Stamping papers and Inks

I have not been posting much because soon this blog will be moving to the Copic Website, and I don't want to give more work to myself in the switch. That being said, I have been waiting for too long to post this info. Once I move locations I will elaborate on each point, with photos AND I'll have a great blog candy (trust me, there is some FABULOUS blog candy to go with this info). Until then, this is for people who want to know the best cardstock and inks for stamping. I posted this on SCS, but I think everyone should have access to this info. For fine artists, your paper comparison and blog candy will be about a month after the stamping (this also will be some GREAT goodies, so be patient).

Cardstock for Stamping
For people who want the BEST results for stamping then coloring with Copic, these are the cardstocks that consistently keep popping up as being good:

Georgia Pacific (a little soft for my taste, but use less ink and it won't feather as much)
PaperTrey Ink (PTI) This is a thick paper. To get an image even looking on the front side takes more ink. Because it is thick paper it might not soak all the way through. This is OK, as long as the frontside looks even.
Gina K 80# Good, clean, very smooth bright paper. Takes less ink to evenly soak compared to heavier stock.
Gina K 120# Like the PTI, this is a thick paper. The marker colors very evenly, but like the PTI, it might not soak all the way through
Neenah Classic Crest 80# this is thinner than PTI or Gina K. Not as smooth as Gina K. 80 # but still very nice (my personal favorite since it's what we print on at work so I can steal it from the printer )
Copic Stamping Illustration Paper this is a new paper released at CHA. It is thin (like 50#) and slightly off-white. Takes very little ink to evenly color, then you layer it with your favorite cardstocks
Prism Simply Smooth this is VERY smooth. color may not evenly go through the back. Color shows up vibrant and smooth but blending is a little different than on other papers (you really have to try it to understand. People either swear by it or swear at it)

So, does this mean that there aren't other good papers? No. You need to test each of your papers and find which one works for you, which one matches your coloring style. Sometimes you have to slow down when coloring so you don't oversoak the paper. On Neenah or the new Copic paper it's easy to put too much marker down and then it feathers out beyond the line. with practice you learn how much or how little marker to use.

Can you use Copics on cheap paper? Yes, if it works for you then go for it. I've done some great work on cheap copier paper (not even color copier paper), I just need to be aware of how much the marker will bleed and feather, then compensate for it.

However, the shortlist of BAD papers includes: Watercolor, SU! (SU! is intended for blending water-based markers so Copics are tricky on this paper), and stampers should not get fine-art Marker paper (it's too thin for your use and you can't fix mistakes).

Inks for stamping
I must confess, I have not tried all of these, but these are some of the favorites out there. You need to test your own inks to see what works for you.

Best (IMO)
Memento, Tsukineko My favorite, and the favorite of many around here. No heatsetting, works great on most cardstocks, dries quickly.
Brilliance, Tsukineko Many people like this because the black is richer than the brilliance, however, it needs to be heatset. You can use this on fabric, heat-set it, then color it with your Copics and it works great.
AMuse No heatsetting, dries quickly, nice rich black

Good
Memories Dye Ink This needs to REALLY be dry. stamp a few days in advance, heat set it a long time, whatever it takes, but some people love it.
Palette Noir Hybrid Ink I haven't used it much, but heat-set it is what I've heard
Ranger I personally have had some good results, while other times this feathered out and got a yellow halo around the line (even heatset), so I don't use it.

BAD!!!
Staz On. Just don't use it. It will stain your marker tips and bleed.
SU! This is meant for water-based products and won't work

This being said, if you don't touch the stamped line then you will never have problems with any ink. Granted, it's much harder to blend without touching the stamped line and I'm sure you won't make mistakes, but to each his own.

You need to try these inks with your papers to find what works for you. Each paper/ink combo will react differently. When you find a combo that works for you, stick with it! It can be tricky switching paper types, particularly for newbies, and frustrating if you choose the wrong ones. For newbies, read what people are saying on this thread. Some combos will keep popping up (Like Gina K. and Memento, or PTI and Memento, or Heat-set brilliance and Neenah), so that's a good place to start for the least frustrating experience.

If you have any other inks or papers you like, please add to the comments here, so that when I do move to the new location I can make my comparisons more complete. The last time we did this survey we got these results.

Winner and Awards

Copic Certification Mardi Gras Giveaway
We had a number of people submit their names for the New Orleans Copic Certification contest.

