Who wants to win stuff? Become a fan or follower now for extra chances!

It looks like contests are going to be shaping up for later in August. I've got a few prizes I purchased, some cards ready and should have a $50 gift certificate to give away to a large online shopping site that wants to sponsor a contest soon.

The first giveaway is going to be for a membership drive. Everyone who is already a fan or follower at the time I formally announce it will get bonus entries, possibly one bonus for being a fan and one for being a a follower.

So NOW is the time to click on the follow button on the right and become a follower and to click on the Facebook button on the bottom and become a fan.

If you are reading this from a feed, you will need to actually visit the blog to do this.

Duct Tape - Even Useful for Cardmaking

I ran out of plastic store brought metallic looking squares while make the last few copies of this card I previously posted. The craft store that sells them is 20 miles away and they aren't open late at night when I usually make stuff, so I made my own from foil duct tape. Here's the duct tape version.



I stuck the duct tape onto a thin sheet of paper to stabilize it first. It is too flexible and gets wrinkles in it too easily otherwise. Then I punched the remaining squares I needed with a 1/4 inch square punch and put some dimensional foam on the back. They don't have the domed look of the plastic but they get the job done.

Can colored pencils really look this good?

After having done all three coloring techniques I went back and revisted the color pencil and Gamsol technique to see if I could get something closer to the Copic image that had color everywhere instead just a fade to white coloring pattern. I had high hopes for it as cheap way to nicely color stuff for some other ideas I want to explore later.

I changed two things though this time. First, I used different colored pencils. I used Crayola Twistables I brought as a travel pencils a long time ago. These are basically durable plastic mechanical colored pencils for kids don't need a sharpener. The lead in them is softer or different somehow from the other ones I used because I get less pencil marks when coloring with them. The second thing I did was I remembered seeing something on the web in an art homework assignment that students where supposed to do blending without mineral spirits. So, armed with those thoughts, this was my attempt at getting a full color pencil/Gamsol image:




I used the 2 browns, red and a gray out of the Crayola set. There are only 24 colors so picking colors was easy. In order to get different shades of the same color, I put different amounts of pencil down. I only used the dark brown near the edges. I used a dry blending stump to blend and remove the pencil lines as much as possible. Dry blending alone will not get the look you see. Once I was done dry blending, I went back with a little bit of Gamsol on the blending stump and dissolved the dark brown line into the light brown, finished off the removal any more stubborn pencil lines and picked up a little bit of red from the tongue to use on the cat as pink.

I will say, like I said before, blending it takes a bit of work and finger pressure and learning so the technique may not be for everyone. The best way to explain this is I could sit there and color 30 images with Copic markers and not feel anything. This technique requires you to apply at least light pressure on the stump so I wouldn't do a lot of them at once.

I think the end result was worth it though.

Wet Puppy Love or Color Techniques III

Here's puppy love done with watercolor pencils and a Dove blender pen on the same white paper as the colored pencil and Copic marker images. I don't have the exact same shades of brown to use, but you can see the effect. Click on the image if you want the colors or a larger picture.




Using the watercolor pencils and blender pen is all about laying down the colors with the pencils correctly. For this image, the shading on the cat mostly comes from a thin line of black I placed on the edges after I colored the main parts of the cat in gray. The shading on the dog was done by coloring the main parts of the dog in light brown and adding an edge of a darker brown and then an even darker brown near the border. Much like you would do with any other technique.

The upside to the technique is the colors blend fast and your pencil strokes disappear once you apply the blender pen and starting moving. Another plus is the blender pen only wets the top layer of paper so you don't get wrinkled paper. The downside is it didn't take too many strokes from the blender pen before the top layer of paper was coming up even with the lightest of strokes from the pen because it was wet. I was using 110 lb white paper not watercolor paper, but that was the point because watercolor paper is even heaver and has a distinct texture. This was unexpected because the paper doesn't come up usually if you use a brush.

I eventually figured out how much blending I could do with the pen before paper started collecting on it and learned to let the top dry and go back later if I missed a spot. It also took a bit of trial and error to figure out exactly much color to put down because that determines how dark or light your final image ends up being. My first attempt ended up being so dark in the one area I didn't bother finishing it. The cat is a good example area. Put a very light line of black around the cat and you can drag it to be nice shadowing. Put too much and you get a dark gray cat. With the Copic markers and colored pencils, you blend but you can't move the color nearly as far as you can with watercolors so overcoloring doesn't have as much of an effect.

I think you can see in the final image there was nice color blending but it ended up drying a little bit splotchy. Overall the technique is quick but it takes some practice to get proficient in putting down the right amount of color. I only got one shot at blending it before I was risking damaging the paper.

Up next, once I get a card design I like for it, will be take two of the Gamsol technique. I think I figured out how to a get a Copic like image out of it instead of just coloring the edges and blending to white.

Copic Puppy Love or Coloring Techniques II

Continuing the thread I started in the last blog post, here's the same stamp set colored with Copic markers on a new original card right next to the Gamsol coloring technique I did previously so you can see the difference in the results. I was inspired by the folding mechanics on the other card so the new one is a gatefold card that opens in the center but stays closed when the image is tucked behind the words. I also liked with the idea of making the card male friendly so I went with a male friendly blue base and some metal embelishments. Click on the card image to go to the website if you want details or bigger pictures.



      

You can see the colors in the Copic image are much richer and darker since you apply marker ink to the whole image. The coloring technique I am about to describe is not the official Copic technique, but it works very well for me. First I put down the darkest brown against the edges. Then I took a medium brown and colored/blended over the darker brown and extended the coloring into uncolored area some more. Finally I took the lightest brown I was using and colored over the entire area, both the previously colored areas and the white areas, pulling the colors over further but leaving part of the image with just the top coat on it. You need to do this while the other browns are wet to get the colors to blend together well. The one key thing I didn't do that you are supposed to do in the official technique is to color the entire brown area in the lightest color first and then add the other colors and finish with a top coat of the lightest color. This is supposed to help keep the area wetter longer but it also means you end up putting down two coats of the lightest color, which gives you a darker final color than you get if you just put down the top coat to get everything to the same tonal value. A lot of times, I want the lighter color because it offers more contrast and I can't get that if I follow the official method. I repeated the same three color process for the gray. The pink and red are just simply one coat coloring. The pink was applied over the gray.

How does this compare time wise? I think its fairly quick if you have good hand eye coordination and can move the marker around accurately because the ink flows very freely from a Copic marker. In fact, you need to be fairly quick about it because you want to apply the next lighter color while the other one is wet. Other than that you mainly lay the colors down over each other with a circular blending motion and then let it dry and the blending solution in the markers does the rest of the magic. It's hard to gauge when its wet because the colors will look darker wet than they end up when it dries.

How about physical effort? You sort of do the same circle blending techniques with the blending stumps in the Gamsol method but you have to put more physical pressure and effort in to get the blending effect with Gamsol where the ink flows from the Copic marker to the paper with slightest of contact pressure. After a while with the Gamsol technique, my hand needed a break from coloring but I could sit all day and color with Copics if I had enough things stamped out.

How does this compare cost wise? At a suggested retail price of $6.50 per marker, eight Copic Sketch markers cost more than the box of 24 colored pencils and a bottle of Gamsol and a pack of blending stumps and the stamp did combined.

As always, you can click on the card image to see the instructions for making it, including exactly which Copic marker colors I used. I haven't uploaded a new index yet so both of these remain exclusively accessible to blog readers right now.

Up next (week?), I'll do a watercolor pencil/Dove blender pen version of the puppy love image.