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?

Artist’s Notebook: Don’t Be Afraid of Oversized Coloring Projects

I love to color big projects using Copic Markers and colored pencils. To work at 8.5" x 11” or larger, I expand the size of my digital stamps to just barely fit on the largest paper my printer can handle. An oversized project allows me space to color the same way I would paint, with lots of detail and realism.

This is what I call Artistic Coloring and it’s extremely rewarding.

But what I notice when I first introduce students to oversized projects is oversized nervousness.

“Oh my, it’s gigantic! How am I supposed to color all that space? This will take forever!”

Relax, artistic coloring does require more time than quick and easy card fronts.

But that’s not a bad thing!

Hello, my name is Amy Shulke and I’m the illustrator and art instructor over at VanillaArts.com. Today I’d like to give you a few tips to make large size projects feel less intimidating.

In the past few months, we’ve explored how Artistic Coloring differs from traditional coloring for cards and how to take the first step to adding artistry to your projects.

But there’s still a time hurdle that discourages people from using their Power Poppy digital stamps for large scale realistic & artistic marker paintings.

Let’s eliminate the fear of time.

Because often, it’s not the size of the project that’s scaring you away, it’s your mental misconceptions about Artistic Coloring.

1. Working slow is good for your soul

We live in a world of overnight shipping, pocket internet, and instant texts.

Fast, fast, fast.

And because most colorers come to coloring from the card making world, you’re used to cranking out a handful of handmade cards on a Saturday afternoon.

C’mon, you know you’re a sucker for tuts marked Quick & Easy, Simple, and One Layer.

But there is joy in deeper coloring.

Coloring becomes less a hobby and more of personal journey when you take your time. When you explore your coloring images deeper, you also start to explore the depths of your heart and mind. Artistic coloring is introspective, soothing, and even zen. It’s yoga for your hands and restorative for your brain.

Discovery and self exploration are what’s missing from Tuesday Tut-a-thons and the lack of meaning is why most colorers quit coloring when a new crafty fad hits.

If you never dig deeper into the coloring process, you’re going to find yourself tying macrame’ or tole painting pepper shakers this time next year. Think back and count the crafts you did before you found your way to stamp coloring. It’s a lot, right? You must have something more valuable than trio-blending a pink piglet in a party hat to keep you coloring long term.

Speed techniques and 20 minute cards burn you out quickly.

Slow coloring feeds you for a lifetime.

2. The joy of detail

One of the reasons why I love working with Power Poppy is the same reason why you’re a fan of Power Poppy too:

We love detail.

Power Poppy florals are chock-full of petals, leaves, berries, birds, butterflies, and little hidden details that make us smile. We’re definitely not the kind of people that refuse to color any stamp with more than three shapes in it.

But let’s be honest: far too often you stamp in black and let Marcella handle all the pesky bits for you.

Maybe you put a pretty watercolor wash behind the petals. Or you hit only the important items with a pop of color. But most of the time, if someone were to erase the black stamp lines leaving just your color on the page, it would look like a wonky color blob.

Which is strange to me, because the joy you get from letting your eye wander across a beautifully detailed stamp is less than a tenth of the pride you feel when you color all of those details yourself.

“I did that!” is an amazing feeling!

For my Annabella’s Heart online artistic coloring class, we use the new expansion pack for the Follow Your Heart set. There are now three new heart challenges to choose from and each one is perfect for detail coloring.

Marcella draws shapes clearly and then gives you tons of little clues for texture and shadow within the shapes. Power Poppy stamps are an easy, stress-free way to savor the detail coloring process.

But you won't have room for the magical details if you don't print the digital stamps larger than card size and we won't see your details unless you print the digi in pale gray.

Trust yourself.

Some people don’t have the patience for small detail but for those of us who love little bugs on little leaves… we were born to color long and slow!

3. Complex doesn’t have to be hard

Okay, I’ll admit that I lost count somewhere after the 50th petal. There are a lot of petals here to color.

But as I said in the last point, we’re here at Power Poppy because we love this kind of complex stamp. Most people would take one look at it and bleep. “I can’t do that!”

That’s where you’re wrong. This is NOT an advanced project.

One petal.

If you can color one petal, you can color this stamp. It’s the same petal over and over and over and over and over and…

There’s a difference between complex and difficult.

When something is difficult, you physically have problems completing the task. You can’t perform at the level demanded; you’re unable to complete the project.

That’s different than a job with lots of simple little things to do.

Don’t let your first impression of a stamp turn you off. Don’t let the petal count dissuade you from trying something that’s actually a ton of fun.

Lots of easy looks complicated but it’s never hard.

4. Watch your style evolve

We’ve been marking our kid’s height inside a kitchen doorway since they were old enough to stand upright without tumbling over. My 6 foot tall son doesn’t remember being short, but we have proof.

Long slow projects like this hydrangea heart are growth charts. I’m not the same artist I was when I started and I can see that here.

I started coloring at the point of the heart. I worked my way counterclockwise around the outside edge. I did the interior large florets last.

And there’s an obvious difference between my first petal and my last.

As you color big images, you get more efficient. You also discover things that look great, you stop repeating mistakes, and you learn to color better and better.

Repetitive images are strangely addicting. It’s fun to make your way back to the beginning and see how your coloring has evolved, grown, and improved.

I don’t remember being clumsy but I was.

Long slow coloring images are practice exercises but they’re far more rewarding than a page full of practice strokes. Don’t ask me to blend a row of squares and then shade a row of circles; I’d quit after two of each.

But I could color flower petals for years and still find new things to explore.

5. It’s okay to get bored

A lot of people look at large coloring images or the ones with lots of fiddly components and think: “how am I supposed to get that done this afternoon?”

Whoa. Back up there, lil' doggie.

Who says you’re supposed start and finish today?

I worked on Annabelle’s Heart over five days. The background in one sitting, shadows in another session. Then the florets over the next four days. A little bit here, a little bit there. Do some now, come back later…

Otherwise, I’d go nuts.

I know the romantic version of an artist is someone locked in their Paris flat painting for six days straight.

But seriously, that’s crazy. Marathons are for runners, not artists. There’s no prize for finishing it all in one sitting.

Take your time, take breaks, go do something else, live your life!

When your mind starts to wander, that’s natures little way of encouraging you to take a walk, grab lunch, and go be normal for a while.

It’s natural to get bored after the 10th petal. It’s good to stop and come back later.

The good stuff? It takes more time to color. That’s how it gets good.

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

Try coloring a Power Poppy stamp that has previously scared you.

Maybe it’s a complex stamp with six different kinds of flowers in it.

Or maybe it’s one of the simpler, single blossom images but you’ve always wanted to try it larger and color the details yourself.

Long slow coloring is a great way to learn and grow PLUS expanded length projects also feed your spirit and allow you to express your unique self.

Set aside the artificial deadlines and stop talking yourself out of big projects.

You can do this!

Want to color Power Poppy’s Follow Your Heart with me? 

Remember, this Hydrangea version is part of the new update to the original stamp pack, don't miss it!

My Annabelle’s Heart class is part of the Vanilla Livestream series for intermediate to advanced Copic colorers. This lesson covers the visual planes concept and shows you how to maximize dimension on three different levels using just our beginner level Push & Pull technique.

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