Coloring Hair & Exciting News

What a great weekend! I had a chance to visit a couple of fabulous stores in the Phoenix area, meet the new Spellbinders Design team, and assist Jennie at the Certification. Today I want to share some great news, show you a simple tutorial, and give you a chance to win a PRIZE!

Hair Colors
One of the questions that came up a number of times was how to color hair. We were coloring a really cute Hero Arts stamp of a little girl (which I didn't have here at home, so I drew a similar picture to color). I've talked about coloring hair before, but it's a subject that is always handy to review.

First of all, hair comes in many colors. You can choose almost any color combination of browns, yellows, YR, R, grays... you get the idea. Experiment with lots of colors, and write down the ones you like.

How Much Dark?
You can use the same colors and get different results depending on how much of a color you use as well. Look at these two examples of brown hair. When coloring hair, start light, then work in your darker tones. Streak color in the direction of the grain of the hair.

On both of these examples I started with E31. For the lighter hair I left more white, whereas on the darker head I darkened the E31 by coloring slower, still in streaks, and not leaving as much white.

With the lighter hair, I used less E35 and E37 on each step than I did in the second example. As you can see, the results very greatly just by how much darker color you use.

Note: On hair, I don't usually layer more light over the top of my darker colors, or else the colors will blend together. In this case we want to keep the streaks, since it makes the hair look more believable and natural.

Base Tones
Hair color can change dramatically if you change the base tone or add another color. People frequently ask how to get black hair. Since Copic makes so many shades of gray you would think that you could make black from any of them, but carefully test each color combination. Look at the example. The cool grays make a very different gray than the warm grays. In my opinion, I think the cool gray looks more black whereas the warm grays look more like her hair is fading to gray. Again, it's personal preference.

In the red head example here, you can see that the hair with a yellow base tone looks very different than the hair without. I like to add a yellow base simply because I think the color looks richer, but again, it's a personal choice. Don't be afraid to experiment!
Lighting
When you want to show dimension, choose your light carefully. Since the girl's face in this example is turned to the Left, then I am going to have my light coming from that direction, that way the front of her face has the strongest lighting. Then, the side of the hair closest to the light will have less color, whereas the side in shadow will have slightly more dark color. This helps give dimensionality to the image.


Now, let's get on to some exciting news...

With the popularity of the Certification program we found we needed to add another person to our team to cover the South Central area of the US. We are so excited to be adding someone that many of you are already familiar with, and who is great at coloring and teaching fabulous card classes. Let's give a big welcome to....

Jenn Balcer!!
Jenn has been in papercrafting for quite a while. Most recently, she worked at Splitcoaststampers, helping with all the hidden things that make it such an exciting place. Now that she's had a bit of a rest, she's ready to jump in and help Sharon and Lori with Copic Certification classes in the middle of the country.

If you don't know Jenn, you can get a chance to meet her this year at Summer CHA in Chicago, along with many other members of our fabulous team.

GIVEAWAY!!
To welcome her to our team, we are offering a giveaway. Leave a comment on my post today for a chance to win a free Copic empty 24 pc. Wallet (retail value of $15). Tell us what YOUR favorite colors to use on hair are (give us some good ideas!), and give Jenn a big welcome. I will draw a winner on Saturday morning. (contest open in North America only, sorry). Be sure to leave an e-mail address so I can contact you if you win. Check out the blogs of our other team members sometime this week for a chance to win as well (some of them have other contests and sneak-peeks going on, so look at all the exciting things happening in the blog world).

Lori • Sherrie • Sharon • Jennie • Jenn • Debbie • Sally Lynn • Colleen • Mish
(whew! our team keeps getting bigger)

Meanwhile, I'll be heading up to demo tomorrow in Seattle at the new Blick Art Store- I hope to see you there. Have a great week and thanks for welcoming Jenn!