Artist’s Notebook: How to Create Rich & Complex Color (Monarchs and Milkweed)

Color that makes your heart thump louder.

That’s why we love coloring, right? Bold and beautiful color.

So why do we chicken-out when it comes to our Copic Marker or colored pencil selections? Not only do we use the same colors over and over again but we use the same colors over the top of each other.

We love color but we’re afraid to actually use it.

I know it’s scary, but let’s talk about how to get crazy. Let’s be bold and wild!

Rich and vibrant color? Who doesn’t want more of that?

Hello, my name is Amy Shulke and I’m the illustrator and art instructor at VanillaArts.com. I’ve got a whole series of artistic coloring articles here at the Power Poppy blog; here’s a quick link to a bunch of my previous articles.

Today’s project uses Marcella’s amazing Monarchs and Milkweed digital stamp. I’ve colored it with a combination of Copic Markers and Prismacolor Premier Pencils on Stonehenge Kraft paper.

Yes, you can use Copic Markers on brown Kraft paper. That’s part of what we’ll be talking about today. The sandy brown paper is helping to set the mood for a sweltering summer scene. The Kraft paper makes my color choices look richer more complex.

Light, Medium, and Dark

As a coloring newbie, you didn’t really know what to do, so you fell back on grade school crayon habits. You colored the center of a daisy with one yellow marker or pencil. The petals were one solid color of pink. The leaves were one green.

It was fun but you quickly noticed it looked flat.

So you searched for “dimensional coloring” and found tons of online tutorials about shading with blending combinations. Blending combinations combine a light, medium, and dark marker or pencil. You learned to use combinations to add a bit of dimension to your projects.

But now what?

Now that you’ve got the combo concept mastered, why do your projects still look candy-colored?

Are you still missing something? Is there some next step beyond blending?

Yes, but the internet doesn’t talk much about the next step, does it?

Maybe you should find better blending combinations?

Or maybe you need more color? You could add more colors to the simple light-medium-dark blending combination. How about light, light-medium, medium, dark-medium, and dark?

Should you layer on another medium? A different kind of colored pencil? Watercolor? Pan Pastels?

Stop!

The deep, interesting, and complex color you’re searching for is already at your fingertips. You’ve had the tools all along.

Instead of finding new coloring tutorials, let’s look at how artists create sophisticated color.

"Add some Phthalo Blue to this Alizarin Crimson and a touch of Burnt Sienna..."

Think back to watching Bob Ross paint on PBS.

Did Bob ever say:

“Okay friends, let’s pick up this tube of ultramarine blue and squeeze it right here on to the canvas. Get a really big blob! Now spread it all around until you come to the edge of a tree or the mountain. Yes, let’s make that summer sky one big solid expanse of pure ultramarine blue!”

We loved watching Bob mix brand new colors on his big wooden palette. He’d start with green, he added a bit of violet, then a touch of sienna, and he’d lighten it up with white...

Or he’d start with a weird pinkish brownish color that he originally made for tree trunks, but then he’d add blue to create the perfect color for river rocks.

Bob knew the artist’s secret: 

Pure color is pretty... but color mixtures are what makes the show-stopping beauty.

Shading green with more green

The reason why your projects look candy colored is because of the light-medium-dark blending combination process.

Unlike Bob Ross, you’re using color straight out of the tube.

You’re shading a green leaf with more of the same green.

A blending combination of YG21 - YG23 - YG25 is all the same green. It’s all YG20-something. Green on green on green on green.

Sure, you’re blending. But that’s the problem.

Psssttt… confession time. 

My green leaves here use layers of yellow green marker over gray violet marker. That’s something Bob Ross would do.

Then there are no green pencils on top of the marker. I’ve used a warm purple, goldenrod, and cream pencils. And it’s all going over the top of a krafty-brown colored paper which neutralizes and softens the look of everything I’ve used.

I’m not doing green on green on green.

If you want complex sophisticated color, you’ve got to add more to your leaves than green.

