Hello Everyone and welcome back to another Create With Me Monday!!  Today’s Copic tutorial is all about Sunflowers!!  I’m going to show you how to colour this beautiful image, not just once…..but three times!  For today’s tutorial I’m using Flourishes’ beautiful Sunflowers set!

Start by stamping the sunflower in Memento Tuxedo Black ink onto blending card and lay down the base colour of your petals in Y21 from The Sunflower Collection.

Next flick some Y35 from the center of the flower outwards.  Follow the curve of the petals for a more realistic effect!

Next flick out some Y38, but not as far as the previous colour!

Lightly blend these colours by using the flicking action and finish all the petals.  Start on the stem/leaf by laying down a base of YG91 from The Evergreen Collection.

Next darken the shadow areas with YG93.

Deepen them again with YG95.

I’ve deepened the shadows again with a little YG99 and lightly blended the colours together.  Don’t over blend, the eye is always drawn to an image with lots of contrast!

Colour the center of your flower with a base of YR24 (from The Beehive Collection) – let it dry!  Then add dots of YR27 and E37 to give texture to the center.  Colour the ladybird with R24, R27 from The Poppy Collection and a touch of C7.

If you enjoyed colouring your sunflower this way, perhaps you’d like to try something a little different while still using the same colours as above??  For a watercolour look, stamp your image in Memento Desert Sand and once again lay down a base of Y21 on the petal.

Once again use Y35 for your shadow areas.

Add a little Y38 – you’ll notice that the darker colours look so much stronger when they don’t have to compete with black ink – in fact, you’ll need to use your darker colours to show where the ‘lines’ should be since they don’t show with a pale ink.

Continue to follow the colours as in the steps above and complete your image!

What about a different type of paper??  Stamp your sunflower onto White Tissue Paper with Memento Tuxedo Black and once again start colouring the petals with Y21 make sure you have a piece of scratch paper underneath, the black ink and Copic ink does go through!

Follow the steps as above.

It’s OK to colour your image darker because we are going to melt it into a candle!  Once you’ve completed colouring, trim it closely with scissors, place it onto your candle and hold it in place with some waxed paper and heat it with your heat gun and watch your coloured image melt into your candle!  You’ll be left with a beautiful, one of a kind present or perhaps a lovely piece of decor for your own home!

I hope you’ve enjoyed todays tutorial and that you’ll be inspired to try these tips and make your own creative art!

Colours used in today’s tutorial are…

Thanks for popping by and happy colouring!!

Kathy 

Hello Everyone and welcome to another Copic Tutorial on Create With Me Monday!!  Today I’m going to talk about that amazing Copic marker……..The Colorless Blender!!  In my opinion, EVERYONE should have a Colorless Blender AND a Blender Refill because the possibilities are endless and you never want your ’0′ (Blender) to run dry!

Today I’m using the Flourishes stamp set called Garden Picks and I thought I’d use those tiny blossoms as a basis for my Fade To White technique.  I’m sure many of you are familiar with the Tip to Tip or Palette technique where you add a dark colour to a light coloured marker and it changes from one colour to the other.  (You can find the Flourishes Tip-to-Tip Tutorial HERE!)  For the Fade to White Technique, instead of using a light coloured maker to pick up a darker colour, you use the Colorless Blender!

I’ve used a piece of acetate and scribbled a little BV02 and then used the Colorless Blender to pick up some colour.

Apply to your image.  The colour will be darker where you start and fade to white as the Colorless Blender doesn’t have any colour.  This is perfect for when you are colouring flowers like frangipanis that yellow or pink in the centres and white on the edges.

I’ve dotted the BV02 in the centres and you can see how the petals are lighter at the ends.  You can make the colours as light or dark as you like and continue to apply until you are happy with the finished result.

IMPORTANT – make sure you scribble off any excess colour on your blender!!  If you don’t, the colour will seep down into the reservoir and then your Blender will no longer be colourless!

The Colorless Blender is also fabulous when you want to lighten your base colour, or you are colouring a large area but want to make sure you don’t get any streaking!  In this case, I’ve ‘coloured’ or ‘primed’ the water area of the jar with the Colorless Blender.

I’ve then flicked in some B000 from each side of the jar.

I’ve then coloured over the middle of the jar again with the Colorless Blender, which will lighten the middle, push the blue more to the edges giving the effect of translucent water!

A little extra tip for you!  I wanted to close in the jar top around the flowers (this set has 3 mix and match flowers for the jar), so I’ve used the 0.1 Black Multiliner and drawn in the edge – no-one would ever know!! 

