Markers & Coloring

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Permalink Reply by NYCstamper on January 10, 2010 at 1:51pm

Hi Jessica,

To tone down the colors of the markers you purchased, you could use a blender pen (a colorless marker). To do this, you will need a non-porous surface like an acrylic block (I use a white watercolor tray to see the colors better, but you can just place a white sheet of paper under the acrylic block), then you will need to scribble a couple of short lines of the marker onto the block and pick up a bit of color with the blending marker. I believe many stampers like using the Dove blender pen. I use a colorless Tombow marker. You could also use a damp watercolor brush (I saw at a convention someone using a damp sponge to wet the watercolor brush). Anyway, you can also mix a couple of the bright colors to create secondary colors on the acrylic block by running a couple of lines of one color, then lay a second color next to it (but not on top otherwise you might stain the marker tip), then you take your blender or watercolor brush and pick up a bit of each color and mix onto another part of the block before applying. You can darken a color by picking up a little bit of black and mixing it with your marker color. If you want to clean the colorless marker, you simply run it on a clean sheet of white paper until it runs clean (only a few strokes should do). I don't know for sure if this would eliminate all brush strokes, but it might help to give you more color options and lighter shades. I have not invested in Copic markers because I have been able to use this marker technique to suite my coloring needs. The blender pen can help you achieve great shading by applying a lighter shade first going form the edge to the middle (leaving the middle the lightest) and running darker shades as you go along the edges.

I love experimenting with markers so much that I have sets of Crayola pip squeaks and watercolor art markers in addition to Zig and some Marvy markers and depending on the mood I can make any of these work. The nice thing about markers is that you can use them directly onto rubber stamps as ink pads, so it increases your color options. I've even taken a couple of the cheaper markers, colored onto an acrylic block, and used a rubber stamp to mix the colors (by turning the stamp on the acrylic block) and then stamp-- got a very cool effect. You can also use a fine mist bottle to spritz onto the "palette" before mixing. There are a lot of things you can do, so try experimenting. I hope this helps.

Doreen (NYCstamper)

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Permalink Reply by Lorna McArthur on January 10, 2010 at 1:53pm

Hi Jessica
I'm a member on another forum & I have added the link for information about copic & promarkers. I've bought copics, although a bit dearer to purchase, they can be refilled - even the ciao.
Any way this is the link telling you how to use etc

http://www.docrafts.co.uk/crafttalk/messageTree.aspx?id=3417647&...

Hope that helps
Lorna
x

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Permalink Reply by Jessica Reyes on January 11, 2010 at 9:12pm

i appreciate the information! I will continue to work with the markers & buy the blender pen to see if this helps. we all have to begin somewhere! and maybe if i think that i will like coloring with markers on stamps...which i already do, i'll probably invest little by little in a collection of better ones.
I'll also check out the link you sent me lorna!

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