The colors I use are not the colors you see

The trick to upping your color game? Move away from the blending mindset. Blends are nice but light-medium-dark blending combinations are holding you back.

Think aboutlayering instead of blending.

Your markers and pencils are just ingredients, not the final color.

Brownies are made from flour, eggs, butter, and cocoa powder. But nobody wants to eat a brownie one spoonful of flour at a time. The magic happens when you make something new out of standard ingredients.

Right now, you’re not baking.

With blending combinations of green-green-green, you’re not creating anything new. You’re just displaying your greens next to each other.

Mix, stir, and layer your markers and pencils to create new colors. New colors that aren’t made in any factory. That’s the key to eye-popping, mind-blowing, creative color.

Green on green on green will always look like plain old green.

But violet under green with goldenrod on top?

Now you’re Bob Ross!

It’s only paper!

But wait, you ask... how do I do this?

Where are the tutorials or recipes for sophisticated color mixes?

Psssttt... artistic color is the result of experimentation, not tutorials.

If you want to color a Monarch butterfly, instead of scouring the internet for someone else’s Monarch tutorial, try finding a photo of a Monarch with colors that make you smile. What colors do YOU see in the photograph? Which markers or pencils look like Monarch colors to you?

Then make a few test swatches. Try some markers or pencils and see what they look like together. If it works, great! You just invented your own unique Monarch recipe. 

If not, try again.

It’s just ink. It’s only paper.

There’s no pressure here, just play and learn.

If you can blend, then you already have the skills! You know enough about markers or pencils to create your own combinations!

So here’s my Artist’s Notebook challenge for you this month...

Play with your colors. Test them out in new combinations.

Fly. Be free!

Keep in mind, freedom is sometimes a little scary. That’s okay. Acknowledge the fear remind yourself that we’re just coloring. It’s only ink, it’s only paper.

Relax and play.

Want a little boost to get you started?

If you’re not sure where to start, my Undercover Swatch series is completely free and full of wonderful quirky color combinations that are all richer and more interesting than anything you’ll create using the light-medium-dark theory. My dear friend Elena makes the Undercover swatches and two years ago, she was just like you-- new to markers and no clue what to do. She learned and now she’s helping you experiment too!

Once you’re confident about underpainting with crazy colors, experiment with crazy overcolors.
I used a gray violet marker under the green marker, so then I played with a few violet pencils to see what looked good over the top.

No combination is too weird! In this rose class using Power Poppy’s Vital Rose stamp, we went nuts with turquoise markers and pencils. There’s turquoise under the red, under the green, and then turquoise pencils over the top of it all. It’s wild and it’s gorgeous!

Rich color is the result of playtime.
Ditch the green on green on green.

Fly! Be Free!

Want to color Power Poppy’s “Monarchs and Milkweed” with me?

My Illustrated Monarch class is part of the Vanilla Livestream series for intermediate to advanced Copic colorers. 

This lesson is near and dear to my heart. I’m sharing the education & clarity concepts I used in my technical illustration career. You can use the same techniques to create accurate animal or botanical studies that any biologist or science teacher would love.

Illustrated Monarch uses Power Poppy’s beautiful Monarchs and Milkweed digital stamp set.

You can find out more about Vanilla Livestream classes here.

And I’ll see you back here next month for another glance into my Artist’s Notebook!

Previous Artist's Notebook articles:

The Secret to Eye Popping Color Palettes

Blessed with Color!

What is Artistic Coloring?
Add Realistic Texture
Don't Be Afraid of Large Projects!
Are You Stamp Blind?

It doesn't take a lot of color to make a rainbow

Check Your Color Values

Artist’s Notebook: Check Your Color Values! (Take a Deep Breath)

Tell me if this sounds right…

You’ve colored for months or maybe years, and you’re pretty darned good at it. There isn't a tutorial around that you can't totally rock.

And yet when you go off on your own, picking original color palettes and choosing your own markers or pencils… well… your coloring is still good but, uhm… there’s something missing.

