 Well, hello there! It's Sandy All-Knock, artist and paper crafter with, I think, my favorite card from Holiday Scene Week today, these cute little snow people taking a walk. The little snow people from Avery Elle are adorable. All these little snowmen just having fun in the winter in the stamp set are going to be a fun set to color more with during the season. I got out my Copic Markers and some Neenah Desert Storm cardstock. I haven't colored on Neenah Desert Storm in a while, so I thought that would be fun to do, especially since it had all of this snow and I wanted to play with a white pencil. But one of the cool things about a white pencil is it's going to take all of this dark color that I'm putting down and make it disappear, but I'm going to get more dimension if I allow some dark color to be here. So I'm using some blues. You can see how those blues don't end up being blues. They look more like grays, so if you are going to be coloring on this paper, print out whatever color chart you use, like your Hexchart, print it out on this paper and test out what colors are going to look like because everything looks completely different on here than it would on other papers. But I did know that I was going to use pencil in this, and so I wanted to have enough dark color down there, and I knew where that color was going to end up because I do have a Hexchart printed out on the paper, so I'm really happy with the dry back on those gray areas. I decided to keep the color pallets on this whole card really simple. So I gave the girl snowman the snow girl, snow woman, I guess you'd call her. I gave her a red and black scar, so it would match her little bow, meaning her BEAU, her boyfriend, and adding just red and black elements to them, and then I want the background to be almost full on neutral, so the only pops of color are going to be on my little snow people. So coloring their little stick arms. I did have to do a little masking, but just very, very minimal. I stamped the girl first and then the boy and masked out a little bit of the girl so that his hat could be tucked right in behind where her earmuffs are. I had a little bit of shading there underneath of some of the red areas so that we have some contrast and dimension. The reality of my work when people say that my stuff looks real, even though it's cartoon stuff, I realize that, but the thing that makes it is that I use a lot of contrast and the more contrast you can create on your cards and in your drawings and in whatever artwork you're making, the better because that's what separates one image from another, the more contrast you see so things don't look as flat. So I decided I wanted to have like a brick wall behind them so that they're going to be walking through a gate and then trees behind it. And if you've taken the autumn scenes class, you will recognize what I'm doing here, but with different colors. I decided to use some really light brown colors on this Nita Desert storm paper so I get almost a tone on tone feel for the trees themselves. And I'm just making rows of trees on either side of the pathway that they're walking along so that I can create that sense of distance. The trees are going to get smaller and closer together as you get further toward the back and they'll be bigger as they come toward the front. I'm not super worried about where they end down there at the bottom of each one of the trees because that's all going to be snow in there. And I just need enough of a feel for this so that it feels like trees. You can tell like they, I didn't sit here and carefully draw trees and branches. I just drew some blobs in there and I'll do a little bit of dulling them back now with a toner marker and that's going to just knock the color back so it's not as bright. It doesn't scream as much and it allows me to make a few linear marks in some of the foreground trees so I can create a little bit of texture if it shows up at all by the time the card's done. It's hard to tell sometimes when you're working on this paper because it takes time for the acrylic marker to dry out and disappear. So add a little bit of that in the background and then start adding a little bit more dimension on the rocks in the rock wall. Just a little another layer of color underneath the bottom of each of the rocks and then go in with the white pencil. The white pencil is magic because it shows up against that brown paper. The brown paper is what's giving us some of the contrast but you can see on the snow people the colors that I get from having the white pencil over top of that blue color that I used is different from what I'm going to get putting the white pencil over the brown paper and that's going to give some separation with the images because then they're going to have a little bit of that bluish gray in them whereas the snow on the ground does not and while they're both made of snow and they could have the same colors in them I want the images to be the thing that pops the stamps in the center. The rest of it is supporting characters so if you try to make a card like this and put this kind of beautiful background in don't worry about trying to make it look absolutely perfect. One of the other things I'm going to add is a lot of snow and if you're going to add a lot of snow to something nobody's going to notice all the stuff in behind it. They're going to get the general feel of it and that's really what you want to pay attention to. So I went over and added a little bit more snow to my little girl and you saw her kind of pop forward because she's now got brighter white and here's where I'm adding white now to the pathway that's behind them and I'm allowing some of the shadows in between so it's not solid white across the path letting those shadows appear. I'm putting white along either side or on like the edge of the trees as if the snow has blown and stuck just to the edge. It's just giving a little definition to that forest back there not a whole lot but just a little and then I'll add a lot more snow color then to the foreground and a little bit more on my snow people but I want now that whole bottom section to start to feel like it's supporting them like there's these big chunks of snow this big really dark I say dark I'm pressing harder with my pencil so it's getting dark white which is actually brighter so that's the opposite of dark I guess but yeah thicker pencil thicker layer pencil down there at the bottom and once I finished that there is more white that can be added you might not think so but getting nice dimension in here but I wanted some real pops of white white so I took a gel pen and went along the tops of each of the areas to create a real strong white on the very very tips because sometimes the white pencil just doesn't give you that really sharp contrast but the white gel pen totally will and here I can put a little bit of snow on the little stick arms of each one of my snow people which gives them just that much more little pop of difference put a little bit of that white pop right on the snow that they're standing in front of or that snow that's standing in front of them actually I brought the snow up above the bottoms of those little snow people so that it looked like they were sinking in rather than floating on top and then adding some kind of snow and icicles onto the rock wall just a little bit and that's sometimes easier and more carefully done with a gel pen than with the pencil because the pencil doesn't get as bright as the gel pen can and I do use the Uniball Signo gel pen you probably know that if you watch many of my videos some people don't have luck with this just try out a bunch of different gel pens I like this one myself I go through lots of them because I do so much snow work when it comes to making cards during the Christmas season because I love to make it snow when you cover something with snow like this nobody's really looking at the trees in the background they're just delighted with the picture itself so don't don't put yourself through contortions to make that beautiful just add snow to it and it'll be wonderful so here's the rest of the cards for the rest of holiday scene week if you've missed them then scroll back a few videos and catch up and stay tuned more still coming tomorrow there are three videos in one day tomorrow prepare for the onslaught of snow and I will see you then take care bye bye