Fine Art Papers & A quick ATC

This week my office companion is at the National Art Materials Trade Association (NAMTA) wholesale show. It's been a while since I have gone to that show. I love going because it's like walking into a candy store for Art Supplies. Best of all, I can talk to real pros from each company, my counterparts, who work for the companies they love and use their products in their own artwork. It's not open to the public, but if any of you have gone to CHA and walked through the fine-art vendor area you get a small taste of NAMTA.

Anyways, I have had a lot of artists bug me about fine art papers that are good for working with Copic markers, so I want to do a few reviews as time goes on (for you fine artists, currently my favorite paper is the Copic Sketchbook paper, followed by the Borden & Riley Paris Bleedproof Paper for Pens or the Aquabee Manga Artist Pad).

Playing with Fine-Art Papers
A while ago, I picked up this pack of paper from the Strathmore booth. They have some fabulous people working with them, and I have always loved Strathmore papers for my art projects in college.

Anyways, I was cleaning a drawer and I found this assorted pack for Artist Trading Cards (ATC's) and figured I should begin experimenting with some of the papers.

Most of the papers in this pack are too absorbent to color on in the same way I suggest working your markers on thinner cardstock like the Neenah Classic Crest 80# or other popular stamping papers. However, you can still color on them, just be aware of feathering and sucking your marker dry if you try to soak the paper. You really can color on anything you want, but each paper type needs to be treated differently to get the best results for that unique surface (just like the coloring I did on vellum was totally different than the coloring I do on regular cardstock).

Personal coloring habits also change your preception of a paper, so don't take my word as the final say - you need to try it for yourself. There are 7 different papers to play with in this pack, so I'll try to give feedback as I play with them all.

Strathmore Acrylic - Heavyweight Linen-Finish paper for Acrylic Painting
The first paper that caught my eye was the Acrylic. This is 246 lb. paper with a nice linen-finish texture. It's meant for Acrylic painting, which is why it's so heavy and it is absorbent. It had such a nice weight and was so inviting to touch that I knew I had to use it.

On my final ATC the Acrylic is the base card stock. If I were to just draw on it and color with single smooth strokes or give it quick, even coloring it worked fine. Once you try to do more complex special effects or blending it doesn't keep your ink where you want it to go or it uses too much ink.

Knowing this, I ended up with a couple bottles of various ink that I dripped on and then layered stuff from there (the top illustration of the man is made on Neenah Classic Crest). BTW, when I dripped the ink on it bled through the back and looks pretty neat.

The ink was nice and vibrant (before I added lots of dark blues) and I love how the paper sucked up the ink and accented the texture of the paper. For mixed media this paper is great- nice and heavy so I could punch holes in it and string my twine through with ease.

My conclusion?
Great for vibrant colors or mixed media, not good for detailed marker illustration with complex coloring. Love the texture, just be aware that if you are working with the tiny 0.03mm Multiliner be careful how much pressure you give the pen, as the texture is rough and uneven. You need a very light hand, but too light a hand will cause the pen to be uneven and too heavy a hand will damage the point. Otherwise, it doesn't have little fibers that will pull up, so in that sense it is a very clean surfaced paper. I think I would use this paper if I were doing colored-pencil over evenly colored marker areas, as the texture would really make the pencils pop!

Has anyone else tried this paper with your markers? Please leave your feedback!

"Painting" on Vellum with markers

I promised a few days ago to post the step-by-step on my new blog header. I am calling this "Painting" on Vellum because it is more like painting than working with the markers on regular paper. I'll step you through my entire process so you can get a feel for how I illustrate.

Background
I began with a pencil sketch of some peaches based on a few photos I looked at on the internet. I decided to go with clusters of peaches still on the branch, rather than peaches on a flat surface. Then I quickly outlined the main lines with a multiliner and erased my pencil.

You'll note that the image is reversed from the finished work. This is because I am coloring the back-side of the vellum from what I want the final to be. My colors look more intense on the reverse and more streaky. On my final work the colors look more washed together because I scanned the front of the vellum. (If you are doing this technique you don't have to do it reversed).

