Hello, my Power Poppy Friends! It is my turn to share some inspiration with you. I started out wanting to share something with an autumn theme, but it is as far from autumn as you can get where I live! We are in the triple digit temperatures for the second week in a row here in inland southern California! And, with no end it sight! It is normal for here, so I am told, but I am not used to this heat. We have been here for one year, and...wow...it's HOT!
I decided to keep my originally planned image, but to make a simple change at the end, as you will see.
Now, for the technique I chose this week: Copic Base Layers. Or, as some people call it, under-painting. I am not sharing true under-painting, as it is a lot more complicated. What I decided to share is something called "basing" or "base layering." This is a popular technique in adult coloring groups. Many folks use water-based markers or water coloring, to put down a first layer on coloring pages, then they will add colored pencil on top. Since I am using a digital image and my choice of paper, I am using Copic alcohol markers.
Let's get started!
Next choose your markers, one for each main color in the image. I chose a Copic R14 for the apples, YG05 for the leaves, and RV02 for the flower buds. I chose colors that were between the medium and light tone that I would pick if I were coloring a full Copic piece.
My set of pencils has 96 colors. Below are the colors I used.
Apples: 240 True Love, 650 Ruby Brown, 130 Burnt Sienna
Leaves: 090 Golden Yellow, 560 Apple Green, 520 Green, 510 Moss Green
Flowers: 012 Ivory, 260 Carnation, 280 Rose, 290 Fuchsia Pink
Branch and stems: 668 Espresso, 660 Brown
Because we fist added the alcohol ink layer, we don't need to lay down as much pencil to cover the white of the paper! We can add more layers of color and more detail because we are not needing to fill up the tooth (texture) of the paper with the pencil.
I used a few fine line pens and a white gel pen just for some tiny details on the flowers.
Using this technique, it took me approximately 35 minutes to finish this coloring project! Base layering with Copic covered the white of the paper and the pencils added shading, highlights, and dimension!
Now for the change-up. I realized that you won't see buds, flowers, and fruit on an apple tree at the same time. Plus the addition of the flowers made this image decidedly NOT autumnal. So, I had to cover up the sentiment that I had pre-printed onto my image.
I printed a different sentiment onto the same type of cardstock. I chose the sentiment from the Folklore Flora digital stamp package. I simply used a die cut to trim out the sentiment, then added a black mat with cardstock. A little glue, and presto! The original sentiment is all covered up!
I hope you enjoyed learning about base layering and that you will give it a try, especially on larger images. It really does speed up the coloring process!
Keep in mind that alcohol markers will ALWAYS bleed through your paper! If you wish to try this technique in a coloring book, make sure you are using a single-sided page and that you protect the following pages from the ink bleed through.
Power Poppy Products Used:
Apples in Season digital stamp set
Folklore Flora digital stamp package
Other Products Used:
Copic markers
Copic markers
Schpirerr Farben colored pencils
Arteza fine line pens
Sakure gelly roll pen
White cardstock
Arteza fine line pens
Sakure gelly roll pen
White cardstock
Black cardstock
