Coloring Wood

Here is something that I thought many of you would find useful, how to color things to look like wood. This is for a piece of cut wood, not the trunk of a tree, so think of how you could apply this technique to a wooden fence, old signpost, wooden crate, etc.

Coloring Wood
The nice thing about wood is that Copics come in so many brown colors it's easy to find the tone you want for the type of wood you're looking for. I'm not as familiar with the different families of wood, so I can't give you too many recommendations, but I know that there are colors like Redwood E19, Walnut E59, and Light Mahogany E07. These give you a good reference for your darkest colors to make up that wood type.

1. Start with your lightest brown. In this case I'm going with E31. I don't have to color evenly, but if I have streaks I want them to be in the direction of the wood grain. Sometimes I purposefully leave a bit of white just to make it lighter.

2. Streak in your middle brown. I'm using E34 and I go in the direction of the wood grain, leaving plenty of areas where you can see the lighter color underneath. Again, it doesn't have to be perfect. You'll want some of the woodgrain thick, some thin. Make some of it crooked (not too crooked).

3. Lightly add your darkest brown. Each time you go a shade darker use less of that color so it doesn't overpower the lighter colors. Notice how little E29 I use. This makes it easier for the next part.

4. With your lightest color go back between dark wood grains and add light back in. Look closely at the diagram to see what I mean. Each stroke of E31 doesn't quite touch the stroke next to it, but it comes pretty close. On small areas this is easier to do with the Copic fine nib or the flat edge of the chisel end of either type of marker.

Make these strokes pretty juicy, since this pushes the darker colors out to the edge of each streak, but washes the levels together so your individual streaks become a piece of wood. The trick is to keep these irregular so the board doesn't look all the same.

Now look at the last step, see how all the colors blend together and each of the dark streaks doesn't stand out so much. This looks like a good, simple piece of wood.

If I wanted to add a knot to the wood you can do it in the same way. Make the knot from your middle and darkest color, then when you are streaking in your light color bend around the knot, just like real wood grain bends around a knot. You can make the wood as simple or as complicated as you feel. I once has a picture with wood floors and a wooden table that I worked on the wood grain for a couple hours. I really didn't need to spend that long, but I wanted it to look "perfect".


For faded wood:
Instead of using my lightest brown, use the colorless blender. This will give you that sun-bleached look like driftwood.

For weathered wood:
Add a layer of gray. Here I took my finished piece and just streaked in W3 and W5 to give it that old gray look you get from wood that's been sitting out too long. Remember, I choose Warm grays because they have elements of brown in them to begin with, perfect for graying out old wood.


This final piece is one that I made a few years ago for the Oregon Asian Celebration. It was part of a larger poster of shoes from around Asia for their 2007 theme "Footprints of Asia". Notice how even though I had already colored the wood I could layer in the soft colors of the bamboo and yet you can still see the wood underneath. The fine lines accenting the bamboo were drawn with a gray multiliner. I can't remember what colors I used, but this was on Color Laser Copier paper.

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!

Coloring tiny areas with the Copic Original

I recently had the chance to work with the wonderful ladies at A Muse, training them how to get more out of their Copic Original Markers. A Muse makes tiny little stamps of simple images that are perfect for coloring in, but a Super Brush nib on a Sketch is a little tricky for beginning stampers to use for coloring in their tiny stamps. Most A Muse people use the Copic Original, which has some unique coloring techniques compared to the other marker types.

Tips for coloring tiny areas with a Copic Original:
1. If the paper isn't soaked all the way through it's OK. On tiny areas one little stroke is enough for a smooth color. If you try to soak the paper like you do on larger areas it will bleed and feather, so it's OK to not soak.

2. Try not to go back over the area a second time. One stroke is all you get- any more and you risk bleeding.

3. Plan your blends in advance. Remember, you get one stroke, so you can't go light-dark-light on tiny areas without bleeding. See the tips for blending later in this post.

4. Work slowly but cleanly. You can erase mistakes using your colorless blender, but it's harder to get it perfect on tiny images.

5. Don't scrub over the lines. Although you're not soaking the paper as much, the fine point on a Copic marker is firm and if you press hard it has the potential to pick up your ink more than the soft brush on a Sketch or Ciao.

6. Color in circles keeping all your edges wet. You can get streaks in larger areas if you don't keep your paper damp, so be aware.

7. Practice makes perfect. You might not get it right the first time, but keep trying. Also, when you find a technique that works, WRITE IT DOWN and add it to your example book.

Basic Coloring of small areas
For my first example I colored this little mermaid. She's stamped with the new A Muse Dye ink pad, though I stamped it twice so I could get a nice soft gray value.

I colored the base color of E00 for skin and BG10 for her tail then let it dry completely. This allows me to add a second color without running as much of a risk for bleeding. Then I carefully came in and added one tiny stripe of darker colors for shadows. Last I added a few dots on her scales with the darker BG45.

With this technique notice how all my color edges are crisp with no blends. This is usually easiest on small areas. Also, I didn't scan it in, but the color on her arms didn't make it all the way through to the backside, and that's OK because it looks fine on the front and I'm not blending in any other colors.

Blending Techniques on small areas
For long, narrow areas that you really only have one stroke on, your best bet will be either using the Tip to Tip blending technique or the Palette Blending technique. Both of these take practice. You'll have to do a bit of trial and error until you figure out just the right amount of color that you've picked up on the tip of your marker. These techniques work better when you have a light colored marker and you add dark to the tip.

For this image I used the A Muse Birdhouse stamp. I colored in a streaky manner the main house area, then added some E49 to the tip of my fine end of the E55. Then I streaked in the darker color to accent the wood grain.

If you want something to fade to white, use the colorless blender and pick up your color onto it. Remember to clean the tip after adding second colors- it won't ruin the tip but the next time you color it may have a tiny color residue that ruins your creation.

Why didn't I just add the E49 directly to the picture? E49 is way too dark for E55, and it's in a different blending group. By adding it to the tip of the E55 it mixes better with the E55, so it lightens up and it looks good with the lighter brown. It's easier to get a softer feel with the grains fading out without having to blend them out. Notice on the narrow strips for teh birdhouse I added E49 to the tip of the E55 and put one stroke down. Even on the narrow areas it looks like a smooth blend though it's so tiny.

Stamp inks
Also, you may have noticed that I'm using a different ink than usual- A Muse has a new dye stamp pad that works GREAT with Copic markers. I've been testing and using it and I am very pleased. Sometime in December I'm going to run another survey of favorite Paper and Ink combos for stamping, so if you run across a new winner, keep it in mind and save it for the contest.