First Copic Tutorial w/New Stamps!

Since I work from home on Wednesday's it means I have a chance to play today. Not because I'm playing when I should be working (no, really, not!) but because I don't have two hours of drive time nor do I take a lunch. So my Wednesday's seem SO short in comparison! LOL.

So...since I had a chance to play I wanted to share why I LOVE my new Copic markers. I am SOLD on these suckers. I put off buying them because they are expensive and you need a fair amount of colors before you can really do the shading and such correctly. And I figured I had my waterbased markers and I didn't use them much. So how much would I REALLY use these markers and would they be worth the $$ to me? But while I was on the Design Team for Clear Dollar Stamps I got a discount and I decided if I was going to jump on the band wagon...it was a good time to do so. And I'm so happy I jumped!

For starters...here are the supplies we will be using. I bought MY markers at Clear Dollar Stamps (they sell them in sets) but you can also get them at many places online. The stamp I'm using is one of the new ones I picked up this weekend from Prickley Pear Rubber Stamps.



I started off by stamping my image with black ink onto colonial white cardstock from CTMH. I used plain old Marvy ink. I think there are some inks that work better than others with these markers but from my limited experience the Marvy works fine and cleans up easy. It's always been my favorite black ink.

Next I used the lightest color (Honey) and colored in the whole pumpkin.



Then I used a darker shade of orange and outlined the outside areas of the pumpkin.



To blend the colors I went back to the original color (Honey) and blended over the darker lines by going in little circles.


It looks great now, as is...but I wanted my pumpkin more realistic...and how many pumpkins do you know of that don't have a few whiter areas on them?

So I pulled out the "colorless blender". This really is NOT a blender. It's more like a "lifter". It pulls the color up that you've put down. So I did that in a few areas to lift some of the orange off and "rough up" the pumpkin.



Here is a card with the finished pumpkin.



I went ahead and stamped it a second time on colonial white cardstock. Then cut out the pumpkin I'd colored (just the pumpkin) and mounted it over the pumpkin on the second stamped image with pop dot adhesives to give the card some dimension. I mounted it to a piece of cardstock that I'd sanded and then roughed up the edges with scissors. I mounted some decorative paper to the card base and tied a twill ribbon around it...and lastly attached the panel with the pumpkin on it to the base. Finished card fits in a standard letter size envelope.

Now...I guess I need to go do something "useful". LOL. Have a great evening!

Jane