Next, I taped my Vellum to the background paper so the image wouldn't shift.

When working on vellum I like to do the largest areas first, in this case the main background color-wash. I added a few streaks of W3 and W1 in the top of the image and I added B97 and W1 to the bottom for my background colors. I then took my sketch colorless blender and washed the colors back and forth in long, even strokes. I was OK with this being streaky since I wanted my final to look more paint-like than usual.

Notice how I am not worrying about going over the lines into my leaves or peaches. I clean this up next. I grabbed my juiciest colorless blender and erased all the areas I didn't want colored yet.

On the larger areas I used the chisel nib to erase. I start in the middle of an area I want clean and I swipe up any marker on the vellum. It gets picked up onto the tip of the colorless blender, so I have to scribble it off onto scratch paper or a paper towel. Otherwise I would just be smearing the colors around more.

Slowly but surely I erase any areas that I need clean. I use the fine point on my smallest detail areas last. Now I am ready to add color.

Leaves
I want my leaves to be fairly bright green, so my base green is G14. The natural shadow for G14 is G16 and then I need a really deep, dark shadow for the most contrast so for the darkest areas I use G99. Remember, working on vellum is more like painting, so I know that although my first strokes of G99 look all wrong next to the brighter G16 once I go back over them with the G14 then it all looks good together.

I also tend to work dark to light when blending on vellum. I add my deep G99 shadows, streak in some G16, then go back with my G14 and in smooth strokes I blend all 3 together. I work in the direction of each leaf along it's spine so that any streaks I may have will flow naturally together.

Now my colors seem to have flattened out and smoothed together. If you lose too much contrast just add more dark back in. The beauty of Vellum is you can erase completely, so a mistake is never permanent. I also will be deepening my shadows later, so I'm not worried that I lost my darkest G99.

Note how I am making sure that leaves far away are darker than the leaves in front. Always be aware of your shadows so you don't have a big shadow problem when you are done. On a larger illustration like this I strongly suggest doing a shadow study first.

On the bright green leaves in the foreground I got the shadow simply by layering the G14 twice. You get much more color range from a single marker on vellum than you do on regular paper. You'll also see some slight veins in the leaves. After I colored the smooth main color on each leaf I went back in with my middle green, or G16, and lightly drew in the veins- not too much, it more of the hint of veins.

Last I add E55, E59, and E49 for the branch. Again, streak in the direction that the wood grows for it to look most natural.

If you look at this comparison you will see how the side I am coloring on looks richer and darker, but it also looks too crisp for the effect I want. By flipping it over you get just a bit more softness and the colors look smoother (also, the camera picks up the gloss on the colored side more than the matte finish on the reverse).

It is all a matter of personal taste, so don't think you HAVE to do it the way I do.

Now our picture is really starting to take shape. Looking back now it might have been easier to do my peaches first and erased the leaves back out. Oh well, maybe next time.

Peaches
Just like on the leaves, I added my deepest shadows first with the YR07 and E99. I blended these together in curved strokes (to mimic the curved peach surface) with a little E97 and mostly E95. On paper these colors would be way too dark, but on vellum you get more subtleties out of your middle/dark colors.

On the side of the peach closest to the light I removed extra color with the colorless blender. Sometimes when you layer too many colors on vellum you get a bad build-up of excess color. It's a good idea to clean it up as you work so you aren't muddying your blends.

Keep your strokes as minimal as possible if you want to avoid streaks. Again, I wanted a more paint-like look so I don't mind the streaks like I usually would.

After I colored and blended each peach I added my final layer of deepest shadow with a E19.

You might be confused why I'm mixing E's and YR's on my peaches. On vellum, most of my YR markers were too light, so I had to go darker than usual. If you darken a Y or a YR too much then you end up getting browns, or E's. The color families in the E's that I am working with are very reddish- The E90's are all orange browns and the E10's are reddish.

Last, I color the markers with T5 and T6 washed together with the blender. The only other color I used is the R59 for the tip of the red marker.