The Grand Prize Winner is:

Ashley!!
Congratulations! I'll see you in a couple weeks at that class.

The Two Second Place winners are
Frank
Peggy

Way to go! I'll see each of you in a short week and a half.

Blog Awards
And now for blog awards... I want to thank everyone who sends awards my way for blogging. It is a real honor to think that I am one of your favorite blogs, and I hope I can continue to produce high-quality tutorials and step-by-step directions. My most recent award was from Catherine at PaperGarden Projects, so thank you Catherine and thank you from all the other people who I have missed awards from (I'm really bad at following up on these).

However, instead of passing a blog award onto other blogs that I love I wanted to do something special. To this end I am creating a new award, and I think many of you who have blogs can relate. My problem is that I have lots of subscribers who read the blog but hardly anyone leaves comments. I have a few loyal commenters and the rest of the world is silent (granted, you have to sign in to leave a comment, which is changing soon...). I really have no idea if you find a tutorial useful unless you leave me a comment!

I am not a great person for commenting either, except on the blogs of my friends at church, I really don't have enough time in the day. To this end, I created this award:


If you have a blog and have the same problem that I do, please take this award and pass it on to your loyal commenters. Show them how much you appreciate their feedback. These are the ones who tell you if they find your post useful or not, who take you with them on their creative journies, who read each day and let you know that they did.

Thank you to all my readers, but today, I'm honoring the Commenters. Each of you should pass this award on to your loyal commenters to let them know how much you care.

Some of my loyal commenting followers include (this is NOT all!):
Nicole, Anderson Arts Online (are you happy I have rubber stamps now??)
Nancy, Inkcicles (the icicles post was just for you! great to finally meet and share hugs)
Trena in Naperville, Stamping, Painting and Coloring Make me Giggle (summer CHA was fun, Thank you for coming to my class)
Broni Waterchild 12, Splashes of Watercolor (we had a fun certification group last fall!)
Sandy Knecht (you have been leaving comments right from the beginning, Thank you!)

Again, thank you for your support. Sorry about the lack of posts, I am keeping my posting light right now because soon things will be moving...don't worry, it's for the good!

Copic Certification & Giveaway

I have a couple of class updates in regards to upcoming Copic Certification sessions.

The Long Branch, NJ class on Feb 22nd is now Closed. As is the Topsfield, MA class on March 1st.

Upcoming Spring classes include:
• New Orleans, LA Feb 20th Open to public
• Long Branch, NJ Feb 22nd CLOSED
• Pensacola FL Feb. 23 Open to public
• Topsfield, MA March 1 CLOSED
• Camp Hill, PA March 15 Open to stores & Instructors
• Mystic CT March 19 Open to stores & Instructors
• Buffalo NY March 23 Open to stores & Instructors
• Toronto March 24 Open to stores & Instructors
• Kingsport, TN April 19th Applications going out soon
• Chino CA (L.A. area), April 26th Applications going out soon

Upcoming locations for 2009
If any of these are of interest to you please add yourself to our mailing list using the form on the sidebar of my blog.
Durham, NC
Burlington, MA
Myrtle Beach, SC
Orlando, FL
Washington D.C.
New Hampshire

Copic Certification Mardi Gras Giveaway
And now for a real treat. The New Orleans class in a couple weeks is open to the public. I still have space in that class, but I also pushed and shoved and got approval to offer
Grand Prize: One person gets to attend the class FREE ($120 value!!)
Second Prize: Two people will be chosen and can attend for Half-Price ($60)
This offer is open to papercrafters who are eager to learn about Copic markers.

You have until Monday at 8 am, Pacific Time, serious entries only please. Note: Should you be chosen only the class fee and supplies are covered, NOT travel or hotel accommodations.

Please send an e-mail to Kris at orders@copicmarker.com
Title the e-mail Copic Certification Mardi Gras Contest

Include with your e-mail:
• 1 card example so we can see what you make
• A paragraph explaining why you want to learn more about Copics.
• Your name, phone, and e-mail address

If you win you will be contacted by Kris and sent a full application to be completed and returned immediately. If you do not win and would still like info on attending let us know and we would be happy to send you more info. Good Luck!

Edit: I just checked Orbitz.com and there are still rooms available in New Orleans and they're having sales all over. If you have a group that wants to come from far away we have group discount on the class depending on how many are in your party- contact Kris for details.

