Combine colour and ink for this illustrated collection that is great for learning new drawing skills

What you need...

• uni-PIN Pens: mixed 8-piece pack; 0.1, 0.5, 0.8
  Signo pens: white, gold
  Watercolour paints
  Fine paintbrush
  Card blanks, A6

instructions

1. ROCKING ROBIN - 1 Trace and transfer a robin motif onto an A6 card blank. Apply washes of red, brown and light grey watercolour paint over the traced design, then add intense dark red dots. Use the brush to make simple loose holly leaf shapes with green watercolour washes around the dots. Leave to dry and weigh the card down, so that the paper doesn’t buckle.
   
   2 Use the light and dark grey 0.1 pens to create fine textural lines on the bird’s white areas. Stipple dots around the bird’s tummy (where it meets the branch) and crosshatch the underside of the tail. Apply 0.03 and 0.1 black pens to the same areas to increase the intensity of shading.
   
   3 Apply fine lines in 0.1 Sepia uni-PIN pen around the robin’s face and tail. Make the same line along the tree branch. Use the 0.1 and 0.5 Sepia pens to stipple along the bird’s wing. Overlay these marks with 0.1 and 0.2 black pen to create further tone and texture.
   
   4 Use the 0.5 black pen to colour in the bird’s eye, emphasising the shape by making lines around it with the 0.03 pen. Outline the holly berry shapes with the 0.5 black pen, then use 0.1 black pen to do the same on the holly leaves.

2. NOEL GARLAND - 1 Using a HB pencil, draw a rough circle in the top right-hand corner of the card, then add loose lines radiating from it. Draw straight branches coming out from these
   lines as shown. Go over this initial pencil design with a 0.5 sepia pen, adding more branches if needed.
   
   2 Make very simple leaf shapes around the branches with green watercolour, then apply dots of red watercolour. Once dry, outline the berries and leaves with the 0.1 black pen.
   
   3 Write out your text in pencil. Go over the fine areas with the 0.1 black pen and the larger areas with the 0.5 pen.

3. ORNATE TREE - 1 For the tree shape, make three stacking tiers of crosshatched watercolour strokes, with a triangle shape at the top and two large fringe shapes at the bottom. Use the 0.5 sepia pen to create the trunk and red watercolour to draw in the pot.
   
   2 Create tone and texture by applying very light pen strokes over the green tree shape, using the 0.1 light and dark grey pens. Crosshatch and make circular strokes over the tree pot using a 0.5 black pen.
   
   3 Sketch the skeleton of your chosen lettering in pencil, adding finials and spurs to create an extra flourish. Soften the lower-case letters with curved lines and rounded edges. Create depth by drawing curved lines inside the bowl of the text and outside the stem.
   
   4 Colour in the text with a brush uni-PIN, using the very tip of the brush for the fine areas, and holding the pen at an angle for the fuller parts. Add white highlights and gold dots using SIGNO pens.