Stormy Summer Skies

Hello Everyone!!  Today's tutorial is meant to be Summer themed and yes, usually people reach for things related to the beach, pool, drinks or BBQ type things.......after the last few weeks, the most appropriate thing here in 'sunny' Queensland is Stormy Skies!!  We've had a shocker of a start to Summer, storm after storm not to mention the massive storm that had hail the size of cricket balls pelt the city and caused over $800 million worth of damage.  So on that note, let's go play at creating some stormy skies......

I've used this cute image by Unity from their Hodgepodge of Happiness stamp set, stamped it in Memento Tuxedo Black onto X-press It Blending Card and coloured with Copics.
Umbrella/Boots - Y11, Y15, Y17
Bench - E81, E84, E87
Dress - B00, B12, B14, RV11, RV13
Grass - YG11, YG13, YG17, E81, BG93

So far our sky is just white card and that doesn't look very stormy at all!  To create some clouds I've used some X-press It Mask It and Spellbinders Labels 6 Die.  (You could cut your own custom shape if you don't have a cloud shaped die!)

While I have the Mask It out, I've stamped another image (also onto Blending Card because it's nice and smooth and you can reuse the mask), put a piece of Mask It over the top so it's stuck to the white card and then cut the image with a pair of scissors.  You want to cut it nice and tight otherwise you'll have a white line around your image.

Peel off the Mask It and place it over your coloured image.

Because the sky goes a weird green colour when there is hail in a storm, I'm lightly airbrushing the sky with BG93 first.

Then peel off your cloud shape and place it in the sky of your image.  I've used C3 to make my storm clouds.

Once you've lightly airbrushed around the edge, move it around and repeat.  This will give the effect of clouds in the sky.  I've gone a step further and added some C5 to really deepen those clouds.  (Not totally replicating the recent hail storm - they were more like C9!)

I've also gone back and added a little more BG93 as well as an all over C1 to dull the clouds a bit.  I've also taken the BG93 and airbrushed down the the ground - it won't effect the coloured image since she is protected by the Mask It!  Once you are happy with the way your sky looks, peel off your mask and put it back on your original stamped piece and save it for the next time you need it!

Make your card!

Just to note - I would never recommend sitting on a bench under an umbrella in a hail or electrical storm.....in fact I'd be running for cover and unplugging all the electricals in the house!  However, she makes a cute card don't you think?!

I hope you've enjoyed today's tutorial and everyone here at Copic Oz would like to wish all our readers a very Merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year!  See you in 2015!

Happy Colouring
Kathy  :)Pin It

Easy Typography for your Copic Projects

Today I'm going to let you in on a little secret - my lettering isn't always what I'd like it to be, so I CHEAT.  So in an effort to help all those other typographically challenged people out there, I'm going to share my secret formula for creating beautiful lettering on your cards, journals or scrapbook pages.

Two reliable ways to create beautiful typography:

1. Use Word (or similar program) to create desired lettering, choose a outline only font, print this in very light grey using a laser printer.  You can trace straight over this printed word with Copics and if you are neat, no one will ever know you didn't write this yourself!
   NB: test your printer ink to make sure it is Copic safe before trying this, all laser printers are Copic Safe, only some ink jet printers have Copic safe ink.  For information on how to test your ink read this post.
2. You learned this second method in Elementary/Primary School.  Print the word onto paper, flip the paper over and scribble on the back very heavily in soft lead pencil (eg: 2B), turn the paper back over place it over your project and then trace over the word - this transfers the carbon/graphite from the pencil creating a copy onto your card or page.
   NB: Only one thing you need to know here, tracing over pencil with Copic makes the pencil permanent - you can't rub it out later!  So this works best if outlining with black or dark coloured Copics that will hide the pencil lines.

I used the pencil trace method for the lettering on this project, as I knew I would be using black, which would hide the pencil lines.

For today's project, I will be printing directly onto my X-Press It Blending card and tracing over the printed text.

What I Used:

• Copic Multi Liners: 0.3 Black, Turquoise, Pink, BS Cool Gray (Brush Tip)
• Copic Marker: RV09, BG32 & BG49
• AtYou Spica: Turquoise & Pink
• XPress It Blending Card
• Font - Victorian LET

Begin by tracing over your printed outline with a black Copic Multi Liner - I used 0.3

Using your favourite coloured Copic Multi Liners add a little doodling, I started with Turquoise.

Then add a little pink, leaving quite a bit of white space.

Swap to some of those yummy sparkly Spica pens and add a little more doodling.

Finish by adding simple dots to fill the remaining white space - don't make all of your marks doodles, keep some marks simple so your design doesn't look too busy.

To make your design pop off the page,  edge your letters using a cool grey - I used the Copic Brush Tip Multi Liner for this as it has a wondeful precision tip.

To complete my card I needed some ribbon, sadly I didn't have a colour to match the Turquoise, so Copics to the rescue!  I coloured some white ric-rac with my Copic Marker BG32.

I had the same problem with the glitter on my tree, so once again I used my Copic Markers in RV09 & BG49 to recolour the glitter elements on my embellishment.

When you put it all together the finished Christmas card looks like this.

I hope this post has given you a few ideas about how you could incorporate Copics into your Christmas cards and create beautiful lettering on your Copic projects!

Back with more next year and wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

Kate

Pin It