Pick a Colour Palette Inspiration and PanPastel Clouds Tutorial

Good morning, how's your weekend going? We're having a very rainy weekend here, perfect crafting weather! Today's card is my project for our 'Pick a Colour Palette' challenge inspiration post at PanPastel UK. You've still got a week to enter to be in with a chance to win some gorgeous goodies from Premium Craft Brands so hop on over to the Challenge blog for all the details
Here's my card made using the same basic colour palette as last week but this time I've gone for a seaside theme.

 I've had quite a few requests for a tutorial on creating clouds with PanPastels so here's a step by step tut showing how I create clouds. Its a really easy technique and you can get different effects by using different colours too!

I always stamp my images first, for this scene I've used stamps from Crafty Individuals and Chocolate Baroque. You don't need to mask your images as you can remove PanPastels with a pencil eraser but if you've already made masks you may as well use them. 

You'll also notice that I've used kraft card for this project, you don't have to use kraft, white card will do just as well but if I'm creating a sea scene I like to work on kraft as its perfect for the beach.

1. First step is to start laying down some colour in the sky area,  I usually begin with a tint, in this case I'm using turquoise tint but you can always use white with a touch of colour too, ultramarine blue also works perfectly for this technique. 

2. Build the colour up using different shades of your chosen sky colour, I'm using turquoise  plus the tint and the shade

3. Once you've created your sky then take a pencil eraser (as you can see mine is very old and grubby but it does the trick lol) and begin to rub out the PanPastel where you want your clouds to be. Use circular movements and don't worry about being too precise as clouds are very random in shape. 

4. Keep going until you've created your cloud shapes

5. Take a sofft sponge and white PanPastel and begin to apply the colour to your clouds in a dabbing motion

6. Continue applying the white PanPastel until you've covered all your 'clouds', again don't worry about being too precise, its good to have some variation in the depth of colour

7. Now to add a bit more depth to the clouds, I usually use Paynes Grey and Neutral grey, apply the colour with a sofft knife and cover using a flicking motion, creating little curves of colour

8. Keep adding greys to the clouds, don't worry if it looks a bit untidy as we'll blend it in the next stage

9 Blend the greys by dabbing on more white PanPastel

10 If necessary add more grey here and there, I like to add more to the underside of the clouds

11. Keep adding colour until you're happy with your clouds, you can get some really good effects using dark colours too - add some pink and purple to black and grey clouds to create a really stormy sky

Here's a close up of the little scene:

I've coloured the lady image with Graph'It markers and the rest of the scene with PanPastels, adding some white highlights with a Graph'It Shake pen. The shells were made with stamps from Chocolate Baroque, stamped onto white and kraft card with versamark and then coloured with Raw Umber and Burnt sienna PanPastels. The bunting was made from scraps of paper and attached with twine. I've layered the scene up over kraft and turquoise card, distressed with a craft knife and Raw Umber PanPastel

I'm entering this project in the following challenges:

Bunny Zoe's: distress

Its all about the vintage: anything goes

Clear it out: your style, your stash 

(lots of my favourite products on here but PanPastels are my absolute favourite!)

Kitty Bee Designs: Scraps

Loves Rubber Stamps: anything goes

Sweet Pea Stampers: use kraft

I hope you're inspired to have a go at this technique, if you do please leave me a link to your project as I'd love to visit!

Claire xx