Coloring onto stamps, part 2 - Clean look

For those of you who are not afraid of drawing on your rubber with an alcohol marker, here is the second part of the post on coloring directly to your stamps. This quick technique is a little trickier than the last one, since you have to work quickly and not over-saturate your paper. This however, is the way that I have colored stamps for a while, and I've been happy with the results.

Today I'm using this cute AMuse Party Lanterns stamp. I'm working on a good cardstock that I know will hold my marker ink nice and crisply. The first technique it didn't matter as much, this technique works best on smooth, crisp paper. I colored directly onto the clean stamp with a G17, R59, B34, and YR16 (make sure the stamp is clean! otherwise the ink residue will stain your marker tip). Now, how do I get the image off the stamp without blurring it like we did with the flower?

This one's easy- for a small picture like this, take your colorless blender and pre-soak the area on the paper. Now stamp onto the damp paper. You may have to hold it for a moment, but it will give you acrisp impression. Stamp before the blender gets a chance to evaporate.

You can use the same spritzer that I showed before filled with blender, but I've found that it's easier to over-saturate the paper with the blender that way, though it's much better for soaking a large area, say for those larger Thomas Kinkade stamps. Or, you can also take a Wide colorless blender to soak the paper evenly.

Once I've stamped this I cannot color it in with markers though- it just won't work, since those lines will want to blend with my colored area. You could color over this with colored pencils or something though. Embosing won't work, because you'd be sticking embossing powder over the whole damp area, not just the lines.

Certification Class updates

It's time to go over upcoming classes. Today I am sending out applications for Sally Lynn's East Coast classes, early next week I'll be sending out the applications for Florida, New Orleans, and my Rochester, Toronto, and other East Coast Classes. For any of the Northeast classes, you are all on the same mailing list, so please be patient and just wait for the second info letter and application if you do not see your preferred location listed.

Anaheim Certification, CHA, Jan 23 or 24th. Taught by Marianne. I still have a few spaces, open to general public!. Call now to register, speak to Kris 866-662-6742.

Feb 20th New Orleans, LA (This is the weekend of Mardi Gras so you can come and party!)
Feb 23rd Pensacola, FL graciously hosted by Flourishes. Both classes taught by Marianne. This will be a whole weekend of classes and a big event so come to either the New Orleans class or the Pensacola class and participate in the fun with Flourishes. (Flourishes event info available from Flourishes). Registration opens Late Next Week

Feb 22nd, Long Branch, NJ taught by Sally Lynn
March 1st, Topsfield MA, Hosted by Absolutely Everything, taught by Sally Lynn.
March 15th, Camp Hill, PA taught by Sally Lynn. These classes are each in conjunction with larger weekends of crafting, so contact Sally Lynn for more details. E-mail with appliaction is going out today, Call now to register.

March 19th New London CT (formerly Westport, CT) Taught by Marianne, co-taught by Sally Lynn, project-based class in the evening to follow.
March 23 Rochester, NY Taught by Marianne
March 24 Toronto, Ont. Taught by Marianne, Co-taught by Sherrie Siemens. Open to any store, teacher, or design team member Registration opens Late next week
March 25th Toronto, Ont. Taught by Sherrie, assisted by Marianne. Open only to Open Page Wholesale accounts. Contact Open Page to register.
Sherrie will also be available to teach workshops or make-n-takes on this trip in the Toronto area, so if your store is interested, please contact her for arranging your store's event.

Upcoming in April, May, June:
April - Salt Lake City, UT date TBA Taught by Marianne. join the mailing list!
April 19th Kingsport TN Taught by Sally Lynn join the mailing list!
April 26th Chino, CA Taught by Sally Lynn join the mailing list!
May - Possible Louisville, KY, taught by Marianne join the mailing list!
June 28th Durham, NC Taught by Sally Lynn join the mailing list!

Even if you don't see a city near you, please use our sign in form on my sidebar to get added to the mailing list and tell me where you are interested in attending.

On another note...Those of you who are lovin' your Copics for coloring in Amuse stamps, go check out the new A Muse chat room. Lots of great stuff over there...I think I'll head over there right now myself. Have a great weekend!

Coloring onto stamps, part 1 - Watercolor look

I know many stampers out there wonder if they can color directly onto their stamps with Copic Markers. Can you do it? will it work? will it ruin your stamp? My answer is, YES you can color directly onto your stamp, and here's how.

Coloring onto stamps with Copics, Fake Watercolor Look-
First of all, I want you to know that years ago, when we first heard that stampers were using Copic markers this is what we thought they were doing with them- coloring onto their stamps and stamping things. NOT stamping things then coloring them in. So I would color onto my stamps and then stamp with them to get some neat colored images. Then someone told me that this was bad for my stamps, so I stopped admitting that I did this, then someone else said it was OK on your stamps, so then everything was OK.

