Monday

Garden Dirt: Bleeding Hearts, a Swatch for Underpainting with Copic Marker

 

Amy from VanillaArts.com helps you add realism to Copic Marker blends by underpainting with complementary colors. Pale green marker creates natural looking shade underneath magenta markers for a beautiful Bleeding Hearts flowers. | PowerPoppy.com | #copicmarker #realisticcoloring #underpainting

Let's color one more heart project!

I know Valentine's Day is technically over but honestly, I'd color heart shapes all year if students would let me.

Last month, I shared with you the Vital Rose digital stamp, colored with red Copic Markers and die-cut into a heart shape. This month, let's tackle hot pink and one of the sweetest species of flowers I've ever seen.

Hello, my name is Amy Shulke and I'm the illustrator and art instructor over at VanillaArts.com. Welcome to another article in my color swatch blending combination series here at Power Poppy-- The Garden Dirt.

Why dirt? I know it's not the most attractive name but that's what we do in realistic coloring. We take beautiful colors of Copic Marker and colored pencil and blend them together to make yucky, dirty colors. You can't grow flowers without a bit of dirt and you can't color realistic flowers without dirty color.

I've got a whole series of artistic coloring articles here at the Power Poppy blog. Here's a link to read more.


Amy from VanillaArts.com helps you add realism to Copic Marker blends by underpainting with complementary colors. Pale green marker creates natural looking shade underneath magenta markers for a beautiful Bleeding Hearts flowers. | PowerPoppy.com | #copicmarker #realisticcoloring #underpainting


Bleeding Hearts are one of my favorite flowers!


Actually, at my house, we call them weeds.

My yard is tree covered and almost full shade everywhere; I can barely grow grass. For years, we had nothing but Hosta, random ferns, and scattered Lily of the Valley but then a little pinkish-greenish scrawny looking weed popped up, out of nowhere. 

If something's brave enough to try living in my near-night conditions, I'm certainly not going to tell it no, so I let the weird little guy grow a while. Eventually the stalk bent over and sprouted the cutest little heart shapes. 

BEST WEED EVER!!!!

When I found myself looking for something to color for this month's Dirt article, I thought of my beautiful little weeds and wondered if Marcella had ever drawn them.

I'm a digital stamp girl, so I isolated the Bleeding Hearts from the Spring Meadow Bouquet to share with you today. 

She also has a few Bleeding Hearts tucked into the Springtime Love Roundel stamp here

Today's swatch will work with either version.


Amy from VanillaArts.com helps you add realism to Copic Marker blends by underpainting with complementary colors. Pale green marker creates natural looking shade underneath magenta markers for a beautiful Bleeding Hearts flowers. | PowerPoppy.com | #copicmarker #realisticcoloring #underpainting


Green under Red Violet makes a shady pink


Remember, realistic shady colors are not usually beauty contest winners.

Go ahead, look around you right now. Find something pretty on your desk or in the room beyond and really look at the color of the shady side. Surprised? The color of real shade is always a bit ugly. In art, we call shady colors "neutralized" or "desaturated". They're not the vibrant, gorgeous colors you see in traditional Copic Marker blending combinations.

Green sits opposite of magenta on the color wheel which makes the G marker family a natural choice to underpaint RV markers. I was shocked at how little green I needed to add murkiness to RV29. 

G02 was a bit strong, so I ended up using G00 but I really wish Copic made a G01.

In the Bleeding Hearts here, I added G00 where one heart overlaps another heart, where the stem inserts at the top, and down at the bottom where the heart cinches inward. Then I layered RV29, R35, and RV25 over the top of the green to complete the blend.

I printed my hearts large, the smallest heart is almost 1 inch wide. If you color a smaller version, you can skip the R35 in the blend.

Green under magenta sounds weird but it's what makes my Bleeding Hearts look rounded, layered, and pretty darned cute.

Amy from VanillaArts.com helps you add realism to Copic Marker blends by underpainting with complementary colors. Pale green marker creates natural looking shade underneath magenta markers for a beautiful Bleeding Hearts flowers. | PowerPoppy.com | #copicmarker #realisticcoloring #underpainting


Let's color flowers together


I love coloring Power Poppy bouquets! Today's Bleeding Hearts project uses the same techniques I demonstrate in this class using Marcella's Bowl of Beauty stamp and in this class using Marcella's Daffodil Bouquet stamp

We use different blending combinations and colors in each class but we always underpaint for depth and dimension.

All Vanilla Workshop classes are immediate access. Work at your own pace, color it as many times as you want, with no expiration date. The techniques are great for any Power Poppy digital stamp.

Have fun experimenting with green under magenta and I'll meet you back here next month with another colorful bit of Garden Dirt.








3 comments:

ednamburgess said...

I love these bleeding hearts too. And the way you colored them is perfect. I know I have all these colors but not the stamp, but will try the color combinations on another flower just to see how I do with it. Can't wait to see a video or u-tube of the coloring.

Henriëtte Creatively Happy said...

I love the gorgeous Bleeding Hearts also Amy.
I never guessed you had used green as the under color, it looks awesome!
Thank you so much Amy for again a great lesson and article, stay safe and have a wonderful day.

Broni said...

I love the look of these beauties! And green under the pink...I never knew that! Thanks so much!!