Using Copic Markers to Create Stunning Coloured Flowers

Let me start this post by saying I take no responsibility for anyone ending up with a flower colouring addiction.  I'm warning you all these are fun, easy and give fabulous results!  So grab any paper flower and try one of these techniques today.
Please note each technique builds on the one preceding it, so there is some repetition of instructions.

These are the flowers we will be making

Flower #1 - Using 2 Copic Markers for a Realistic Coloured Flower

This technique creates a fabulous flower that looks quite realistic, I love using roses for this as you can really see the colour blends on the underside of the petals.

For this flower you will need:

• Mulberry Paper Flower
• 2 Copic Markers from a natural blending family
• Colorless Blender Various Ink Refill
• Heat Gun /Embossing Gun

Instructions:

Begin with a white or pale coloured paper flower and choose 2 colours of copic marker (I like to use colours that appear in my copic coloured image, from a natural blending family).   For this flower I have used RV63 & RV66.

Colour 1/2 of each petal with your lightest colour working from the outer edge in towards the flower centre - make sure not to colour the whole petal.

Using the darker colour, apply a thin strip of colour to the outer edge of each petal - I just run the side of my marker along the edge of the petals.

Your flower should look like this once finished applying colour from your Copic markers.  You will notice I've made no attempt to blend colours or be particularly neat here - this technique is very forgiving.

The next step is to apply a few drops of Colorless Blender to each petal - add the liquid to the outer edge of each petal - the fluid will wick towards the flower centre and drag a little colour along with it.

 Dry the flower with a heat gun / embossing gun - this will take up to 45 seconds depending on how wet the flower is.

Drying with the heat gun will not only dry the liquid but it also results in discoloured edges to the petals (they darken considerably) giving a beautiful result.

You can watch this flower being created here:

 

Flower #2 - Using 3 Copic Markers to Create a Fantasy Flower

This flower uses 3 colours from different families and adds in a little bling to create a stunning fantasy flower.  This technique really works well on flatter flowers like the gardenia I used here, and though I have used a mulberry paper flower you can use this same technique on fabric flowers also - it looks amazing on satin, though your colours will turn out much lighter! 

For this flower you will need:

• Mulberry Paper Flower  - I like using gardenias for this
• 3 Copic Markers from across colour families (I used: V09, RV09 & YR09)
• Colorless Blender Various Ink Refill
• Stickles Glitter Glue - I used the colour Diamond
• Heat Gun /Embossing Gun

Instructions:

Begin with a white or light coloured paper flower (I like gardenias because they are easy to colour). Choose 3 colours of copic marker (this works to best effect if you choose 3 colours each from a different colour family - though can use a natural blending family as well if you like).

Colour the centre of the flower (avoiding the stamens) - I used V09, you can pick any of the colours to be your centre colour.

Then colour the remaining layers of petals, with the same colour - only add this colour to the to the inner part of each petal.  Your flower should look like this.

Add your second colour next to the first, overlapping a little - making sure to leave white space on each petal for your third and final colour.  Add this second colour to all petals, your flower should now look like this.

Add the third and final colour to remaining white areas of flower, overlapping the third colour over the second colour - you are not trying to blend here.

You should now have something like this and you are ready to add Colorless Blender fluid all over the flower - make sure you have thoroughly wet all petals so that the colours mix and blend.  For this flower you do not need to drip blender onto edges, just wet the flower all over so that the colours blend together.

Dry flower with heat gun / embossing gun as this produces best results.

Add a little stickles to the edges of each petal and leave to dry.

 When dry your flower will look similar to this

 

You can watch this flower being created here:

 

Flower #3 - Bling-It-Up Copic Flowers

These flowers build on the basic techniques from Flower #1 and Flower #2 and add a little (or a lot) of bling to ramp up the wow factor! Depending on your flower choice (flat or dimensional) will decide how many colours you can use to create the copic colour of your flower.  For smaller flowers fewer colours are best, on larger flowers you can use 3 or more colours.

For these flowers you will need:

• Mulberry Paper Flower
• 2 or 3 Copic Markers
• Colorless Blender Various Ink Refill
• X-Press It Clear Gel Glue
• Heat Gun /Embossing Gun
• Lindy's Stamp Gang Starburst Spray (I used Creme Brulee Cream) or Glitz Spritz (I used Royal Amethyst Fire) you could also use the Perfect Pearls Mist from Ranger
• Gala Glitz in White

Instructions:

1. Begin with flower of your choice, flat (like a gardenia) or dimensional (like a rose).  
2. Choose colours of Copic Markers to add to your flower - for a realistic effect perhaps choose colours from a natural blending family or colours that may exist in nature, or go for a wild combination of fantasy colours - the choice is yours.  
3. Apply colour to flower in one of the methods described above.
4. Add Colorless Blending solution to blend and soften colours, then dry with a heat gun.   

It's at this point you add the bling - building on our previously learned techniques.  For each of the following flowers you need to have completed steps 1 to 4.