One of the challenges of working with Copics directly onto rubber is that the alcohol in the ink evaporates too quickly to color then stamp with. That ink is not going to be affected by water like traditional stamp inks would be, so if you breathe, or "huff" on it to re-wet the ink, it just won't work. So how do we get the ink damp to stamp?

You'll see in my photo I have a Mist-It by Inspired Crafts. I have mine filled with Copic Colorless blender solution, NOT water. I simply color onto the stamp with whatever colors I want to use (in this case I used R59, R29, and YG99). I gently misted the stamp and then stamped my image. Now it looks like I watercolored the picture, but it's all Copics.

Note: Rubbing alcohol will work for this technique, however on some colors it alters the dye and changes the fianl color, so test it first.

This is a serendipity kind of effect, since too much mist and the image gets all blobby, too little mist and the paper doesn't pick up the ink evenly. I had to stamp about 5 or 6 times to get this one to look the way I wanted it to. Also, this works best on solid-area stamps, like the Flourishes Spring Ephemerals stamp that you see here.

Will it ruin my stamp?
This is where people start debating. Alcohol can be harsh on rubber- it dries it out and makes it brittle. My answer is that if you clean your stamp after each use it won't be a problem. Solvent based inks like StazOn or using your stamps with bleach are just as bad for them. That being said, many people won't use their stamps with solvents or with Bleach since those can be hard on your stamps. Gina K. posted this technique shortly after taking the Copic Certification class, where we covered this technique, so read this tutorial and it's comments on SplitcoastStampers if you want more details. Like I mentioned, I have some stamps that are 4 or 5 years old that I had been doing this to, and they are fine. To clean them, just mist them again to get the final residue off, then use a regular stamp cleaner with a stamp conditioner in it if you are concerned.

Here is the final card I made with this technique. The darker green paper was actually more of an olive colored paper by Prism and I colored over both it and the plain ribbon with the darker green, G28. Then I added dabs and drips of colorless blender over the colored areas to really weather it out. The textured brown paper is also from Prism, I lightly colored it with E31 to bring out the texture then "watercolored" E37 onto it for the darker blotches.

Doodling with the Super Brush - Blob Ducks

It's time for me to post another Draw It Yourself. This one is super easy, I promise. Before you try this technique I suggest you read this old post on doodling to get your technique down, then try this easy duckling.

Blob Ducks
You'll need two Sketch or Ciao markers (it can be done with Copics, it's just easier with the super-brush). Get a nice vibrant yellow and a nice orange, and a multiliner (either black or sepia, gray, or orange would also look nice).

1. With the yellow marker, draw a dot by pressing the brush straight down.
2. Add a larger half-circle below the circle and slightly off to one side.
3. With the orange marker, lay it on it's side to draw a beak and feet.
4. With your multiliner, outline the orange beak and feet first, then draw a line around the yellow area.
5. Draw a dot for the eye and a curved line for the wing.

Presto! You have a very cute little duck.

Here is my final scene, with hearts drawn by blobbing two drop-shapes from the super brush and tracing around them. I used Y15, YR04 for the ducks and R83 for the hearts. Perfect for a quick baby card or an Easter scene. I hope you try this super-easy technique for yourself. Think about what other shapes you can doodle in this manner. Try adding wings sticking out or drawing smiles on the beaks. The creativity is limitless. People will think you are so talented that you can draw such cute little ducks, but you'll know the secret of how simple these really are to make.

For another example, here is a quick background paper I made with this technique but this time I used an orange multiliner SP to draw the outlines. I like how much softer it is than the black outline, especially for background paper. I'm going to use this for something I'm doing in my duck-themed bathroom. Cute, quick, and I know the colors will match perfectly.

Think of using elements like this for repeating patterns. Try using softer colors for backgrounds as well, or mix and match dark and light ducks. If these ducks are too vibrant, then use the colors that are 2 digits lower, or Y13 and YR02. It will give you much lighter ducks in the same color family.

Have a great day doodling!

Glossy Carstock, Part 4 - Blending like watercolors

Brushing Ink on Glossy Paper with a Blender
This is a technique that I like because it looks just like watercolors, but it's on glossy paper and dries very quickly. You can use this technique on regular paper as well. This is a quick project, but it gives a nice look.

