Bus Books

School has recently started here in Western Australia and as we moved house last year my kids are going to a new school this year. To get to their new school they are traveling on the school bus for the first time. To make it all special for them I made them these "bus books" (with special bags to keep them safe/clean) that they can write and draw in during the trip. (Well it's really a decorated front of a bought spiral bound notepad.) They are enjoying the bus trips and are excited to look out the window as they go along but they both also love their books and I enjoy seeing what the write/draw :-)

Here are the books:

The image is Rowan Fairy by Whimsy Stamps. It is printed on X-Press It blending card and  coloured with Copic markers.

Copic colours used:

Clouds: C00, C1, C2, C3, BG90, W1

Sky: BG000, BG0000, BG01

Skin: E000, E00, E21, E11, E04, R20

Clothes: V01, V04, V06, V09 + E41, C1 and 0

Hair: YR21, E21, E25, E29

Berries: YR04, YR07, YR18, R17

Branch: E21, E23, E25

Leaves: YG21, YG23, FYG2

Wings: Y06, Y18, YR15

Cast shadow: C3

I've then added some Stickles for sparkle and inked the edge with Distress Ink.

This one is Bird Swing by Whimsy Stamps. It is again printed on X-Press It blending card and coloured with Copics. 

I did the background first (just in case I messed it up)! I kind of (you don't need to be exact) blended YG0000, YG00, YG01, Y11, Y06, YG11, YG23, YG17, YG67 randomly over the background (but I concentrated the lighter colours in the top left) then used my colourless blender marker to soften some edges. I then dripped colouress blender various ink (straight from the various ink bottle) over the background randomly to create the large circles. You need to be a little careful where you drip it as you don't want the colour spreading too far into your image. However, I did get green all over my birds, but I let it dry and then used the colourless blender marker to push the colour back out to the background. I like this background as it kind of gives a bokeh-like background - like you were looking at the birds with a shrub blurred in the background :-)

Copic colours used:

Background: YG0000, YG00, YG01, Y11, Y06, YG11, YG23, YG17, YG67, 0 and 0 various ink

Flowers: RV21, RV23, RV25, RV29

Birds: B00, B21, B23, B26, B28 + Y06 and YR15

Wood: E70, E74, E77, E79

Leaves: G24 and G28

Once again I added some Stickles for sparkle and inked the edge with Distress Ink.

Thanks for looking!