Coloring White Birds and feathers

Here is another example of something that someone asked a while ago and I'm only now getting around to discussing it. Copic markers make it easy to color white things because of their extensive range of subtle colors. The brush nib on a Sketch or Ciao marker is the natural choice when coloring something light and airy like feathers. Today we'll combine both to make white feathers and birds with our markers.

Coloring White things
To understand what colors are good for coloring white things, you should review this older post. Basically any light color will work, it just depends on the "feel" of your object.

If you look at this collection of wings, you will see how the tone of the wing changes slightly when you pick a neutral color (N2) versus the warm color (E31) or the cool tone (B41). Some birds turn kind of yellowish on their undersides, so you may consider tinting a warm tone with yellow to pick up these subtleties.

Colors around an object will also influence what tone it should be. On my final image today of an egret, the pure white bird is standing on a log in a pond. Since the water is reflective and blue, the white egret will pick up cool tones from the water. If he were standing on a sandy area he might pick up subtle tints from the sand. If he had nothing around him, then his shadows might be a true neutral gray.

Putting a background behind something white helps it stand out more against the white of the paper. These wings look very bright because I put a solid blue background behind them. If I left the sky white there would be much less contrast and the white wouldn't be so dynamic.

Individual Feathers
Once you've picked a white tone, let's start coloring by looking at a single feather, since wings are made up of lots of feathers. A bird's feather, or "vane", is made up of lots of tiny rows of little "barbs" that grow out from the shaft. These grow at an angle that points towards the tip. Near the base of the vane are the "downy barbs" . The downy barbs are soft and don't reflect back light. The other barbs however, interlock to form a smooth, shiny vane which does reflect back light.

The feather curves slightly down from the shaft on either side, so you will get one side of a feather in shadow. When you are coloring something white your goal is to accent the shadows without losing the overall whiteness of the object. I strongly suggest that you start with light colors (colors that end in 0, 1, or maybe 2). Go sparingly with darker colors, using them only to accent the deepest shadow areas.

To accent the shadows it is best if you use the brush tip of your marker and work in strokes out from the spine of the feather, following the directions of the barbs. Work from the far edge in and from the spine out. This leaves a natural looking white in between the two colored edges, with color feathering in to the highlight area.

As a feather gets old or the barbs stop sticking together then you see the breaks in the edge. These will also catch the light at a slightly different angle and reflect it back. As you color, your strokes will accent these breaks and the subtle shadows they create.

Coloring a Wing
When you put the individual feathers together they overlap to form a solid wing. However, each feather has a slight curve and where two feathers overlap it creates a slight dip in the smooth surface.

Your goal is to accent the overlap and the shadows without losing the white. Again, work with light colors and practice lifting up at the end of your brush stroke. Make your strokes starting from the deepest shadow and feathering out to the light areas. Keep them consistent with the angle of the feathers.

If you are using a Copic original marker you can simulate the "lift" at the end by lifting up as much as possible at the end of your stroke, then coming back with a colorless blender from the opposite direction. This is also useful if you got your colors too dark. Go back from the opposite direction with the blender and push the extra dye into the shadows. On thin paper you can remove excess color by keeping a napkin or paper-towel under your work and it will help soak up extra dye.

For my final image today I drew this egret preening his wing on a log. My scanner did not pick up the subtle colors as much as I would like (the soft blue sky goes half-way up the picture and you can actually see where I made blue-gray strokes between feathers). However, you get the idea of how I use the subtle blues and grays to accent the shadows of white on his underside and where his feathers meet.

On another note, the background plants were colored first with the W2, E31, and G82. Then I added the B41 of the sky over the whole area back there. This washed the colors together and faded them in a more natural way to show the atmosphere and to tone them down, as I talked about in an earlier post.

All images today were stamped or drawn onto Gina K Pure Luxury 120 lb cardstock. Stamped images were stamped with Memento ink and drawn images were made with a 0.1 mm Multiliner SP.

Coloring Eyes part 2 - Realistic Eyes

Here is a step-by-step technique for coloring realistic looking eyes that look great. I'm labeling it advanced, mostly because many of you won't ever need to get this in-depth into coloring and shading an eye. However, this builds upon a post on coloring eyes I made way back in July. There are a lot of my older posts that I have more to add to, so I'm going to make it a goal to finish up my earlier posts. I have a simple adaptation at the end of the post, so keep reading even if you don't think this applies to you.

