Color My World - Digitally!

Welcome to the first VC Rocks blog hop of the 2011 Season - Color My World!

If you were not "hopping" and just popped in to see me, why not follow along the hop trail and see what great things my fellow VC Rockers prepared? 

Home base is HERE. 

To go backward click HERE.

To go forward click HERE. 

To see how to watercolor in My Design Studio (MDS) scroll down.

WHAT?

Watercolor Digitally?

You betcha!

I about panicked when I found out our blog hop theme was "Color My World" since coloring is not my strong suit - but then, I remembered what I learned from Leah Fedynak on mydigitalstudio.net

This technique involves NO water. I'm going to show you how to color simple things like the center of the flower from Sweet Details (digi download) in a soft watercolor style.

First, I created the basic layout using Framed With Love, a photo replicated 3 times but cropped each time so it looks like I cut it apart, and a daisy from Sweet Details.

so it would look like THIS:

Then I added an oval (see the gray blob in the middle of the screen below?)

Then in the design center (right side) I added a drop shadow  - increasing the opacity to 100% and the blur to "full" - and I changed the color of the shadow from black to Rose Red (see photo below)

This next part is gonna seem a little weird but hang with me. 

While you have your oval selected, in your Design Center click on "paper fill" and fill the oval with ANY paper (I used a black stripe) - see it in the middle of the photo below?

Now click (or double click?)  on the 'paper filled oval' and you will get a screen where you can pull the paper down OFF the oval - see photo below:

So now, you have a blurry edge Rose Red oval in the center of your page. 

I'm betting you know what happens next....

I moved the oval over the flower center and rotated it slightly to match.

You can see that I zoomed in so I could place it correctly.

Zoom is at the bottom of your Design Center.

You may (or may not) want to adjust opacity to get the look you want .

It took many photos for me to teach you - but in reality it just takes SECONDS to do this.  If there is a punch you can use (or stretch and distort) to fill the area of a stamp you'd like to color, you can color it faster than you can walk to the sink and fill an aqua painter with water.  And with this method you can change your mind and switch colors as many times as you'd like without wasting supplies!

Want to know another cool MDS color trick?

You are not limited to SU colors

What if I wanted my background to be Rose Red?

When I did that - the center of my flower doesn't look the way I want.

But I still want ROSE RED as my flower center. 

Stomp foot decisively!

(Stomping will not help)

But, I have a solution.

Click on your oval and click drop shadow again - and click to change the color

Instead of picking one of the SU colors shown so nicely in little boxes -  click on the tab above the colors that says HSB

Then you can move your cursor to pick up a lighter or darker color - slightly off from Rose Red.

Below, you can see where I chose a lighter shade for the Daisy Center.

This HSB color choosing is also how you can have tone on tone stamping.

There is no Versamark in MDS.

You can also "color match" in MDS - there is a little dropper where you can exactly match another color in your photo or project but I'm not getting into that today.

I hope you learned a trick or two about MDS

Have fun with digital coloring!

One more time: 

VC Rocks Blog Hop Home is HERE

To go backward to Maddebug Designs, click HERE

To move on to see what Kelly Mayou, The Weekend Stamper, has for you, click HERE

VC Rocks has all kinds of classes, swaps, challenges and fun.  We are accepting new members this month ONLY.  I learn so much from the Rockers.  Come give us a try (if you can stand our chit chat!)  Read the side bar on the Blog Hop Home page and you'll learn a little more about VC Rocks!