PROMARKER/COPICS SHOESTRING TUTORIAL - BLENDING

PLEASE ALSO SEE MY 2012 SERIES OF PROMARKER TUTORIALS HERE!

This tutorial is for blending using just 2 colours to achieve various tones and shades. The image I have chosen is Butterfly Swirl digiz courtesy of Dewdrop Craftz. She's only £1.99 if you want to download her.

I specifically chose this stamp for the tutorial because its 1. Scary 2. A challenge and 3. Gorgeous! I know a few people have mentionned they don't know where to start with this stamp and I think it will show off very effectively how to blend so that any other stamp you colour in will be a breeze. I resized to 4 inches tall for the example as this is a nice size to work with and will fit on your square cards.

You can colour any image using the same technique.



Firstly lets look at how the pens work. If you have ever watercoloured you will know that dropping paint onto a wet surface will cause it to spread out and blend. Painting onto a dry surface will leave a hard edge. Promarkers and copics work just the same, they have a wet and dry state. The example on the left shows the bleed from adding a line to an area still wet and on the right adding a line over a dry colour. The one on the left bleeds out more. Going over the dark colour again will make it bleed out into your light colour creating a tone.



Shall we start? Give yourself plenty of time to do this, kick back and relax and firstly colour in the skin tone as per the previous tutorial here (Vanilla and pastel pink)
Paperwise I use either Stampin up whisper white or tesco finest printer paper. Bristol board is also popular but soooo expensive!
OK off we go!
Choose a very light colour and a very dark colour of the same group. In the example I have chosen pale pink and mulberry promarkers (Joanna Sheen sells these)
You could use your pastel pink again and a darker pink but select what you have so long as its a light and dark. Decide where your light source is, I have chosen from the left. Start with your light shade and colour in parts of the image such as the dress and hair. I work in segments for this image. Now I must mention here that each time I colour in the image I might decide one line is hair and the next time its part of the wing, its part of the fun so dont worry too much, colour in what YOU think is the hair and dress leaving the wings for now. Leave the parts nearest your light source white for now.

(Your light source is where you imagine the sun is so areas furthest away will be shaded and those nearest will be lighter)
To create some tone touch the nibs of your light and dark together to pick up some colour and starting from the area that will be darkest colour in and push up into the lighter area leaving some original light and white showing as the 2nd pic below shows. You might want to do this a couple of times until you're happy with the tones achieved.

Whilst your ink is still WET run a line of your darkest across. Then using your light pen, colour straight over this pushing it upwards. This will give more tones but a bit darker. Repeat as required again leaving some original light and white behind. When you're happy let it dry off a little and add your dark to give you a shadow.

This is how we should be looking. Take it slowly, you'll get quicker with practice!

When you're happy with the results you have for the dress and hair move onto the wings. As I said previously it doesnt matter which bits you choose to colour in, leave some blank, do some darker or lighter its part of the fun with this stamp :)

To do the wings I have switched the colours so my dominant colour is now the darker tone. Colour and blend as before as the pic shows in progress.

And the finished result! Not bad for 2 colours :) If you're really lucky and have a copic spica glitter pen in clear you can bling this up with some sparkle :D

I hope this is of some use and you practice your blending. Once you master the technique you'll be able to colour anything!