Before I get into today's technique though, I just want to let you know that the Certification class in Pensacola and the class in New Orleans in a few weeks are now open to the public. Anyone who would like to attend should call Kris at 866-662-6742

Coloring realistic shaped eyes
You need to read this earlier post on understanding manga eyes before we adapt the same technique to realistic eyes. The concepts are exactly the same, only the shape has changed.

If you look at my diagram, you will see how light hits the eye and causes reflections. The reflections change shape depending on what light hits them. In a room with long flourescent lights the shape of the top glint will actually be more square or rectangular.

Always keep in mind where the light is coming from when you put it in. Also, as you turn your head the glint of light stays in the same place.The hardest part is figuring out how much /how little dark to add and where to consistently place your highlight. As with many things in art, this is a matter of personal taste as much as it is a trick in observation.

On this diagram I start with the gray shadow first. On my other post I add the shadow last. It really doesn't matter, as long as you add the shadow sometime.

Add the light blue, BG01 then layer in the BGo5 and BG09. Notice how I'm coloring the edges of the shape darker as well as the top. This helps accent the fact that your eyes are round. I could also add subtle shadows around the corners of the eyes to really make the white look rounded.

Next, I go back over the whole area with my lightest blue, BG01. This will darken that bottom highlight, so I came back in with a hint of colorless blender to lighten up the bottom color.

Right now the eye looks very believably colored, but it still is missing the last few touches that will finish it up to look shiny, reflective, and natural.

Again, for this last step keep in mind where your light is coming from (the highlight goes on the side closest to the light source) and the shape of the light. If you need some good ideas I strongly suggest going and running a search online to look at the shape of light in eyes.

First, I add some deeper color lines into the iris with my darkest blue, BG09. I keep these radiating out from the center. Then I drew in a few small black lines in the deepest color areas to also accent the iris. Last I go back in with my Opaque white paint and add the final highlights. Don't go overboard on the glints! You can always make it bigger, but it's much harder to make them smaller. Subtle is usually enough. You can also thin down the Opaque white so you can see through it, then add this as your very soft light glint.

On my final illustration of this woman you see that the glint of light in each eye is strongest on the same side that she has the strongest highlights in her hair. The reflection in the far eye is smaller because that eye is farther from the light source.

Remember, this is a matter of personal taste, since my illustration is stylized. I could have gotten away with making the other glint larger, and in hindsight, I think I made her lips a little too off-center with her nose. Oh well, it gives me an excuse to draw more pictures. Looking at photos or your own reflection will be the best way to get the glints correct in relation to the lighting and shadows.

Cute and Innocent eyes
Unrelated to the realistic eyes, here are a couple of sea-turtle babies I drew. The eyes really make this image cute, since they are so big when compared to the rest of the turtle. Obviously, these are supposed to be cute and innocent.

I followed the same steps in coloring the eyes by making the colored area lighter at the bottom, darker at the top, and added two glints of light with opaque white last. These really help to accent the cuteness and innocence of the turtles. Notice how luminous and reflective their eyes look. It's amazing what a couple of flecks of white can do to really make a cute picture cuter.

Green turtle: BG01, G05, G85, G29, Eyes BG01, BV13. Purple: Turtle BG01, BV00, BV13, G85 Eyes BG01, BV13. Sand: YR31, Y28, N3, Blender

Drip Doodle

I looked at my header and realized that it hasn't changed since fall. Time to put something new up! The new header is very simple but it's a style that looks very different than what you're used to seeing from me. Today I'll talk about the process I used to color it.

My new header was drawn very loosely with a Sky Blue Multiliner SP 0.3 mm pen. I wanted this to look fun and whimsical, so I kept it very simple and fun. Then I scribbled in some light blue, B32 for the sky, added YR31 to the stars, and dripped on some colorless blender. Last I added some BV00 for accent color. The whole process, start to finish took maybe 20 min. I didn't scan in the steps, so I'll walk you through the same process on a different image.

Here I'm using the stamp Tree-Mendous Love by Our Craft Lounge. I stamped with Memento Tuxedo black ink. and let it dry longer than usual. This process uses a lot of colorless blender and I want to be sure that my stamp line is good and dry so it won't bleed. Then, I added a simple sky in BG01 and colored the trunk in YR31. Notice that I'm not too careful about keeping the sky smooth. I'm going to be doodling and dripping all over this area so I don't need to be picky.

