Intro to Coloring giveaway

New book for the Coloring Foundation Series!
I was cleaning off my desk and I noticed that I missed a blog post about one of my new books, Intro to Coloring With Copic Markers.

This new Coloring Foundations book is a must have for anyone who wants the scoop on how to use Copic markers! I wrote this book with clear, step-by-step tutorials to guide you through everything from smooth coloring to basic blends. From creating patterns, to properly adding highlights and shadows in a still-life. Images are clean and easy to follow along with, incorporating a good balance of simple to complex techniques.

All the books in the Coloring Foundations series are full color and include text in both English and Spanish. Tutorial images and blank color charts are in the back of each book, ready to be photocopied onto good marker paper.

You can purchase a copy of Intro to Coloring With Copic Markers from the Copic website, or
you can also choose to get an autographed copy of Intro to Coloring with Copic Markers.

Better yet, why don't you leave a comment here on my bog for a chance to win your very own autographed copy?! I'll draw a winner on Wednesday next week. (Limited to residents of US and Canada only, sorry!)

I had a lot of fun writing this book, and I tried to fill it with as many useful things as I could. I hope you find it helpful in your creative process. Good luck winning a copy!

Coloring leaves with extra depth

Working with a limited color range
This weekend I was at an event and I had a chance to color one of the flowers coloring pages I drew this Summer. It really is a relaxing way to pass time, working on a larger project for a few hours.

I drew this image for our Coloring Flowers Line Art Pack. The images in our image packs are printed on the nice Art Paper we use in the Copic Sketchbooks.

Anyways, I was coloring on a folder on my lap, and I had only a limited color set with me. Even with few colors, I was still able to have a lot of fun coloring with depth. I wanted to share the power of having only a few greens and how you can add extra depth to your coloring.

As you can see, these kinda large, goofy flowers have a lot of different foliage in them. But with a limited range of greens, how could I create more color variety?

I had only YG11, YG13, YG17, and G28 for my green families. So, I had to pull out my Y13 to add some additional brightness to the leaves up front.

Base color changes everything
The color you choose as a base makes a huge difference when you are working with layers of light colors. Evenly soak your base color by coloring in circles, using the side of the brush nib on your Sketch or Ciao marker.

If you look at the flower on the bottom left, it had a base of YG11, with yellow added on top. The flower on the right I colored in reverse, with the base of Y13, and the YG11 was added to the top. I shadowed each leaf with YG13 and hints of YG17.

I wanted to make a layered look, with the viewer being able to easily pick out the leaves in front, then the other leaves fading into the background a bit more. However, I still wanted the viewer to feel that the leaves were from different varieties of plants, even though I had limited colors.

Here is the rest of the leaf area, colored with only Y13, YG11, YG13, YG17, and darkest areas colored with G28.

Extra details
If you look closely at the side-by-side comparison, you'll notice some subtle finishing touches that add extra depth and interest to the image. the image on the right has extra layers of color around the edges and veins on the leaves. Basically, on each leaf, I took the color that is one step darker than the base color of that area and accented edges, veins, shadows, etc.

Here is a close up from the finished picture to show you what I mean. Look at how the extra green edges on the yellow leaves really accent them and make them more striking. (For the final area, I did end up needing to make my dark green area darker, but without another green, I ended up adding some faint hints of deep B39 into the shadows. )

I spent way too much time fussing over the leaves, probably 2-3 hrs on the leaves alone...except that I was at an event and constantly being interrupted to answer people's questions, so maybe it only took an hour or so of continuous time.

Then I moved on to coloring the rest of the flowers in the picture. Remember, I had only a few colors, so the pink flowers were colored with R81, R85, and RV69. The centers were colored with Y13.

The two yellow flowers were colored with Y00, Y13, and YR14 and YR18 for the deep shadows (I used more YR14 and 18 on the darker yellow-orange flower).

The purple flower was colored with BV00 and BV04. The center is colored with RV09.

The top, coral-colored flower was colored with a base blend of YR14 and R21. If you look at the bottom image, you can see how the YR14 was flicked out from the center, about half way across the petals. The tips were left white. If they hadn't been left white then the R21 overlay would have been lost in the base orange.

R21 was brought in from the tips and colored back into the darker YR14. To darken the shadows and edges of the petals on the coral flower, I used more layers of YR14 as well as YR18 and hints of RV69.