Your personal projects don’t have the same oh-la-la you see in professional projects. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but something is just… off?

So you chalk that up to talent. “I love Crafty Candie’s Coloring tutorials! She is so talented and she always creates the prettiest color palettes!”

Psssttt… It’s not talent.

Crafty Candie does something you don't. Today, I’ll show you how!

Hello, my name is Amy Shulke and I’m the illustrator and art instructor over at VanillaArts.com. Today, let's learn a quick and easy way to improve your color values and contrast.

Because that mystery thing your coloring is missing?

It’s contrast.

By the way, I’ve been hanging out here at the Power Poppy Blog for a while now. If you want to go back and read my previous Artist’s Notebook articles on color, here’s a quick link to a bunch of them.

But today, we’re not worried about color; we’re focusing on values and contrast!

What is Contrast?

First off, don’t get scared. Artsy people name drop “value” and “contrast” a lot. Fear not, there will be no deep weeds here.

Because we don’t have to go deep to fix the problem!

Value simply means how light or dark a color is. 

If you look at your Copic grays, you’ll see the value written on the cap. C4 has a value 4 and it’s darker than a C2 or a C0. Actually, all Copics tell you the value, it’s always the last number on the cap.

In colored pencil, gray values are usually listed as a percentage, a Roman numeral, or maybe “light, medium, and dark”. Unfortunately, they’re not as good about telling you the values of purples, blues, or greens. Darn!

Contrast is even easier than value. Contrast is the difference between your lightest lights and darkest darks. 

High contrast might mean a project done with C8 and C2 or a really dark red and a pale pink. There’s a big difference between the lights and the darks.

Low contrast would be the same project done all in pale pastels. If everything is baby soft, there’s not a lot of difference between the lights and the darks.

And what does all this have to do with why your blah-looking independent coloring?

Most of the time, you’re missing contrast!

Contrast makes art sing!

Ever notice how amazing Marcella’s stamps look on the website?

I don’t mean the colored samples (which are nice too). Nope, I’m talking about her sketches and line drawings. I don’t even need to see the stamp colored. They’re gorgeous in just black and white!

Ah ha!

In black and white? That’s contrast!

If you’ve ever colored a Power Poppy stamp and thought, “well, I certainly didn’t do that one justice…” lack of contrast is usually why.

If you color something in pale blue, pale green, pale pink… zzzzzzz.

And if you color it in flamin’ red, electric blue, and acid green… yikes!

No contrast? You lose that special indescribable spark of beauty. 

Beauty does not come from color

Have you ever had your breath taken away by an Ansel Adams landscape?

Why are his photographs so amazing? Because really, look closer at his color. He’s using 42 shades of mud.

I know, I know. As colorers we run around worrying about which colors to buy, which colors to blend, which colors to use. Color, color, color.

But the human brain doesn’t really love color all that much. Ansel Adams proves this. The human brain loves contrast. Lights and darks and all the weird little values in between. 

Value variety is what we interpret as beautiful.

Give your projects the Ansel Adams treatment

Every project should have contrast.

Beginners and nervous colorers usually try to keep things safe. You don’t buy the scary dark Copics unless you have to. Most of the time you stick with the same values because they’re safe.

But if you look down at your desk and every Copic ends in almost the same number then you’ve got a problem.

No contrast!

I colored Power Poppy's "Take a Deep Breath" with a wide variety of values. The background is deep, dark color. The leaves are mid tones. The petals are a blend of middle values to white. That's a full value scale in one project!

So I planned my contrast level before I even started. Is there anything you can do mid project?

Yes!

Once the coloring is underway, if you sense that your project is just missing something, pull out your smart phone and take a photograph.

Then open the photo editor and apply a Black & White filter to your project.

If every flower petal looks like a weird gray blob and if you can't tell where one blob stops and the next blob starts? If all the leaves match the same blobby gray of petals too? You’ve got a problem.

No contrast!

And psssttt… printing your stamp in black doesn’t count! Black lines aren’t enough to add contrast to your project.

