it’s MARKER GEEK MONDAY!

Time for another Marker Geek Monday! Hopefully a splash of colour will help banish the Monday blues. 😉

If you’re joining us for the first time you may want to check out the previous Marker Geek Monday posts HERE.

This week I’d like to encourage you to play with your markers (or other colouring mediums) and see how you can achieve variety and interest in your colouring with a limited palette.

As you can see, I’ve been having fun with MONIQUE LOVES MACARONS, one of the fun Stamping Bella Uptown Girl images. This one is perfect for testing out how using markers from one main “combo” in different ways can create different results. On each stamped image I have taken one main Copic combo and used markers from it on each macaron to create an attractive, eye-catching stack.

I’d also like to remind you that your results with the same combos are likely to be different. The look you achieve with your markers will vary depending on how heavily you apply the ink, how much you layer, the order in which you use the markers in a combo, the paper you use etc. This is the beauty of Copic markers – you can build a great deal of depth and variety of colour with quite a limited selection of markers. So, if your collection is still in the early stages, or you are just about to get started, don’t be disheartened! You can have a lot of fun with less markers than you might think. 😉

If you don’t have the colours I’ve used, grab a combo of markers you do have and try something similar with those.

Top Tips:

• If there is a big gap between some of your markers (or they just don’t blend nicely), like Y11 and YR23 in my examples below, use the “tip to tip” blending method to help blend. This technique involves picking up some of the ink from your darker marker on the nib of the lighter marker, and using that as your mid-tone to blend on the paper. You can either pick the ink up directly from the marker nib, or scribble some ink onto an acrylic block first.
• If you have difficulty creating the depth you would like in shadow areas, use your greys to help out (see HERE for some tips on greys).

There’s something quite satisfying about seeing all those colourful macaron stacks! Another great image to play with would be the MACARON BOUQUET stamp.

Have a fantastic, colourful week. Remember to experiment, then pop back and share your results here with us on the blog or over on Instagram using #markergeekmonday ! We love to hear from you, so don’t be shy.

MWAH!

~Elaineabella