Birthday Boy

Hello everyone,

Is it the weekend yet?  What about now?  now?  Oops, my son must be rubbing off on me.  (I watch Treehouse now?  Now I watch Treehouse?  I watch Treehouse in 5 minutes.  I watch Treehouse in 14 minutes.  I like Treehouse soooooo much!)

 I hope your week is going well and you are gearing up for a great weekend.  We have an extra day of weekend this time around, so I'm looking forward to getting some extra crafty time (hopefully) in between all the stuff we have planned.

Well, a post two days in a row!  What is going on?  My nephew just celebrated his first birthday, so I have a  boy's birthday card to share.  This is also my first real attempt at colouring a real image with markers.  Actually, when I started colouring the image, I was just having a play and fully expected it would end up in the garbage.  Although there is a lot of room for improvement, I thought it turned out alright, so I decided to use it.  While I enjoy colouring with distress inks, I found the markers are much quicker.

Supplies:

Stamps - image from Wild Rose Studio, sentiment from inkadinkado

markers - Copic C0, C2 & C4, B0000, B91, B93 & B95, flex marker R619 & M419.  As I'm new to the whole marker thing, this is almost every marker I own.  You might be seeing a few more blue and grey or black cards hee hee!  

Paper - Bazzill card and Bo Bunny DP.  The edges were inked with stormy sky DI

Other - Cricut cut frame for image, Copic atyou spica clear glittery pen (I outlined all of the stars), American crafts buttons, glossy accents on the bow, twine, brads from stash.

This card is for the following challenges:

Here Come the Boys - for the wonderful sketch

Simon Says Stamp - anything goes

Divas by Design - Celebrate

Top Tip Tuesday - Birthday gifts - Happy 4th birthday Top Tip Tuesday!  

I'll do a beginner marker tip, since I guess I've officially joined that dark side now.  Assuming a limited budget (sigh), one of the hardest questions when starting out with markers is what colours to purchase.  I did not want to invest a lot of funds on something that I was not sure I would like or be good at, but I wanted to get enough colours to actually be able to really try it out and colour full images.  So, if that describes you, here are some tips:

Decide what types of images you like to colour.  (I like colouring people and animals.)

What colours do you get most excited about. (blue and teal for me)

To be able to shade an image and give it depth, you will need to purchase (ideally) 3 markers in the same colour family, each one not more than 2-3 shades darker than the last.  That means it would take at least 3 markers for skin, 3 for hair, 3 for each clothing colour etc.  In the Copic system, colour families are indicated by a letter and the first numerical digit, while the last number represents the darkness of the colour.  So, for example, B91, B93 and B95 make a good colour blending group.  If you want a lot of contrast, then also pick up a really light shade - for example B followed by only zero's.

This is why I opted for cool grey (the colours that start with C), denim blues (the ones that start with B) and black.  I thought they would be most versatile for colouring a lot of animals and represented a minimal investment.  Hope this helps!

If you're still reading, thanks for popping in and for taking the time to leave a comment!  I really appreciate them and love visiting you back.  

Have a great weekend!

Hugs,

Dawn