How it works is that I stamped this beautiful Kodomo image, Fanning Lady, with Memento Tuxedo Black ink onto glossy cardstock and let it sit and dry for a while (make sure it's dry! heat-set it if you need to). Then, with a dark blue marker (B99) I dabbed a spot of color onto a piece of acrylic. This is my palette. I took a watercolor brush that you can fill with liquid and I filled it with Copic Colorless blender. Now I've got a super juicy watercolor brush that works with Copics.

Remember back to my earlier posts on blending with glossy paper, once you put a color down, you can't really lighten it up when you are working with Copics. You also couldn't get one dark blue marker to look so light. With this technique you can apply lots of levels of thin color and build up a darker shade with natural blends and it won't give you streaks and ugly dye edges like you would see when using the marker directly on the paper.

Watercoloring with Copics has made me better with regular watercolors. When I turn in artwork to galleries I usually wtercolor it. I was never good at watercolors untill I started coloring with Copics.

Why would I use a brush filled with blender, isn't a Sketch or Ciao colorless blender good enough? The blender markers aren't juicy enough for applying ink in this manner. They dry too quickly for it to really look like watercolors. With this blender-filled brush however, I can squeeze out extra blender as I need it to get the smoothest, juiciest flow of ink. On glossy paper it doesn't take much since it will start to blob and spread, but it's a look you can't get on glossy paper with watercolors alone. This is also a great way to color vellum smoothly. This technique works best with dark colors.

Here is my final image. It looks like I used a lot more colors than I actually did because of the nature of laying down lots of thin ink layers. I used B99, E02, G28, Y17, and YG09. I hope you get a chance to try this technique, not just on glossy paper. This would work well on SU! paper as well as watercolor paper or any papers that Copic markers may not regularly work on.

Cross Hatching part 2 - Basic Technique

First of all, I want to congratulate all of you who thought about my challenge and are going to step up this year to making your own doodles. Doodling is a very key ingredient to even the largest, most complex works of art. Before I get into cross hatching some more I have a little business to cover.

Copic Certification, Anaheim
I am opening my class on Friday, Jan 23 up to the general public. Anyone who can come is welcome for the 23 only. Cost is $120 but you get about $80 worth of product to keep, so it ends up being a really great deal for an all-day class. Send an e-mail to Kris at orders@copicmarker.com or call her at 866-662-6742 to register. There are only a few spaces, so call right away.

Applications for Spring East Coast Venues will be going out next week, so get on our mailing list today! This includes Florida, New Orleans, and any confirmed locations that SallyLynn will be teaching on the East Coast thru March.

Tonite I will be giving a free lecture at 6:30 at the Eugene Public Library on the History of Manga and Manga trends in America. This is appropriate for teens or adults. I want to thank all the people who attended my teen workshop on drawing Manga earlier this week. The class was very full and very fun! I'll probably be teaching some more local classes this term, so look for Fine Art/Architecture workshops through DIVA and maybe another teen Manga class during school vacations at the Library.

Now, let's start the New Year by stepping out of your comfort zone and drawing something yourself- simple cross hatching.

Cross Hatching Basics
In my post a few days ago I talked about what cross hatching is and what it is trying to accomplish, today I'd like to get into technique. Cross hatching is both very simple and very tricky at the same time. The idea is easy, you draw lines and they make something look shadowed. The tricky part is practicing to keep a steady hand.

Drawing short lines will be easiest at first. Don't worry about making all the lines perfect, that will come with practice. Practice by doodling on anything handy. This is an exercize, not life or death, so relax and know that it's OK to make mistakes as you learn.

First, find an angle for your artwork that feels natural. For me, I am right handed and feel most comfortable making strokes that are straight out from mu chest, but with a slight right slant (1). To get another angle to my hatching I need to turn my paper so the lines I draw will be facing that same comfortable direction (2). Then, you need to practice, practice, practice. Try drawing lots of little areas that are cross hatched. You can do this with a mechanical pencil, you can do it with a cheap ballpoint pen, whatever you have handy, just try drawing hatching marks.

2 Layer Cross Hatching Technique
You need to practice putting marks that line up. It is easier to make the edge that you start from even, and let your pen gradually lift up at the end of the stroke. Turn your paper so that when you are adding the marks, the crisp edge feels natural to your hand and you work from the edge, out.

When you come back in to add the second layer of hatching, also work from the starting edge out, or it looks a little strange. Notice my example. The trailing edges meet up nicely and look smooth. The second example looks strange because one trailing edge fades, but the other is crisp. If I were filling in an area between two outside lines this wouldn't matter as much, but on an open area it doesn't work.

Practice until you can confidently add hatching that meets up with a line. Soon you'll be adding hatch marks to all sorts of things (squares on reports, lines on your notepad). This sort of doodle practice is very important to build relaxed, natural hand-eye coordination. NO STRESS! Why should you draw and doodle if it's going to be stressful? relax.

