Digital Printouts, Testing Inks, & Giveaway

I know many of you like to print out blank pictures and color them in with your Copics. This is the technique I use when doing an Illustration, I draw it then scan it in, touch it up, and print it out. However, a lot of you still have questions.

Digital Printouts
Copic Marker inks will not destroy lines printed out from a laser printer or standard photocopier. This is because they are toner-based devices and the toner is fused to the paper so the alcohol ink from the markers will not destroy it.

Many of you are working with inkjet printers though. This gets a little more tricky and I can't say it will work or not. Each printer uses slightly different inks and you really need to test your printouts before you color and make a mess. My mom uses a really old inkjet and any kind of moisture will destroy a printout from her machine. However, we have a newer, large format Hewlett Packard printer with archival, pigment inks at work and the markers color just fine on things I've printed from there.

Testing Inks
Testing a printer ink is the same as testing any other inks. Print something out on the same paper you would regularly color on, then follow the steps on this older post to see if your ink will hold up without destroying your marker nib.

Another technique I frequently use is to make a blob with my marker next to the ink I'm going to be testing and "push" the marker into the ink line by over-soaking the paper. Here I am testing a cheap ballpoint pen ink to see if it will bleed with my markers. I'm careful to not let the tip of my marker touch the ink line. Work with a light colored marker so you can easily tell if it's messing up the line. This is the technique I show during Certification Classes.

As you can see, cheap ballpoint pens do not work well with Copic markers. However, if you have a large colection of ballpoint pens you can donate them to kids in Africa who need them for school through the nonprofit organization Pens for Kids. This would help them have a happy Holiday season and help you clean out some of the clutter in your drawers.

Happy Holidays Giveaway
Meanwhile, I have an early Christmas gift for you. Your very own blank picture to download and try coloring with markers.

I'll be coloring this later this week, but I first need your help coming up with something for the little bird to say.

You could be the lucky winner...

Simply leave a comment today with:

1. A suggestion for what the bird should say .

2. If you have an inkjet printer let us know what model (or kind of ink in the printer) you use and how well Copics work when you color printouts. If you decide to print this out and color it then you can also leave a link here to your finished piece.

Thanks for playing! On Thursday I will choose a random winner from the comments to get a mixed goody bag worth about $40 in Copic products. And I'll show some of my favorite things for the bird to say.

By the way, I was going to have the bird say "Now all we need is a Dame singing love songs..." You could probably come up with something better :)

Good Luck!

Note: This Contest is now closed. Comments are still welcome on printer types but prize winners have already been chosen.