Your coloring should look just as amazing in Ansel Adams mode as it does in full color!

So here’s my Artist’s Notebook challenge of the month...

Test some of your favorite projects.

Find artwork that you really admire on your favorite blogger’s website and take a screen shot. Flip it to Black & White with a photo filter. Study the kind of contrast the artist is using. 

• How dark are their darks? 

• How pale are their lights? 

• How much middle value are they utilizing?

Looking at the art you love in grayscale is an excellent way to identify your own unique color taste. Some of us love things on the dark side, some of us like it paler. But all of us have an ideal contrast level that we most prefer.

Find what you like.

Then do the same Ansel Adams treatment to the best project you’ve ever colored AND the worst project you’ve ever colored.

Notice any similarities between your best project and your favorite artist?

And then ask yourself, how could you improve your worst project?

Want to color Power Poppy’s “Take a Deep Breath” with me? 

My Blue Reflection class is part of the Vanilla Livestream series for intermediate to advanced Copic colorers. This lesson covers how to identify the point of view for every stamp you color and then how to create a realistic horizon or background to match the perspective.

Blue Reflection uses Power Poppy's beautiful "Take a Deep Breath" digital stamp set.

You can find out more about Vanilla Livestream classes here.

And I’ll see you next month for another glance into my Artist’s Notebook!

Previous Artist's Notebook articles:

The Secret to Eye Popping Color Palettes

Blessed with Color!

What is Artistic Coloring?
Add Realistic Texture
Don't Be Afraid of Large Projects!
Are You Stamp Blind?

It doesn't take a lot of color to make a rainbow

Artist’s Notebook: It Doesn’t Take a Lot of Color to Create a Rainbow (Hellebores)

You love color.

I love color.

Marcella loves color.

We’re all here following the Power Poppy blog because we love to color gorgeous stamps with beautiful Copic Markers, colored pencils, watercolor, or other creative media.

It’s all about the color. The more color the better!

But I’m always a little sad when I see tutorials or classes that use a mile long list of supplies. And I’m even sadder when I read online posts from people who sincerely want to start coloring but they’ve talked themselves out of it, because they don’t have enough colors yet.

Folks, you don’t need to own the whole rainbow.

In fact, it’s better if you don’t.

Hello, my name is Amy Shulke and I’m the illustrator and art instructor over at VanillaArts.com. Today I’d like to talk to you about cutting back on the number of colors you use in your projects.

Color minimalism actually maximizes your results.

And hey, if you want to read my previous Artist’s Notebook articles on color, you can read about color palettes here and your amazing bounty of art supplies here.

But today, I’d like to focus on how to use a small number of colors for professional results.

Because until you and I win the lottery, we’re never going to have all the colors we want.

More is less!

It’s been an unusually long winter here in Michigan. It’s May and it’s still snowing. My Spring Rain project was born from my desperate need to have a bit of the gorgeous color I see in Marcella’s garden photographs. I’m soooo jealous!

But to get this Copic effect on Power Poppy's Hellebores digital stamp? I didn’t use every color in the rainbow.

I used blue and green with tiny touches of pink and violet.

You can get amazing results by keeping your color palette small. 

I know it’s very tempting to look at a bouquet stamp and think “Oh, I’ll color this blossom red and this flower purple and this one yellow…” In your head it sounds so pretty.

But in reality? Too many colors in an image makes it look unorganized and juvenile.

I have a couple of extensive articles on how to create and use professional looking color palettes back at my home website here. But if you want the quick summary, I typically use only three hues per color palette— that includes the background AND the green leaves.

If I can get away with a two hue color palette, that’s what I prefer.

Minimal color palettes provide maximum wow.

What is the focal point?

Okay, let’s talk about ingredients for a moment.

Copic Marker fans use blending combinations, usually trios (light, medium, dark) for every item in the project. This blending combination theory has spread to colored pencils now too— even though traditionally, pencil artists have never used pencils this way.