Example: Shimmer Flower
Copic colours used on this flower BV11 &BV17
After completing steps 1 to 4 spray entire flower with a pale or colourless shimmer spray (I used Starburst Sprays), and dry with heat gun / embossing gun, for a result that looks like this:

Example: Bling Flower
Copic Colours used on this flower YR15 & R39
After completing steps 1 to 4 add Clear Gel Glue to tips of lower petals and sprinkle Gala Glitz over top.  Carefully turn flower upside down and tap to remove excess product and then allow glue to dry completely before use.  DO NOT dry with a heat gun as this can cause your glue to bubble or embellishments to melt.  This gives a result that looks like this:

Example: Shimmer & Bling Flower
Copic colours used on this flower BG13 & BV13
After completing steps 1 to 4  spray entire flower with a pale or colourless shimmer spray (you could even use more than one colour of spray), then add Clear Gel Glue to tips of lower petals and sprinkle Gala Glitz over top.  Carefully turn flower upside down and tap to remove excess product and then allow glue to dry completely before use.   You can also apply these 'bling' techniques to the flatter gardenias and similar flowers. This gives a result that looks like this:

You can watch these flowers being created here:

I hope this has inspired you to pull out some of those unused paper flowers in your stash and colour them up using your Copic markers.  Why not show us what you have created on the Copic Oz Facebook page.

May your day sparkle,
KatePin It

Let Yourself GLOW!

Hello Everyone!  Today I'm going to be talking about creating a 'glow' around your coloured image!  There are a couple of ways of doing this, by either 'flicking' colour out or dotting.

Flicking is one of my favourite technqiues, it's essential for when using the Feathering Technique and it's perfect for adding a glow as well.  :)

The best way to do this technique is to place your marker on the paper and flick it out, leaving a trailing edge (top example).  The action is all in the wrist!  Don't use the 'tick' action (middle example) - you don't need to go downwards first, only across.  Don't leave a hard edge (bottom example) - you won't get a lovely soft edging around your image unless you have the flicked edge.

I've used Flourishes Hello Baby stamp set for the first image.  I've coloured the outfit pink and then used BG0000 for the glow.

Start flicking around the edge of your image. 

I find that it works easiest with a very pale colour - you can always go around again to darken it up, which is what I've done here!

 If you want to make your 'glow' a little darker, use the next Copic maker in the range, in this case I've flicked a little BG000 (but don't flick as far out as the BG0000) and then flicked out again with lighter colour.

I really like using BG0000 or B0000 for glows around my images because it's like a sky colour, however, sometimes blues are not ideal for your image.  This time I've coloured the outfit blue and added a yellow glow with YR30.  You can darken the glow with a little touch of YR31!

If you want to add a little texture, try dotting on colour instead of flicking!  This is a fun and totally random effect!

This time I've used this fabulous hat image from Flourishes' Feminine Charm stamp set.  I've started by dotting on a light colour, in this case I've used E50, in larger dots using the tip of the Super Brush Nib.

Next I've dotted on some E51, still using the tip of the brush nib, but made the dots smaller and not as far out from the image.

Next I've dotted on some E53, still using the brush nib and also made the dots smaller and closer to the image.

To soften the dots, I've added more E50 in the gaps until I'm happy with the finished effect!  Obviously you don't have to use these colours, it depends on your image and what will work best!

Have fun trying some different effects for your images and make your artwork GLOW!!  :)

Happy Colouring!
Kathy  :)

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Copic Journals

Copic journals - where do I begin??  When people talk about Copic Journals they are often discussing different things without even knowing it, from now on I will be calling mine by the following names:

• Copic Art Journal - a visual art journal or diary in which Copic Markers are used, and
• Copic Colour Journal - which records colour combinations, ideas on colouring, techniques and often a printed chart with purchased/wanted marker colours.

Now these could be combined into the one book but many people (myself included) have a separate book or journal for each of these purposes, mainly because my Copic Art Journal is a tiny bit messy - just a little bit.  Now on to a few examples...

Beginning a Copic Colour Journal
To start your own Copic Colour Journal the following items are essential:

• Copic Markers in assorted colours
• Copic suitable card (my all time favourite is X-Press It Blending Card A5 as it's already cut to perfect journal size and works so beautifully when blending)
• Copic Multi-liners in assorted thicknesses
• Digital or rubber stamps
  

For my Copic Colour Journal I purchased 3 packets of  X-Press It Blending Card (A5 size) and some matt board/book board and took these to the local print shop where I had them bound with spiral binding into a neat little book.  I split the book into sections - colour chart/list, colour combos, colouring ideas (hair, water etc) and lastly techniques.  You can see a few photos of my Copic Colour Journal below, of course you can put anything you like in yours!

 I have several pages with combos for flowers.

 A page listing the colours I have, and those I need.

A quick list of some techniques I've seen used - I should have made this section larger!

 Plus a section at the back for techniques I've created or am working on.