Inking Pen Hatch Marks
I'm usually making cross hatching on artwork that needs to be scanned in, so I tend to work with 0.1 or 0.05 mm multiliners. I made the mistake once of doing a large, beautiful, very detailed illustration with cross hatching in a 0.03 mm pen. When I scanned it in, the hatching was too fine for my scanner to pick up, particularly since I had to shrink the final artwork. All my hard work cross hatching was wasted! Now I draw slightly thicker and not quite so detailed.

As you can see from these examples, there are lots of looks you can get from each pen size. When I draw, I work with a couple sheets of paper under my work at any time. This gives me a slight cushion so that I can push harder to get thicker or thinner lines from the same pen. On fine sizes like the 0.03 or 0.05mm pen, I would NOT push hard however. Those tips are sturdy for what they are, but they require a very light hand. Most people can get fine enough lines with a 0.1 or 0.2 mm inking pen.

Look at how much thicker the 0.35 looks when compared to the 0.03 pen. The 1.0 pen looks really clunky and thick next to the finer sizes. I would probably not use the 1.0 by itself for hatching unless I were working on something very large and not too detailed. If you look back at the examples of the different pen sizes you'll see how layering once, twice, and a third time gives you progressively darker tones.

You can always layer different pen sizes to get even darker tones. Here is an example of regular cross-hatching, with a 1.0 pen thrown in to really darken up the final edge area. It doesn't look so clunky when layered like this, unlike when it is used by itself. The circle really looks dimensional and shadowed now.

For my final example today I've taken a simple chair from Lockhart Stamp Company and I want it to look like it came straight out of my old Alice in Wonderland book. It's so easy to make this chair look more detailed than it really is. I know that if I make a mistake I can always stamp it again.

I'm using a really fine 0.05 mm pen because the picture is so small, but you could probably use a 0.1 or 0.2 mm pen and it would still look OK. I start with the first level of shadow in the areas I know will be darkest, then I come back with a second level.


Now my chair looks like an antique illustration from around 1900, not just a nice garden chair. I know Karen won't mind if Alice comes and sits in this beautiful vinatge chair. Look at your own image collection and see which ones would look cool turned into vintage drawings simply by adding a few lines.

2009 - Draw It Yourself

Happy New Year! Today we celebrate a couple milestones and get ready to set goals for next year. Today starts my 7th month blogging, and sometime today I will have reached 100,000 hits on my blog counter. Thanks to all my loyal blog readers! I couldn't have had so much success without you. As we look ahead to 2009 now is the time to set some goals...

I'd like to introduce you to a new label that you'll be seeing more of in the upcoming year. Don't be afraid, I'm only trying to help you become a better artist and teach you fun little things you can do yourself.

This is my little DIY label. When you see this symbol it will be for techniques that you draw or doodle yourself.

Don't get scared of the DIY label! I know that many of you who follow this blog are stampers, and you keep telling yourself that you are NOT artistic. That's thinking negative thoughts and that's not going to help you in the New Year. Think Positive thoughts!

Anyone who colors is an artist. You are all crafty and artistic in your own way. For those of you who have been following this blog for a while and trying my techniques as I show them, you are already noticing that you feel more artistic. I see you at workshops and you tell me how much your coloring has improved and you thank me for showing you how to color creatively. My goal with this blog when I started it was to teach not just how to use Copic stuff correctly but to also teach you basic art techniques.

This year I challenge you to step outside your comfort zone and...
Doodle! Draw! and of course Color!

Look at my happy 2009. Ignore that I drew the whole thing, just notice the little swirls I added with a colored multiliner. ANY of you can draw a swirl. Instead of cutting out a cute patterned paper every time, try drawing small repeating patterns like my swirls. Don't be afraid to change what's already made. You don't have to take a workshop before you try something new, just try it on your own.

Take a stamp or image that someone gives you and doodle on it. If the picture needs a clump of grass, draw your own. Take the plunge and color with one of my more challenging techniques. Whatever you do, do something you haven't done before.

If you make a mistake it doesn't matter because in art there are no mistakes, only learning opportunities.

We'll be using a lot more multiliners, Spica pens, and colored multiliners this year to give your pictures a unique personality. You can use a colored pencil, watercolors, or whatever you're comfortable with, just try something on your own.

In 2009 I urge you think creatively and don't be afraid to step outside your comfort zone. Anyone who read this post and instantly thought "Oh, I would never draw it myself." YOU are the exact people who need to stop saying NEVER and just try it. Trust me - it won't hurt.