Masculine Monochromatic Design with Beautiful Details

Hello friends! I am back with a new project for the Altenew Educator’s Certification Program featuring some of the techniques I learned in the Beautiful Details course. I was very much drawn to the instructor, Marika Rahtu’s black and white project the she first presented on day one, so I used a Monochromatic Design to create a Masculine card. I am always fascinated with artists that are able to obtain such beautiful gradients using one color family that are pleasing to the eye, but I have been a little scared to try it myself.

After deciding on a monochromatic theme for my card, I decided to explore a new medium for me, graphite pencils. Before this project I had no idea that there were so many different kinds out there, except for those that I write with daily. (I’m not joking). I basically understood that applying multiple layers would saturate the area and give me different tones, and I assumed that I sharp pencil would give me fine details, and less sharp broader coverage. And that is all I knew…

Let’s think about graphite for a second, it is naturally a shiny element so when applying it to your artwork you need to take that into consideration. The harder the pressure the more shine. But then there is more. We have softer graphite and harder graphite pencils. They range from 9H to 9B. Your typical writing pencil found in US schools is a No2 pencil or equivalent to an HB which is dead center on the scale. H stands for Hard and B for Black. A 4H pencil is harder than 2H, but a 4B pencil is softer than 2H.

Harder pencils produce lighter marks, and soft darker marks. If you are using a paper with a lot of tooth you will need a softer pencil to fill it, whereas a smooth paper such as the cardstock I used requires a hard pencil because there isn’t much tooth. I explain more in my video, and I encourage you to take the journey with me.

To create my card, I started by die cutting the Watercolor Stripes Background Die on white cardstock and adhering it to a light gray panel to create depth and the base for my monochromatic design. Next I stamped the Freeform Greenery with black ink and colored them with various graphite pencils. Altenew has coordinating dies for this set, but I don’t have them so I fussy cut them using my Scan n Cut before arranging them onto my panel. In addition I stamped and heat embossed the sentiment from the Eucalyptus Jar set and die cut around it. To embellish the card, I splattered some silver spray and added a few silver baubles. I love this card, and think the monochromatic scheme was perfect for a masculine card, paired with geometric shapes, stripes, and greenery. Changing the sentiment would make it perfect for a masculine wedding card too…. ooh I wish I had thought of that first!

If you are interested in taking the Beautiful Details from Altenew you can find it Here! I took the class as part of the Altenew Educator’s Certification Program.

Just a small disclaimer! All items used in all of my projects are (or have been) purchased with my own funds, but this does not include design team items that I have received or otherwise stated.