inspire Me Monday: Copic Base Layers

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!

First, print the apples image from the Apples in Season digital stamp set onto white cardstock suitable for Copic coloring. I use Hammermill 100 pound (271 gsm) Premium Color Copy Cover for most of my Copic projects, but you may use whichever paper is your favorite. I am using a black line version and have printed the image at approximately 5" x 7". 

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.

Use the three markers to base (or under-paint) the images. I chose to not color the flowers that I wanted to be mostly white, nor the branch, which will be brown. I did a nice layer of ink with each color and then allowed the ink to dry.

Next choose a set of colored pencils that are a middle hardness which will work well if your cardstock is quite smooth. The pencils need to be soft (or waxy) enough to blend, but you don't want to burnish and fill in the tooth of the paper too quickly. Remember, smooth cardstock has very little tooth (texture). If the pencils are too hard, they will just sort of skim over the surface of this very smooth paper.

I chose a set of pencils called Schpirerr Farben, which are marketed as an oil pencil, but seems to be in the middle between oil and wax. The pencils are a medium softness and quite vibrant. I used the pencils to add details and shading to my inked images. 

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. 

Normally an image of this size, coloring fully with Copics, would take me two to three hours to complete, maybe longer. If I use only pencils it may take me as many as 8 or more hours to complete. 

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

Schpirerr Farben colored pencils
Arteza fine line pens
Sakure gelly roll pen
White cardstock

Black cardstock

We’re back with a new digital collection: Folklore Flora

Hi there, everybody!!

Yep, it’s been a while. I’ve missed you folks dearly. Now... is it just me, or has this year been a bit surreal? What started for me as a mini break led to a multi-month sabbatical from drawing. I’ve come to realize that solitude is paramount for my well being. Time in the garden, going away on little trips, taking hot baths, walking the dogs — plus spending time with my daughter before taking her to college — these absorbed me and nourished me, as the call to create eluded me. I decided to stay in the peaceful flow. And I feel refreshed like never before!

I refer to being quiet as “protecting my peace.”
Apparently I needed more peace than I realized.

Did you feel this way at all? Just needed time to be.

Power Poppy is still in biz, and while the blog is quiet for now, there is more goodness on the horizon. The Bloomies and I hope to see lots more of you in the coming months! And guess what, I made some new art.

I’ve got new downloads that you can color in, and new downloads that are already colored — they are my original paintings prepared for you to print out at home.

I have a story about how these drawings came to be...

Tallulah & Mom in NYC

My daughter Tallulah (after she graduated high school in June, Lulu decided to ditch the nickname we gave her as a baby, and use her real name!) and I drove her to college halfway across the country. It was a wonderful, memorable experience. As any of you who’ve gone through it know, the feelings are allllll over the place.

After I returned from New York, I found myself in an introspective spiral. Taking lots of walks and even more hot baths, or basically staring in to space. Really the only thing that felt “right” was sending her letters. Not just any old letter, though, I stuffed envelopes thick with a pretty card and long note, newspaper clippings, stickers, photos, quirky things from around the house. And each time, I’d make a special piece of artwork with an inspiring quote. Something to help her feel loved and not too lonely, to remind her that she's on the learning adventure of a lifetime. That if she’s too sad, that this is really only an experiment, it lasts just a few months, then you are home for break! If she’s nervous, I remind her that she’s highly capable and she's GOT this. I mean, if anyone has GOT this, she does. (Maybe I should have had her running my business, she doesn’t ever seem to need to take a big ol' break!)

I researched writings of all types, hoping to get inspiration from people wiser than I, to share with my daughter. In the course of doing all of this, I kept coming across words that I knew needed to be shared with a broader audience. Pretty convenient that I have a place to share stuff like this, eh?

On a walk with my husband Doug and our dogs, we came across an Ohio Buckeye tree in our neighborhood. I know what a buckeye seed looks like, but I’d never seen them hanging from the tree! What a crazy sight, heavy, bulky globes, some half-open, revealing the buckeye seed within. Buckeyes were all over the ground, so I put a few in my pocket. 

Folklore says that carrying a buckeye in your pocket is good luck. I’d already jotted down an insightful quote from the ancient Roman philosopher Seneca, “Luck is where preparation meets opportunity” in my sketchbook during my research — what a great quote. Now to have found buckeyes to go with the quote? Pretty serendipitous if you ask me. Decided to make a little painting to pop into one of Tallulah’s cards. (Somehow I juxtaposed the two most important words... where is my mind lately?)

After this exercise, I got to thinking... what other bits of flora (not just flowers, but seeds, fruits, vegetables, and trees) have symbolism like that of the buckeye? I wracked my brain for a bit... and there really is soooo much, but since we’re approaching fall, I decided to focus on Figs, Apples, and Gourds, in addition to Buckeyes. Some of what I found out:

Apples are associated with Knowledge

Figs are associated with Enlightenment 

Gourds are associated with Plenty

Buckeyes are associated with Good Luck

I looked up loads of quotes along the lines of each of these themes, and decided to create a botanical image of each piece of Folklore Flora and hand lettered a quote for each one. It turned out pretty neat!

I decided to create an outline of each of these drawings so that YOU can color and create with them yourself — and send them off to someone who needs a mental lift. There is some weighty thought wrapped up here... but the sentiments I’ve included go really great with each theme...

Here is the downloadable set that comes with a TON of options...

AND for the first time ever — I’m offering my artwork as individual full color paintings! Thought it might be fun to see what you guys might want to do with them... you can print the images out on watercolor paper and frame them, or create cards with your papers and embellishments. Whatever you want — just so they aren’t sold and mass marketed or uploaded to Pinterest, pleeeeaaaase. :)

Click here to see the entire collection!

A few of our amazing designers — haven't you missed them?? OMG I have!! — created beautiful things with my new Folklore Flora digital downloads. Be sure to go say hello and check ’em out!

Barbara Campbell

Christine Okken

Julie Koerber

Leave me a note and let me know how you’ve been, what you’re up to, and what you’d like to see in the future from Power Poppy! 

Thank you so much — it’s fun to be back!!