Beginning a Copic Art Journal
I created my Copic Art Journal in just the same way as my Colour Journal, but without any sections. To start your own Copic Art Journal the following items are useful:

• Copic Markers in assorted colours
• Copic suitable card - X-Press It Blending Card
• Copic Multi-liners in assorted thicknesses
• Molotow Paint Marker - these are amazing white paint markers
• AtYou Spica pens in assorted colours
• anything else you like to use - fancy papers, paints, pencils etc.

The rest of this post refers to creating in my Copic Art Journal.  This is one of my art journal pages and this particular page was created and coloured using all Copics.  YES this did take a while to finish and not all of my pages in here are like this, but I wanted to play with my Copics and this is the result.

Copic Colours used on 'K' page:

• N3, N5, N9, Black 100, 
• YR15, YR27, 
• V01, V12, V15, V17, V28
• BG 01, 05, 07, 09, 11, 53, 57
• B 01, 02, 04, 06 18, 21, 23, 24, 37
• YG 03, 05, 07, 17
• AtYou Spica: Lilac, Pink, Clear and Lavender

In my Copic Art Journal I'm not interested in perfect blending, I just want to lay colour down FAST - so I use the following technique to quickly get colour on the page, have it still look blended and get a nice amount of shadow - all achieved as quickly as possible.  This is basically blending colours using 'flicking'.

Draw image using Copic Multiliner pens and choose colour palette.  For my journals I use 2 or 3 colours from a blending family (eg: V15 & V17) and then a marker which is roughly 12 higher on the colour chart in this instance V28 for shadows and depth.

Lay down the mid tone first - V17, starting from darkest edge and 'flicking' towards lightest area.

Add your palest colour - V15, starting from about halfway up the V17 you already coloured and 'flicking' towards the lightest area.

Add your darkest colour - V28, colouring over the previous layer of V17.

Add the second layer of V17 and colour over most of the previous layer of V15 (keep the top edge light and wispy so that some of the V15 peeks through.

Add another layer of V15 - going over the edge of the V17 and flicking further into the centre of the lightest area - this will help to blend the V17 and V15.

Flicking from top down, fill the rest of the lightest area with V15 - keep flicks light and wispy so as not to end up with a flat colour.

I've used this same technique to create all the elements of the 'K' Art Journal page, as this flick colouring technique is relatively quick and gives great blended results, perfect for pages, but you can use this same technique to colour images.

If you look closely at the flower petals, circles or green flower stalk you can see the 'flicks'

I used a little more care on the 'K' as it was a larger area and I wanted to make sure I had a nice graded blend.

Challenges when using Copics in journals

• The markers bleed through the card, so you get colour on the reverse side of page. 
  They sure do, I cover my reverse pages with pretty paper, gesso, cut out images or I just stick another layer of clean paper over the back and keep colouring. 
• They don't perform well in journals with watercolour card or normal (non copic safe) card.
  I remedy this by colouring my image on copic safe card (X-Press It Blending Card) and then gluing my image into my journal.
• Colouring a whole page with Copic Markers uses a lot of ink.
  While this page did take a while to colour and I'm sure it used a bit of ink, not all my pages are 100% coloured with Copic markers, sometimes I only colour my main image, sometimes it's just doodling or colouring text, I often then add spray inks, ink from ink pads, paints, paper, pencil etc - while Copic Markers may not perform well on non copic safe card, all those other yummy mediums perform just fine on X-Press It Blending Card!

I hope this post has cleared up the difference between Copic Art Journals and Copic Colour Journals and maybe even inspired some of you to begin your own journal.  If you already have a Copic Journal (of either sort) we would love to see them.  If you feel like sharing please post a photo of your Copic Journal or favourite page/s onto the Copic Marker Australia Facebook page.

May your day sparkle,
KatePin It

Time to Layer!

Hello Everyone and welcome back to another Copic Oz tutorial!  Today it's all about layering....not layering colour, this time it's cutting and layering parts of images.  When I was a little girl I had paper dolls and I just loved them - doing all of this layering reminds me of those days long gone!  :)

Today I've used Artist Marci by La La Land Crafts and stamped it several times in Memento Tuxedo Black onto X-press It Blending Card.

For the first image, I've coloured only the easel and left Marci blank since I plan on popping her up on foam tape for dimension.

Next I've coloured various pieces on each image.  One has the face, hair, shirt, shorts and legs.  Another the paint jacket and head scarf.  For another one I've coloured the head scarf again because I couldn't decide which colour I preferred and also the paint palette.

Then I cut all the pieces out!

Then I've started layering the pieces - just like creating your own paper doll!  :)

Hmmmm.....maybe the scarf to match the jacket.....

Attach each layer using X-press It High Tack Foam Tape for some fabulous dimension!

And create your card!!

I hope you enjoyed today's tutorial - why not do some layering yourself and leave us a comment so we can see what you create!!!  :)

Happy Colouring!
Kathy

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