Now, this would probably be the most used applications for the Colorless Blender………..Fixing Mistakes!!  As you can see I’ve gone outside the lines with my Y21 marker, which doesn’t look so great.

Take your Colourless Blender and place it BEHIND the colour you want to correct.  This is because you are using the Blender to MOVE the colour, not erase it.  I’m a country girl, so I think of it like herding cattle inside a gate, the blender is the cattle dog and you use it to push the colour inside the line!    You can use either the brush end or the chisel end, it’s your preference.

Hey presto – the colour is back inside the petal!!  Now a word of warning – this doesn’t work with reds or very dark colours!  Those are stubborn and are more likely to move into the area that you’ve dampened with your Blender instead of the other direction making quite a mess!

You can also use your Blender to create pebbles under your jar – you can find that Flourishes Tutorial HERE!  Finish colouring your image and make your card!!

Copic Collections used for today’s card are……

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s tutorial!  Thanks for popping by and happy colouring!!

Kathy 

Hello Everyone and welcome to another Copic Create With Me Monday tutorial!!  Can you believe that Easter is less than 3 weeks away???  I certainly can’t – where is the year going??  Well, since it is nearly that time of year, what better time to colour the gorgeous egg image from Flourishes’ brand new Easter Wishes stamp set using the pretty light and bright colours from the Copic Collections!

I began by colouring the egg and sentiment (they mix and match) in Memento Tuxedo Black onto blending card and laid down a base colour of E50 (aptly named Egg Shell) from the Creamy Collection.

Next I’ve started adding some shading to the areas where there would be some shadows using E51.

Deepen that shading with E53

Blend by using the next lightest colours (blend E53 with E51 and E51 with E50).  I decided I wanted the highlight area to be a little lighter so I’ve used a little Colorless Blender to lighten the egg.  Alternatively, you may want to not colour those areas when you lay down your first colour.

How about a pretty blue bow??  Start by colouring with B00 from the Ice Blue Collection.

Add B02 to the areas where the shadow are.  Flourishes give you great clues as to where the shading should be!

Blend with B00 and then darken your shadows with B04.  (I’m not blending in between pictures so you can see more clearly where to lay the colour down.)

Blend your blues together (always using the next lightest colour).  For the leaves I’ve decided to go with bright Spring Greens using YG21 from the New Leaves Collection.

Add shading using YG23.

Deepen the shadows with YG25.

I like more contrast with my images, so I grabbed YG17 from the Green Grass Collection for more depth.  Remember to blend with next lightest colours.  For stronger shadows, don’t blend much to leave a stronger line.

For the flower, I went with the pretty pinks (my favs!) from the Candy Pink Collection.  Lay down a base colour of RV000.

Use RV52 to add shadows – particularly at the base of each petal.

Blend with RV000 and deepen those shadows with RV55.

Blend your pinks together and finish colouring your image – I’ve used the yellows from the Daffodil Collection.

Create your Easter Card!!!

Copic Collections used today are…..

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s tutorial!!

Happy Colouring!!

Kathy

Hello Everyone and welcome to another Create With Me Monday!  Here in the Southern Hemisphere it is still Summertime, however I know that many of you have been enduring a long winter and looking forward to Spring so I thought I would play with Flourishes’ Spring Is Sprung stamp set.  Instead of just colouring the adorable bunnies in this set, I’ve decided to add a little texture to give a little added interest!

I’ve begun by colouring the bunny in E40 from The Rich Browns Collection.

Next add some E42

Continue to deepen the shadows with E44.

Make the shadow areas deeper with E47.

Blend your colours to darken the bunny.  This technique works better with much darker colours, so don’t be afraid to make your bunny very dark.  Take your Copic Colorless Blender refill ink and a piece of toweling or cut up washcloth.

Dampen the toweling with blender solution.

Take the dampened cloth and touch it to the image and hold it there for a few seconds.  Repeat until you are happy with the finished result.

You’ll be left with bunnies that now have wonderful fuzzy fur!  You may find that the colour will be pushed outside the lines after applying the blender solution – this is normal, it’s because the colour is moving.  To correct this, simply take your Colorless Blender Marker and push the colour back inside the lines.  You’ll notice that I’ve ONLY coloured the parts that I wanted textured….if you colour the grass and flowers before adding the Colorless Blender Solution, then those parts will also be textured!

Finish colouring your image in your chosen colours.  Here I’ve used Y35, Y38, G40, G43, G46, YG93, V25, B32, B34, R00, R11, R12.

Take your image and create your card!!

Copic colours used in today’s tutorial are…..

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s tutorial, thanks for stopping by and happy colouring!

Kathy