Adding darker shadows
When I finished working the back side I flipped over my picture. I want to deepen some shadows that were lost, but I also want to keep my lighting and shadows consistent. So from the front side, or the un-colored side of the vellum, I added shadows under the markers and on the leaves with B97, the same blue that I used on my background. This pulls all my colors together and it cools down my shadows.

Here is my final artwork again, scanned and color-corrected (much better than the in-progress photos). All the little subtleties came together and make a good whole. I see a whole bunch of problems with this art, but I know that I will always be my own hardest judge. I hope this helps you get a good idea of how you can also get a "painted" look with your markers on vellum.

Blog candy winner

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Our Craft Lounge blog hop this weekend! As an artist I appreciate reading everyone's feedback to see which illustrations catch your eye the most. I always appreciate critical feedback as well, or else I won't improve in my work.

Out of 157 comments, the winner of this patriotic stamp set from my blog is:

Random.org

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

18 

Timestamp: 2009-05-04 08:01:12 UTC

Number 18, is Marisa, a new blogger (good luck with blogging!). Marisa's comment was:

I might even be able

to make that star! Thanks for the tip.

Marisa, you need to send me an e-mail with your address so we can get that out to you. Again, I want to thank everyone for their comments and feedback.

Certification for Papercrafting
Just a little update on June Certification classes. July classes are still up in the air, but I should have details soon.

Applications have gone out for the following June Classes:
June 6th, Winnipeg, Canada taught by Sherrie Siemens
June 14th, Belmont NH taught by Sally Lynn MacDonald
June 28th, Durham NC taught by Sally Lynn MacDonald
Please send me an e-mail if you still need an application.

Applications will go out today for:
June 11th Salt Lake City, UT taught by Marianne Walker
Please send me an e-mail if you haven't registered for our mailing list via the sign in form on my sidebar. I will also be doing in-store visits and make 'n takes on this trip on June 12 & 13, so come and visit- locations TBA.

Also, All May classes are now open to the public. Please send me an e-mail if you need an application:
May 17th, Rockland, MA (Sally Lynn)
May 20th, Portland, OR (Marianne)
May 31st, Smithville, OH (Sally Lynn)

New Blog Header
You may have noticed that I made a new blog header. I'll post the step-by-step later this week, but just so you know- these peaches were drawn on vellum which is why they have a very paint-like feel.

I love the unique qualities of working on vellum and how it is so forgiving as far as erasing. It's like the layering ability of oil paint with the feel of watercolor and the ease of marker. I also like it because I tend to draw black & white outlines and fill them in, whereas the vellum is transparent so I can draw my guidelines on another sheet and trace through to do my final coloring.

Doodle Star & Friday Fun

It's a little early for the 4th of July, but my dear friend Cami over at Our Craft Lounge got me to play along with their new stamp release blog hop. I couldn't resist, since I drew 17 new sets for Summer. You'll have to go see their full list of Summer releases to see all the fabulous new stamp sets, not just by me, but by the other OCL artists as well.

This is from the new set I drew, Let Freedom Ring. When they first asked me to make some patriotic sets I immediately thought back to my A.P. US History study sessions when I was in High School. We would always go to my friend's house to study, and her mom had the whole downstairs decorated in antique 4th of July (very fitting when studying the Revolutionary War). I couldn't resist drawing a beautiful, old-fashioned set in memory of my friend's sweet mom, who died only a couple months after we graduated.

I made this quick box ensemble from a piece of red paper that I doodled stars onto, since I didn't have a patterned paper that I wanted to use for this project. Same with the blue paper. If you look below I show you how to draw quick stars using your Super-brush nib on your Sketch or Ciao markers.

I used B34, B37, R32, R39, Y17, E31, E33, W1, W2, G85 on these stamps. The origami box was made to hold the little poppers you see around it, I think this would be a fun gift for my son this 4th of July. The border stamp was perfect for decorating the sides of the box, and I toned down the white areas with my warm grays to really add to the antique feel. The buttons are from my stray button jar - I like how they are mis-matched.

