Sunday, November 15, 2015

Color Your Own Folk Art Santa Trinket Boxes

Just for fun!

As with the others, click to enlarge, save to your computer, print on card stock, color (with markers or pencils only- glue won't stick to crayon), and cut out. Assemble according to the instructions, and enjoy.Glue sticks work best for making the entire flap stick down properly. Be sure to spread glue evenly over the entire flap. For personal use only.

If you plan to put small treats or trinkets in the boxes, you may need to glue or tape the bottom flaps in.

This one wasn't inspired by a specific wood carving.









Saturday, November 14, 2015

Color Your Own Half Moon Santa

Fourth verse, same as the first.

Click, save, print on card stock, color, enjoy, for personal use only!











Here are the final images for downloading and coloring.



Thursday, November 12, 2015

Color Your Own Folk Art Santa Tags and Gift Cards

I'm on a roll, I guess. As with the others: personal use only. Click, enlarge, save, print on card stock, color, cut, enjoy!


Again, one of my original wood carved Santas.

 Reduced to lines


Several sizes

 Cleaned up for embellishment

Placement notions

Colored with pencils


Final page for downloading

Enjoy!

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Color Your Own Folk Art Santa Bookmarks

The muse says: draw and color. So I draw and color.

And I share.

The inspiration- once again, one of my original carvings from the '90s


Reduced to outlines in an online graphic program


Clutter cleaned, hand-drawn outlines for embellishment


 First try- the middle T is blank because I really really did not like the drawing I did, so I erased it in Paint


Printed on card stock, and colored with colored pencils

Covered with clear tape and cut out



The final drawing- click to enlarge, save to your computer, print on card stock, and color.If you use markers or colored pencils, you can cover each with wide, clear packing tape (front and back) to keep the colors from smudging. I don't think tape will stick if you use crayons.

Enjoy!

Once again, for your personal use, only. No resales or commercial use please.

Monday, November 9, 2015

Color Your Own Folk Art Santa- a Journey

Unless you've been living under a rock, you have noticed that coloring books, in all themes and on all subjects, are available everywhere. I have several (for the Grands, but also for me): Day of the Dead, Enchanted Forest, Secret Garden, Game of Thrones, and I've ordered Lost Ocean. And Doctor Who.

I figured since coloring books are BIG right now, the stores would also be flooded with coloring Christmas cards.

I was wrong. I searched and searched and only found two sets, neither of which were what I was looking for.

So, I decided to design my own.

Here's how that went down (note: I am only posting the highlight versions, there were many in between each of the drawings posted):

The original picture- these are wooden Santas I carved in the 90's. They're my design, and they have inspired several other projects (including this needlepoint).



I used an online graphics manipulator to turn them into a line drawing so I could get the placement.

 Background erased and outlines redrawn

 More clutter erased


First try at hand-drawn embellishment

First try coloring with markers
 Image narrowed to fit a half-fold card format

 Border added, also digital stars

 Hand traced outlines, ready for more experimentation

 Digital fill patterns

 More digital fill patterns
Pencil embellishment on top of the digital fills


Colored with markers. I liked it a lot. But I decided that digital fills were wrong for Folk Art, so I went back to the literal drawing board

 As much as I like the precision of the digital fill, these embellishments are better for this design. I finally noticed a couple of perspective issues that crept in over time, and got them fixed.


Almost there.

BTW- each of these steps involved multiple printouts (and by *multiple*, I mean I probably printed out 45 different versions of the card). I used a LOT of ink over the weekend.

Time to try coloring again:

Crayons


Markers


Colored pencils

I could keep changing and tweaking, but really, the drawing is done. I am going to send this out, uncolored, as my Christmas card this year. But you all can download and color the page if you like. Please, for your own use only, no resales or commercial use.


Click on the image to enlarge. Save to your computer and then print.

Enjoy!