There’s also a weird assumption that if you’re more advanced, you should add more colors to the combo. In advanced coloring, I’ve seen people use five or even six markers in a blending combination.

So by that formula, my challenge level Spring Rain project should use at least twenty markers?

Nope. I used eight… and two of them are completely optional.

I have one major rule for all my coloring: Celebrate the focal point.

The focal point is the shining star of the image. In Power Poppy stamps, the focal point is always the biggest, most beautiful blossom.  I want people to look at the focal point first and then even if their eye wanders to the minor elements, I want them drawn back to the celebrity bloom before they’re done.

To insure that my focal point remains the main attraction, I don’t waste time coloring all of the lesser elements with the same time and attention.

The leaves are bit players so I use fewer markers on them. The background is supposed to be in the background; it gets less detail and fewer markers.

I even apply this hierarchy to the blossoms, spending more time, more ink, and a lot more attention to detail on the big blooms than I do on small flowers or buds.

Your viewers can tell which areas you’ve nursed to perfection.

Keep their eyes on the focal point.

Let one color dominate

In Spring Rain, the pink pops.

That’s because it’s surrounded by a ton of blue.

80% of this image has some form of blue. Even the shadow and leaves are blended and shaded with layers of blue.  If I had given the pink half of the area it would have set up a visual competition between blue and pink. 50/50 means nobody wins.

When colors fight, it distracts the viewer and detracts from the beauty of your coloring.

By letting the blue totally dominate the image, the pink now seems more special.

Repeat the same colors across the whole image

Blue, violet, pink, and green… Every item in the entire Spring Rain image has blue, violet, pink, and green on it.

And if you look closely, you’ll see this same kind of color borrowing most of my projects. This is what we call color cohesiveness and it does amazing things for the overall impression and quality of your coloring.

It’s a professional level detail to repeat the same colors throughout a project.

The leaves here belong with these hellebore petals. They don't look like they were borrowed from some random sunflower or rose. These leaves could only come from the same plant that grew these petals. They belong together. They match.

This color harmony costs you nothing; you’re already using the markers or pencils on the petals, so why not kiss your leaves or even the background with hints of the same colors?

We’re adding a rainbow without adding anything new.

So here’s my Artist’s Notebook challenge for you this month...

Give more time to the thinking process before you start to color. By narrowing down the color palette ahead of time, the look of your projects will improve, even if your skill remains the same.

Start paring down your massive supply lists. Do you really need five greens to color a leaf?

Be wise about how you divide color. Don’t detract from a focal point super-star blossom but do share bits of color between the flower and its leaves.

And for those of you making cards, your decorative papers count as color too. They’re part of the final composition so make sure that you’re not accidentally setting up a color imbalance during the card assembly phase.

Want to color Power Poppy’s Hellebores with me? 

My Spring Rain class is part of the Vanilla Livestream series for intermediate to advanced Copic colorers. This lesson covers how to use color pouring and negative painting techniques (borrowed from watercolor classes) to create bold, dynamic, and loose marker paintings.

You can find out more about Vanilla Livestream classes here.

And I’ll see you back here next month for another glance into my Artist’s Notebook!

Previous Artist's Notebook articles:

The Secret to Eye Popping Color Palettes

Blessed with Color!

What is Artistic Coloring?
Add Realistic Texture
Don't Be Afraid of Large Projects!
Are You Stamp Blind?

Friday FunDay: Creativity to Reinvigorate Your Spirit

Hi everybody! Getting to my Friday Funday blog post a bit later this morning, as I’ve been outside playing in the plants, snipping off the buds of finished daffodils and tulips, and preparing to build willow-branch teepees for sweet peas. While I’m enjoying every minute outside, I do look so forward to getting back to my drawing table and creating images for you all to color. Soon, soon, friends, I promise. The ideas that have been welling up inside me are unstoppable and must be released!

This week I had an impromptu visit from a dear old friend who is also a talented photographer, Heidi Drexler. She shoots portraits, editorial and advertising, lifestyle, you name it, Heidi is awesome. So, what a treat to see my garden captured through her lens. If you’d be interested in seeing more photos from my garden, please visit Heidi’s blog HERE.