Sometime I'll post my directions for folding the box. If you've never played around with Origami I strongly suggest getting a beginner's book and trying it sometime. It's a lot of fun and pretty simple. Here's another simple technique you can try right now:

Doodle Star
To make the star pattern on the blue paper I used the side of a super-brush nib. Press it down gently on it's side to make one drop-shape. Put 5 drop shapes together, point out and you have a perfect star (or a flower depending on how you look at it).

Friday Fun
As part of the OCL new release I am giving away one of the Let Freedom Ring sets. All you have to do is leave a comment on today's post and we'll draw winners on Monday. It's that easy. Please be sure to leave your e-mail address so we can contact you when you win! You can check out other neat projects for Our Craft Lounge Summer Release from these fabulous crafters:

• Diana Gibbs • Jeanne Streiff • Heather McNally • Nancy Morgan • Valerie Stangle • Vicki Garrett • Denise Marzec • Lila Holgate • Holly McMillen • Pam Hooten • Jacqui Lines

• Carol Halvorson • Debbie Corbari • Deb Felts • Joy Kennedy • Cindy Lawerence • Sherry Cheever • Kendra Wietstock • Bethie Silaika • Roseanne Knowles • Kisa Peters • Cambria Turnbow • Amber Hillman


Have a great weekend! I have some neat stuff to show you soon, as well as updates on Certification classes, so stay tuned.

A Cute Marker Story...

I recently got a newsletter from our Canadian Copic Distributor for papercrafting, Open Page Wholesalers. I thought it was cute story by Paula and that you would enjoy it (it also reminds you of the durability of the markers):

The tale of the yellow Copic Marker.

Once upon a time, some sample Copic Markers were sent to a
very enthusiastic distributor, who wanted to share her Copic joy with
all her retailers. She took them home and played to her heart's
content.

A day or so later, a sneaky little goblin (aka one of her 5
kids, which one we will never know) kidnapped the yellow marker and
whisked it away to his/her castle (sandcastle in the backyard).

During the next few weeks, as the leaves began to fall the
yellow marker watched the goblins at play and may even have become a
flag pole in one of their castles.

Fall turned to winter and the goblins retreated into the
warmth of their home leaving the poor little yellow marker to brave
the frigid and freezing temperatures beneath a small layer of sand.
The snow lasted from November through to April.

Finally, the sun returned and a spring clean-up took place in
the backyard, including a raid with a rake through the goblin sandpit
lair. Lo and behold, the enthusiastic distributor discovered her long
lost yellow marker, and what greater joy to her heart than to find the
marker no worse for ware and that the nibs were in tact and the ink
still flowed freely. The lids had remained on during the whole winter.

The moral of this story is to keep your Copic Markers locked
away from little goblins, and if they do happen to get kidnapped,
check the most unlikely places first. If you don't find them
immediately, don't worry - Copic Markers are the superheros of the
marker world.

I love my Copic Markers, especially the yellow one.

as told by Paula Jones, Open Page Wholesale

Coloring Rocks part 1 - Pebbles on the ground

I'm back from Chino. Although I was the substitute teacher, we had a great class and Prima has a fabulous facility. It was fun to teach there and meet so many crafters. I can't wait to go back!

I realized as I was digging through topics that I've talked about that I haven't gone into depth about rocks yet. Here is the first of many posts about rocks. This technique is useful for adding a ground-plane to anything that needs some foundation, along a river, or livening up a garden path. It is very easy and very adaptable.

Small Pebbles
This is one of my favorite ways to color a rock path or add some simple ground where there was nothing before. It is an easy technique that involves a lot of scribbling and dotting. You'll need to work on a paper that gives nice, crisp special effects with the blender- for stampers I really like the Neenah Classic Crest Solar White or Copic Stamping Paper , for illustration I prefer either the Copic Sketchbook or Color laser Copier Paper.

If you look at this little flowerpot I drew you will see what I mean. I could have made a plain, flat shadow, instead I gave it a pebbly ground to sit on, which is much more interesting.

