Glossy Cardstock, part 1

So far in this blog I have mostly worked on absorbent cardstock. Why? Because in my opinion it has the most options and gives you the most flexibility in coloring. Is absorbent cardstock the BEST? No. Each paper type has its own weaknesses and each colors vary differently.

Today I want to start talking about another kind of cardstock and all the fun things you can do with it. This is not to say that it's better or worse than other cardstocks, rather there are diferent ways of using it and you will ge t very different results than you would on other papers.

Glossy Cardstock Intro
Before we get into techniques, here are some things to keep in mind about Glossy paper (this is not vellum! I already talked about working on vellum and it's different).

1. Glossy paper is coated so ink has nowhere to go. You can't pile up layers of color and expect them to smoothly blend like on other paper types.

2. Glossy is coated so colors don't soak through. No checking how well you've done on the backside, sorry.

3. It picks up less ink to color evenly. See the example. Less ink means lighter colors, less ink also means your marker lasts longer without needing to be refilled.

4. Test your outline ink well. You might not be able to use a Multiliner to fix lines, or your stamping inks might need to dry longer. Heat set it, let it wait for a while before coloring, try lots of different papers as well. Some papers will work better than others.

5. The colorless blender will not work the same on glossy as it will on other papers. Any blending will be very different.

6. Less is more when it comes to coloring. Ink will pool up and blob or streak very differently than on other paper.

7. Glossy paper is fun to do ink effects on.

Ponder these first few points for a while, then I'll talk about how to get good results on glossy. For my comparison today I used the stamp Dr. Pea-Nut from Our Craft Lounge. I colored him first on glossy paper, the second time I colored him on some regular absorbent paper. Notice how very different each color looks between the two images and how layering the same color shows up so much more on the glossy than it does on the other paper. Stamped with Memento Tuxedo black ink (let it dry well on glossy).