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So... I don’t know if you’ve been picking up on the fact that I keep referring to our design teams, the Bloom Brigade and the Instant Gardeners, as a “powerhouse”. I like this term so much, and think that it sums up their collective and individual strengths as card artists and designers. So much so, we’re going to officially change the name and combine our teams into: the Powerhouse.

Official announcement, new graphics, photos and re-introductions of everyone — all 20 of them!! — arriving forthwith. I thank my lucky stars every day that these women join me in working with my illustrations and lettering designs, and I know they inspire you just as much as they do me! Here are a few creations for this week compliments of the Powerhouse. I love each and every one!

Allison Cope | Gifts from the Sea digital

Broni Holcombe | Cuppa Cupcake digital

Leslie Miller | Wash Your Hands digital

Lisa Johansen | Springtime Love Roundel digital

Christine Okken | Peonies digital

Stacy Morgan | Follow Your Heart digital

Gloria Stengel | Well, Hello Dahlia digital

Jenny Colacicco | Saucer Magnolia digital

AND: Did you see Nancy Sheads’ tutorial this week? Filled with inspo and tips!

AND: Did you see Julie Koerber’s sketch challenge this week? You still have time to enter and maybe win $25 to spend at Power Poppy.

I feel completely invigorated seeing these cards created with true craftsmanship, care, and love. In the midst of the upheaval and fear in our world, a pocket of beauty created by beautiful, brave, kind and compassionate women. Bravo.

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THIS SATURDAY April 25, Amy Shulke is offering an awesome online livestream to help us bring my Tree Peony class to a level of sunshine-y stardom! DID YOU SEE Amy’s brilliant Artist’s Notebook/Inspire Me Monday post on this topic? LOADS of information, you guys. Like, seriously good stuff.

Learn more about our collaboration with Vanilla Arts here.

I’m also working with Alyce Keegan of Kit and Clowder for another new class very soon, so start sharpening those colored pencils and fill up those Copics... 

Be well, friends. XOXO

Artist's Notebook: Are You Stamp-Blind? 4 Tips to Open Your Eyes & Improve Your Coloring

I love to color Power Poppy digital stamps with Copic Markers and colored pencils. But I’m a coloring instructor so I draw and color daily. Your hobby is my day job.

My hobby? I l bake bread. I’m nerdy, so when I bake bread, I geek-out. Old recipes, odd ingredients... I’ve even cultured my own yeast. I enjoy baking the same way you enjoy coloring. It’s relaxing fun.

But here’s the difference: when I make bread, I don’t staple the recipe to every single slice. I don’t announce with a bullhorn “Hey everybody, before you take a bite of my bread, please note that I used Gold Medal Flour and Morton's Salt!”

But in coloring? You advertise your supplies all the time.

And you don’t even realize it.

Hello, my name is Amy Shulke. I’m the illustrator and art instructor over at VanillaArts.com. Today, let's talk about Stamp Blindness and how to cure it.

Over the past several months here at Power Poppy, we’ve explored how Artistic Coloring differs from traditional coloring, how to take the first step to adding artistry to your projects, and even why you should try coloring as big as your printer will allow.

But there’s one little thing that most colorers never think about when they switch to realistic coloring.

And yet it’s incredibly important to artistry.

You are blind and you don’t even realize it

Whether you use physical stamps or digitals, the stamping process is the first step of every project. It’s like breathing or blinking, you don’t even think about stamping.

Ahhhh… You are the fish who doesn’t realize he’s wet.

You’ve handled stamps so much that you’re blind to them.

You spend 100% of your time thinking about the space inside the lines. What color should I use? Where does the shade go?

You look at other people’s coloring projects and you focus 100% on what they did inside the lines. How many markers did they use? Where did they put the shade?

But the rest of the world doesn’t stamp.

It doesn’t matter how pretty you color. All we see are your big fat honkin’ stamp lines.