Overall, I love how different this came out than most of my other work. It was a lot of fun! Now, it will promptly find a happy place in my portfolio.

New Coloring Faces & Hair Book

Coloring Faces and Hair with Copic Markers
Hurray! I've been waiting a month or two for the main shipment of my new book to arrive. We just got our shipment from the printer and so finally, you can purchase your very own copy of the new Coloring Faces and Hair with Copic Markers book. This book is full color, 52 pages, of great information, and suggested price is only $9.95!

Coloring Faces & Hair book
Autographed Faces & Hair Book

I tried to fill this book with useful tips and tricks for anyone who is trying to color faces, skin tones, and a wide variety of hair styles. The back of the book has blank images and assorted color charts you can photocopy and practice right along with the tutorials.  Even if you've been using Copic markers for a while, I think you'll find some great stuff in here.

Book and Art Packs
Don't want to make photocopies of the artwork? Don't have the right paper to print on? You can also order kits which include pre-printed images and color charts. These kits are available for both he Faces and Hair book as well as the Coloring Flowers book.

Coloring Faces and Hair Book Kit
Coloring Flowers Book kit

The whole Coloring Foundations book series is intended for new users, as well as people who have some experience. Either way, once you finish the tutorial images in the books, you might be looking for more fun things to color with your Copic markers. Never fear! We have the perfect partner product:

Coloring Pages to match the books
Along with the books, there are matching Line Art packs, images that go along with the books but are full pages printed on high-quality marker paper. I drew these images in styles that match the art and tutorials found in the books. So, you get a wide variety of fun images, all 8.5" x 11" printed on high-quality marker paper, ready to be colored in.

Coloring People Line Art Pack
Coloring Flowers Line Art Pack


I'm so excited to see all these great products now available for purchase! (I nearly got a blister on my drawing finger from drawing all the artwork for these projects...there is a LOT of art for you to color. )

 Right now I am deep in the process of writing the next two books in the series, Intro to Coloring with Copic Markers and Coloring Cats and Dogs with Copic Markers. Look for those titles coming out in a couple months.

Coloring a flower girl

Little Flower Girl
Last week I had the pleasure of coloring all afternoon at a demo. It's so relaxing to just sit and color. sigh. I wish life gave us all more opportunities to just sit and color. Can you imagine how much nicer everyone would be if they spent an hour each day coloring?

Anyways, while I was at the demo I colored this flower image you can download from the Copic website.  Many of the flower images I drew to match tutorials found in the Coloring Flowers with Copic book we sell.

This picture I drew for our website to match the 4th project in the book, so, in the book you learn how to color this style of flower, using palette blending for the dark colors. While coloring at the demo, I only took step-by-step photos of coloring the girl because the flowers are discussed in the book.

Even though this picture is simple, I tried to keep my shadows consistent on the little girl, with the sunlight hitting her face strongest. The flowers are more of a design element, so I just colored those in, without much worry over shadows, except a little bit on the leaves.

I started by coloring her dress with a base of R81, and added shading with R85. I knew that the hearts would be a darker purple, so I just colored right over the pattern and didn't stress about coloring around them. The darker purple is V06, with shadows of RV69. Notice how I left a lighter highlight on the back of the dress, along with the stronger highlight on the front. This makes the shading stand out more. Be careful not to blend out all your contrast, or your work will look too flat. High contrast makes art more interesting to look at.

I colored her skin with E00, E21 then added shadows with E13. I added light layers of  B00, R30, and a hint of R31 to change the tone. Her basket was colored with E31, E35, and R39.

Then I worked on coloring the flowers. The yellow flowers are colored with Y32, YR65, and R05. Centers are E35. The pink flowers are R81, R85, R39, and centers are RV69.

Leaves are YG11, and YG17 (notice how much contrast I use in my greens, I jump straight from YG11 to YG17. It makes them more vibrant). I darkened the deepest leaf shadows with G28.

I finished with a pale B00 sky background that I faded out to the white of the paper using the Colorless blender.

I had such a relaxing time coloring this picture. It took about 2.5 hrs to color, since it is a full sheet of paper and I was also helping customers during that time. Coloring all those little flowers kept my hands busy while my mind wandered. I ended up staying at the demo an extra hour or so because I was having so much fun coloring!

(I'm sure none of you have ever stayed up too late coloring because you were "in the zone".)

I'll be sure to post some more tutorials, even though I am super busy writing my next two books. Have a great weekend!

