February 2006 Stampin' Highlight from Meg:
Spotlighting
Spotlighting is a special technique that can save you time plus add an extra design element to your stamping projects. Rather than coloring an entire element on your card, spotlighting is when you select a small part of the image and color only that selection.
Spotlighting can be acheived in several ways.
| Traditional Spotlighting: This method is the most well-known. An image is stamped once on the card and once on a piece of scrap cardstock. The scrap cardstock image is colored, and then the 1-1/4" Circle or Square Punch is used to punch out from the colored image. The 1-3/8" Circle or Square Punch is used to punch out a mat, often from black cardstock. These two circles (or squares) are then layered over the black image on the card. The resulting spotlight highlights the beautiful colors in the image. This method is especially effective for images with vibrant or detailed colors, such as butterflies or flowers. |  |
| Color Block Spotlighting: In this type of spotlighting, an image is also stamped in black, but instead of punching out an area to color, blocks of color are stamped on top to highlight different elements of the black image. For example, one might stamp a flower and highlight the center with one color, the petals with another color, and the stem with a third color. In the sample, these colors are repeated in the mat layers to create a very successful design. |  |
| Color on Color Spotlighting: Here an image is stamped on the background of the card using the same color ink as the background cardstock. Then one element of the image is stamped in another color on neutral cardstock and layered with a mat of the 2nd color cardstock. Visually, this brings the spotlighted part of the image into the foreground. |  |
| Image Block Spotlighting: With Image Block Spotlighting, several images are selected and stamped and colored on individual pieces of cardstock. Mats are added to the colored images. By using stamps that are slightly bigger than the piece of cardstock, an effective spotlight is created. On the sample, 4 images are spotlighted together. Note how the colors are alternated. One image is colored in Not Quite Navy and matted in Perfect Plum, while another image is colored in Perfect Plum and Not Quite Navy. This use of color helps to draw the separate images together. |  |
Happy Stamping! --Meg