We see the stamp lines you don’t even notice.

And I hate to break it to you, those big black stamp lines are the difference between:

My mom colors some stuff.

and

My mom is an amazing artist!

I’m not saying all stamp lines are bad

There is a time and place for effective black stamp lines. Good line art is beautiful. Bold outlines can make a strong artistic statement.

But black ink should not be your automatic reflex.

Black lines overwhelm most coloring projects. My Sunburst project here wouldn’t be nearly as delicate or feminine if everything were outlined in thick black ink.

No-Line, Invisible Line, Barely-There, or Naked As a Jaybird Stamping… whatever you want to call it…

Every day should be a no line day.

Here are four tips for making the transition to No-Line as easy as possible.

1. Gradually Go Lighter

I recommend printing in a gray or pink ink. Stamp or print as soft and pale as possible...

But don’t go cold turkey all at once!

For ink pads, gradually work your way from black, to gray, to a paler gray. For digital stamps, use your opacity slider. Incrementally move the percentage lower. Give yourself several projects to make the transition.

Don’t jump from black to barely-there in one project.

Black outlines are like training wheels. It takes time to get used to the feeling of less linework. You
don’t know how much you’ve been relying on black lines to carry the image until they’re gone. So don’t shock yourself, fade them out slowly.

2. Edges Require More Thought

Black lines encourage sloppy coloring. Sometimes you color just up to the line, sometimes you color up onto the line. You only care if you go beyond the lines, right? Because that's the only time your edges really show.

That security blanket is gone with no line coloring.

Not only will you have to color neatly now, you also have some decisions to make.

When a stamp has very thick lines, you must decide where one object stops and the other starts.

In Tree Peony, every petal forces me to decide where to stop one petal and where to start the next— should I color just up to the line or should I color over it?

There is no right or wrong answer, it’s all up to your taste. But now for the first time, you’re forced to think about it.

3. Don’t Leave Ghost Lines

This doesn’t happen with everyone but let me point it out, just in case.

Some black-line colorers are very neat and tidy. They’ve spent years coloring right up to the edge of the black line and they never, never, never go over it.

Then they switch to gray lines and do the same thing. It doesn’t look good.

In No-Line coloring, if you don’t hide the lines with color, then it’s not really No-Line coloring, is it?

4. Print a reference stamp

Many people are afraid of No-Line coloring because the color usually hides the original stamp lines.

Then you get lost.

As I colored the leaves on Tree Peony, I lost the veins. I could see a few of them but most were gone. Marcella's veins are a beautiful detail, I really didn't want to lose them!

I always keep a copy of the uncolored original stamp by my side.

When I feel like I’ve lost the shape or a detail, I can easily refer back to Marcella’s original drawing. I may not add it back exactly the way Marcella drew it, but I can restore the general feeling.

So here’s my Artist’s Notebook challenge for you this month...

Dig out that soft gray ink pad that scares you. Find the Opacity settings on your computer and turn it down a notch or two.

Make your next Power Poppy impression paler than usual.

Start learning to color with neat, crisp edges that you make yourself rather than letting the stamp lines hide your oopsies.

Start thinking about the shape of the object. Understand the petals, stamens, and stem of the a flower instead of relying on Power Poppy to tell people which parts are what.

Start interpreting your stamps as art. You be the artist, you be the story teller!

Want to color Power Poppy’s Tree Peony with me?

My Sunburst class is part of the Vanilla Livestream series for intermediate to advanced Copic colorers. This lesson covers how to add warmth and radiance to your flowers using a yellow underpainting technique. We’re using Copic Markers and colored pencils but I’ve stolen this technique from watercolorists and it’s so much fun! We’re painting with Copics!

You can find out more about Vanilla Livestream classes here.

And I’ll see you back here next month for another glance into my Artist’s Notebook!

Previous Artist's Notebook articles:

The Secret to Eye Popping Color Palettes

Blessed with Color!

What is Artistic Coloring?
Add Realistic Texture
Don't Be Afraid of Large Projects!