Hi Everyone,

I am still in my "colouring-in phase" and am thoroughly enjoying Monique Day-Wilde's new Colouring-In books.

I love to use all kinds of different art mediums in my colouring-in books, it is a great way to explore and experiment different products.  I find Dede Willingham a great inspiration for using colouring-in books in a whole new way.  

Today's project is from Country Daydreams by Monique Day-Wilde.

I used a wash of Dina Wakley Heavy-body Acrylic Paint (Night) to cover the background. Mixing it with water will thin out the paint so that the stars and other details are still visible, this will also create a uneven mottled effect.

I used a Derwent Waterbrush to pick up colours from Gelato sticks to add a light watercolour wash to the images.  You can use any watercolour paint or acrylic wash for this step.

I coloured in my images with Derwent Coloursoft pencils.  I always use the same technique to colour all my images - from the shadows to the highlights.  Monique already added shading to her images, so this takes the guessing out of where the light source is coming from.   With each lighter shade I add more colour towards the highlight and then blend all the colours with white (you can also use a colourless blender).  I have done a couple of courses from Kit and Clowder - a great resource for colouring in workshops 

Add the background details with a white Posca Paint Markers, this pens are filled with acrylic paint and writes easily over most surfaces.

Colour in the white stars with yellow and add a halo around each star.

Add extra details and a border with Posca Paint Markers.

I just love Monique Day-Wilde's new Colouring-In books - Town Daydreams and Country Daydreams.  The images are beautifully drawn with enough open spaces to add your own doodles.  
I used Koh-i-Noor Polycolor pencils (oil based) to colour this page from Town Daydreams.

Instructions:

Use colours 18 Light Blue, 52 Azure Blue & 15 Ice Blue  to colour each block.  Start with 18 (dark blue) in the corners and blend with lighter blues (52 & 15) to a white highlight.  I also used white to blend the colours.

Use 34 Blue Grey to add shading around each house - this will create depth.  It will bring the houses to the foreground.

Add 24 Pea Green over the background and blend out towards the highlight that will now change to a Turquoise colour.

Use the shading that Monique has already added to the houses to add colour from the darkerst to the lightest. (64 Burnt Ochre, 29 Light Ochre & 41 Banana Yellow).  Most of the times I use three colours - dark, medium and light and blend together with the lightest colour or sometimes white.

Now colour in the roofs (47 Scarlet Red, 30 Red Brown & 9 Apricot Orange) and the rest of the features (32 Natural Sienna, 65 Medium Terracotta &30 Red Brown).  The windows was done with 39 Silver and blended with 1 White.

I used Posca Paint pens PC1-MR in white and black to add the border around the page and other details & doodles.