Next, I drip on colorless blender. To get the best control, I'm dipping the brush end of my sketch blender directly into my large bottle of blender and carefully adding the solution in dabs. I started with the tree branches then dabbed out the color from the trunk. This gives me my big, main "pools" of color that halo the tree. After those dried, I added more drips all over the image to give a second layer of drip, so the drips overlap and look cool.

Once this was dry I colored a few of the "leaves" with the YR31 and some BV13 to give nice contrast.

You could leave your project at this step, but I wanted to do more to it. Here is where the doodling comes in. The shape that keeps getting repeated in this image is the circle. Circles in the leaves and circles from the drips. The tree also has a repeating heart shape, so I could have accented that through repeating heart patterns. The choice is yours. I'm going with dots & circles though, since they are simple and go along with the doodling from last week.

With my BV13 I doodled half-circles with only dots. See how these little doodles add to the overall circle effect? I added larger dots of the YR31 to carry the tree-trunk color throughout the whole image. Now my tree looks very interesting. It's loosely doodled making it unique, but it has cohesion through the repeated circle motif.

On my new rocket header it's hard to see the repeated dots, since I drew them with the YR31. Part of doodling is figuring out which elements are most important and should have more contrast. On the rocket, I didn't want the dots to overwhelm the image, so I drew them very light. The tree is very clean and graphic, so I wanted something dark to break up the smooth look of the image.

I challenge you to step out of your comfort zone and color something totally differently than you normally would. In this case, using only 3 colors and the repeating circles the image ties together well even though it also looks random. What can you do to alter an image or create a self-doodled background? I hope this gave you some ideas, have a creative week!

Coloring On Wood

I think my head is finally getting back in the swing of things after the frantic days of CHA. Here is a quick, very simple tutorial. A couple months ago I showed how to color something to make it look like wood, here I am coloring on wood to make it look like wood. Since Copic markers are alcohol based, they work on many surfaces that water-based would not look as clean on.

Wood tag project
Large wood tag by Kaiser crafts: E33 Wide, E55, E44. I started by coloring the background with my wide E33.

I was streaky because I wanted it to look like wood grain. Then I added some streaks of E55 and last, some darker tones with E44. I was careful to keep all my streaks in the same direction, but also uneven (Look at my post on coloring wood for a stepped-out diagram of how to color wooden-looking things).

Note that I used a little less of each darker tone, so that the overall effect is one of wood. You should test your browns since each blending family will feel a little different, but they don't always follow the rule of thumb about adding grays as you jump from one family to the next (like from the 40's to the 50's). In this case, the E44 has more gray than the E55, so it seems darker on the project. By adding E44 last it kept the edges on those thin streaks crisp. If I added the dark first it would soften my crisp lines when I added the lighter colors. I darkened the edge of the whole piece with the E44 so it matched the flower better.

Wood Flower by Kaiser crafts: B34, V06. Since this wasn't made of bits of ground-up wood like the tag it absorbed the color different. The marker dyes flowed more with the grain of the wood, while the other piece stayed fairly crisp and clean.

Chipboard Letter, K & Co: Colored with V06, RV29. This started out a light blue, so all I needed to do was add purple to get it to match the flower, then I had to tone the purple more pink with an RV29. I wiped off dense color with a wadded tissue soaked in blender.

Colors change on different Surfaces
People are always asking me to match Copic colors to specific things, papers, inks etc. I must say that this is very difficult, even under the best of circumstances. Anything you color on will pick up color in a unique way.

On this project, the little chipboard letter picked up color very differently than the Wood flower. I used the same purple on the letter that I did on the flower. Not the same looking though! I had to dab in a bit of RV29 to tone the purple so it was more pink/purple like the wood showed, since the glossy paper of the letter and the absorbent wood flower take in color in different ways.

Real wood versus fibers will also pick up the dyes differently. My purple is stronger on the flower than it would be on the other piece of wood. It really depends on what each item is made from.

When you make a personal color chart, use the paper YOU use most often. If you print it out on a different paper some colors may not look the same, especially on thicker cardstocks. Keep this in mind when matching colors across media as well. You won't get it exact without some trial and error.

My final background paper layer is some tracing vellum that I wrinkled up and colored with the bue and purple markers again to get a spotty, grunged-up look that is more see-through in real-life. The big green glass bead is one that I stole from a vase here in my office. I thought it nicely added to the piece. I haven't glued the whole thing in place yet, since I'm still debating wether to add more bling or not. One part of me says "leave good enough alone" the other half of me says "go for it! add more stuff!" we'll see which wins out. Have a great weekend!