For my larger piece today I am working with a garden path that I drew on color laser copier paper. First, pick out some pale, earthy colors to give your path a base color. For things far away use cooler colors like Cool Gray 0, 1, 2 or 3. It's OK to use colors that are a little darker than you want for the final image because the colorless blender will lighten up all your colors in the end.

I like to work with a base of light gray or brown (in this case C1 & 3 and W1 & 3). I add all my shadows and shading now, without worrying as much about blending. I scribble in a slightly darker color. Scribbling leaves some spots of the base color showing through which is important to make the pebbles look irregular.

Last I add tiny dots of my darkest colors or hints of secondary colors (colors besides gray or light brown). Use little specks that are dark and larger specks that are lighter so that your final picture won't be overwhelming with dark pebbles.

Why add tiny dots in different colors?
Adding small amounts of a variety of colors will make a big difference in the end. Dots add visual interest to areas that would otherwise be boring and flat. Look at my example here.

When you touch your blender to the middle of a dot it pushes the color out to the edge, making it look like there is a rock of a different color. Or, if a dot falls between two spots where you add blender it looks like a shadow of rocks that are slightly different. In this case I also added dots of G21, a pale green. Why green? Because where I live in wet Oregon, if you have a pebble path you're going to have moss. The specks of green will hint at moss in my final picture without being overwhelming.

Now I am ready to add pebbles.

There are a couple of ways of doing this. I am using the most tedious method because I want the most control over my finished work. I am using the fine point on a Copic Original Colorless Blender and I simply touch straight down, hold it for a moment, and then the color pushes out, leaving a little pebble.

I like using this method because I can make the pebbles far away tiny and the rocks up close larger with a lot more precision. It takes a long time to make each dot for a picture this large, and I probably would have drawn a smaller picture if I had remembered how long it takes to make that many dots. If you want an easier way you can use a textured cloth dampened with colorless blender and dabbed on to create rocks. The longer you hold your blender in place the more it will push the base color out of the way.

For my final picture you can see how all my careful dotting works beautifully for the evenly textured path. You can tell that the path far away is made with smaller dots, closer I used bigger, more defined dots. I dabbed the grass texture on using an old rag that I added a darker green onto. I could have drawn the picture more evenly, but I don't mind if the path is a little crooked since it's the technique that's important.

I used a LOT of colors for this single picture, however, It takes a lot of colors sometimes to get the look you are going for. The darkest colors I used very little of since I wanted people to know that this was a bright, sunny day.

Good luck with your own projects! I'll try to post more, different rocks over time.

Just Chatting and Certification

Tomorrow I'll post a technique, but I have a couple of quick announcements today. This has been a busy Spring, so we have lots going on...

I just got back this weekend from the Spellbinders Design Team Training 2009. One of the team's surprise bonuses for being chosen to the Spellbinder's Design Team was that they got to be Copic Certified as well. If you get a chance, go check out the Spellbinder's blog to see who was at the class. It was a fabulous bunch of crafters!

Certification
The San Francisco class is now full, as is the Chino class this week. For those of you heading to the Chino class there has been a slight change of plans. Sally Lynn has had something come up in her family so I will be teaching the Chino class. It looks like I get a double-dose of California this week!

Also, we have been updating the Copic website a little at a time. If you ever have questions about what is involved in the Certification Process you can check it out from the homepage under "Certification". This should answer most of your questions.

The Salt Lake City Class is set for Thursday, June 11th. Get on the mailing list as I will be sending out those applications soon, along with other June Classes.

For Illustrators
I just found this fabulous Illustration challenge each week.

Illustration Friday

They choose a word each week and you illustrate something that expresses that word to you. This week's topic is "Impossibility". I wish I had more time to draw, since I have so many ideas that fit into "Impossibility".

I haven't scanned in many of my really impossible pictures, but here's a quick little doodle of a sea-horse from my last week's to-do list that really shows Impossibility. This is the kind of thing that my sketchbooks and to-do lists are full of, (along with more traditional illustrations) but most people never get the chance to skim through my sketchbooks, so I'll try to share more from those as I remember.

I'll post some useful coloring tutorials over the next few days as I travel, so stay tuned.