'll notice that there are very few colors. You may see a little bit of color as light Kind of trickles down onto something so the the carpet that he's standing on and and The the owner the birthday boy birthday unicorn Those probably would have a little bit of color in them, but I'm not going to add that in this I'm just gonna let it all be black and white on the card And but the rest of it if you notice when you're walking around at night is you don't see much color You may see very little, but you really don't see much so Black and white is a really good way to Indicate that now this little guy back here needs to keep getting darker and What I'm doing is taking I think this is a number three marker I'm just gonna keep getting darker and darker until I figure out exactly how far I want to go with any of these and For some folks this is already too far, but I'm trying to set that contrast That's why I started with the part underneath of the sofa because I wanted to make sure that that was good and dark and Set the tone for everything else because it's gonna give me a good idea how How much I can do how far I can go with the other grays? And what's gonna make them look like they're they all Sink into that background because they're all hiding and we want them not to be seen really well So I'm adding a little bit of reflected light onto some of them like the second and third one though The one on the far left the one in the middle may have a little bit of light that might be bouncing around the room and landing on them The little guy right behind the curtain may not have so much because he's got that curtain maybe shielding him so Then I decided I was gonna do something on the wall to make it look like maybe there's wallpaper just a little more interesting because long Our large areas that are just blank can often feel Really boring and on a floor you can get away with really boring on a wall You somewhat can but if you can take away one of those and make one more interesting By breaking up the shapes or adding some texture or something that it often will help So I decided I would add just a little bit of Texture to it and then the picture Doing kind of a black-and-white rainbow picture on their wall Because you know they would have a picture of unicorn rainbow if they were unicorns That's just what they would have pictures of wouldn't be I would think So now add a little bit of color onto the curtain that's hanging down add a little bit of texture and lines and stuff in that and Then I'm gonna start working on the window. Sorry. This is all cut off a little bit here in the top corner But I'm gonna fill in my sky with the dark gray And I'm leaving a little bit of white on that curtain the curtain edge is probably gonna be one of the brightest things It's closest to the light. It's closest to that window that moon coming in and Again, there's probably easier things you could do you could like actually add the The crossbars of the window with a white pen and make it easier But if you can do it with COVID marker, it tends to just fit better not look like it's been an add-on And now the final thing is the little birthday unicorn or birthday boy or girl or whatever it is And I'm adding some shadows to indicate that the light is casting onto the tops of the ears onto the back onto the tail and There's gonna be just a little bit of white on the tip of the nose And I'm gonna try to add a little bit of shading there to give him some dimension while also still having Some highlight up there on the the top side up there and increase the shadow Color underneath them again. It's cut off just slightly And then the window the the line crossbars on the window would also be there And here I'm going to go over one more time on my floor just to even it out a little bit better tidy it up somewhat and And there is my finished card My black and white unicorn card who to thunk that Sandy would do a black and white unicorn card But unicorns have surprise parties too, and I'm sure they've had them at night before So that's what it's going to be on the inside of the card I've added a little unicorn holding a cupcake so that the surprise sentiment is on the inside rather than the outside and That is the end of my card I hope you've enjoyed this video if you did click the like button you can subscribe by clicking on my face You can watch some other videos here, or there's also some classes That you're welcome to take over at my new classes site And there's a link there on the screen as well as in the doobly-doo down below, and I'll see you guys later. Bye. Bye