Just Keep Swimming - A Black And White Tutorial by Sue

Good afternoon and happy Tuesday.  I'm really happy to be sharing my piece with you today - it's one of those that's turned out pretty much as I had it in my head.  Obviously I'm not showing you the practice pieces that ended up in the bin - or am I....

At the moment I'm going through a bit of a black and white phase. It's hot on the heels of the kraft card phase, and C&S is still dead to me.

I recently went on a doodling course (oh yes I did) because I seriously went into panic mode whenever I had to doodle. This isn't what I learned on the course, but if I hadn't taken it, I could never have made this (and what a loss that would be ;-) )

So we start with some black card and a white pen I've used a Signo Uni Ball this time, but I also love my white Posca pen. I've also used a circle die to draw around.

I've drawn around the inside and outside edge with the white pen. I've used the magnets from my stamping platform to hold the die in place. 

 Then I've used a ruler to draw triangles to connect the inside to the outside ring. Make sure to keep wiping the ruler clean as the paint from the pen could drag. I've just drawn horizontal lines in my triangles, and vertical lines on my wave shapes. Yes it does make your eyes go funny! I've not used a ruler for this bit 'cos life's too short and this is meant to be fun, not a geometry class!

OK that's enough fun,  I've used a ruler again for this bit, just filling in the corners.

And then more triangles. I had to stop myself now 'cos you could honestly just go on forever and I hadn't stamped anything yet - but I did know what was going in my circle.

 So in keeping with the theme, I've stamped my black fishes on white card...

and my white fishes on black card. I did say that I would be showing my binned piece. This did NOT come out like it was in my head - even my head isn't this chaotic! I know that fish is upside down, but I promise that no fishes were harmed in the making of this piece - this is Charlie the stunt fish and it's taken him years to learn how to swim like this!

Time for my favourite part , the cutting out - ugh. Now the great thing about Melina designing stamps is that she is also a crafter and she knows that we don't all like fussy cutting. The result is she designs her stamps to be easy to cut out. So now it's just a case of cutting and sticking and adding a bit o' bling.

 Can you see Charlie, he's the right way up now - he knows when there's a camera pointed at him!

I hope you like my black and white piece, and if you're scared of doodling too, just grab a white pen and give it a go.

Have a wonderful day, and thanks very much for looking.

Stamps used

Fish, Swim , Love

Fish Diet

Something Fishy