Book Signing Events

For those of you in Oregon, I have a couple book-signing events coming up:

Friday, May 29th, from 1-4pm at the U of O Bookstore in Eugene, OR, main campus location. I'll be downstairs in the art department offering free Copic demos and book signings.

Saturday, June 13th, from 4-5pm Main St Stamping and Stationary in Tigard, OR.
The morning/afternoon of June 13th, I will also be teaching three classes straight from the flowers book. To register for those classes, please contact Main St. Stamping directly.

For other workshops and demos, please visit the Copic Website. 

Coloring Flowers with Copic Markers Book - Giveaway

It's here! It finally arrived!!

I've been waiting weeks and weeks for the main shipment of my new book, Coloring Flowers with Copic Markers.

I'm so excited because this book is not just a book, it's part of a whole series of awesome information. Who is this book written for?

• If you like flowers -flowers of all kinds- and you're a paper crafter, or an artist, or an illustrator, or just someone who likes to color, then this book is for you!

• If you're a beginner, this book is for you!

• If you're skilled and looking for tips to make your work look more professional, with depth and interesting coloration, then this book is for you!

• Hablamos Español? ¡Esta libro es para tí! Es todos en Español y English.
(and that right there is the extent of the Spanish I remember from High School, luckily I'm not the one who translated the books!)

For only $9.95, you can order a copy of the book by clicking here. Or, for $2 more, you can order an autographed copy.

Coloring Foundations Series
What's even better is that if you are a beginner and you ONLY care about flowers, then you don't need any other books. That's the great part of this new series. Each of these new books stands alone. So, the next book in the series that is going through final proofing now is Coloring Faces and Hair with Copic Markers. And after that, I'm finishing writing the Intro to Coloring with Copic Markers book, which is more generic. This week I'm also coloring the artwork for the 4th book, Coloring Cats and Dogs with Copic Markers, and next I'm drawing pictures for...

Do you get the picture? This series is going to be a lot of books that are all about exactly what YOU want to learn how to color! All in easy to follow along tutorials, with multiple color variations for each image.

Blank Art is in the back
In each book, there are blank outlines for each tutorial that you can photocopy to color along with the beautiful step-by-step photographs.

People ask me all the time what is my favorite paper to color on. I actually use our Copic Sketchbook paper, a super-smooth, medium weight paper that is very crisp and great for drawing illustrations. But, pulling a page out of your sketchbook isn't feasible. So, we are now selling the sketchbook paper as our new Art Pack- Paper for Markers. These packs of letter-sized paper are meant to run through a photocopier. In fact, this is the paper I use for just about any workshop I teach.  All those blank images in the back of the book will look great on this paper, because this is the paper I colored all the original artwork on for the books!

Note: If you are outside the US and Canada and are interested in purchasing the book or paper, please email us- orders@copicmarker.com  Wholesale inquiries are also welcome.

Download even more art
Now, you've bought the book, you got the special paper that I use, and you've colored some of the tutorials. You're pumped, you're excited, you are now an amazing Flower-coloring-machine!

But what else can you color? I've got you covered there as well.

Brand new to the Copic website, we are selling 8.5" x 11" downloadable line art to match the new books. For only $0.99 a download! And, the flowers incorporated in the illustrations are the same kinds of flowers taught in the book. I drew those pictures just for you, so you can have even more great things to color.

Right now there really aren't many images uploaded...yet.

Every couple weeks we will be uploading new artwork, and not just flowers. See the cool green bug on the paper pack? I posted a tutorial last Fall about that bug. Well, now you can download the outline and color in that exact bug! Maybe you really like that butterfly I colored earlier here on my blog, well that is uploaded to the website as well. Isn't that cool!?!? I am so happy I can finally share my favorite blog illustrations so you can also color along! And, anyone around the world can download these images, no problem.


Win a Free Autographed Book and Paper pack
Whew! That's a lot of information in one post, but I am so excited! In fact, I'm so excited, I want to give away some of these books and share the awesomeness with you.

• If you want to win your own, autographed version of the Flowers book and a pack of paper, please leave a comment on this blog post. Include your email so we can get in touch with you. Tell me what topics you would love to see written into future books or made into downloadable line art (besides Flowers, Faces & Hair, Cats & Dogs, since I'm already working on those).

Next Friday, when I am back in town, I will choose 3 lucky winners.

Easy as that. Good luck, and thanks in advance for letting me know what you want to see a book about!