Blue Flower Card and Copic Coloring Technique

For this week's sketch challenge #57 on Operation Write Home's Stars and Stamps blog, I worked with shades of blue. I'm really happy with this card.

The central image is my daisy drawing (almost two years old now), which is fun for me to color. Click here for more card examples with this drawing, in a variety of colors.

I also included a 3-step illustration of my coloring process. Please scroll down to see it.

The cardstock is Neenah (for the daisy image) and Papertrey Ink enchanted evening (dark blue circle and card base), spring rain (pale blue rectangle), and blueberry sky (medium blue squares). Circle punches are EK Success 2-1/4" plain and 2" scalloped. The sentiment "Hello" is computer-printed in "Lucida Handwriting" font, using a black outline with blue fill.

Created for Operation Write Home, "supporting our nation's armed forces by sending blank handmade greeting cards to write home on, as well as cards of gratitude to encourage them." (060)

Coloring process

To give you a sense of scale, each scalloped circle is 2" across. I used the Copic markers shown in my little chart on the left - YG05, YG63, B14, B39, B41, B45, and a custom color that I call B2000. Instead of B2000, you could use any pale blue, such as B000, or even a pale yellow or green. For more about my custom colors, click here.

Also a word about paper - I prefer Neenah card stock for this type of layered coloring. It doesn't feather - just enough wicking to let me move the colors around - and it doesn't blend "too much" as I find with some of the extra-smooth card stocks. But everyone has a different preference.

My first step was to color everything with my base color, a very light blue - B2000 in my case. It's much easier to do this first, rather than go back later to fill in the tiny spaces between the flowers and leaves. And the pale color won't hurt the colors on top of it.

Then, when the base color was dry, I added some dots of B39 in the flower centers, streaks of B14 on the petals, and streaks of YG05 on the leaves and stems. The result is shown as A. It doesn't need to be precise, though I do try to stay inside the lines.

Next I filled in my empty spaces, with B45 on the petals and YG63 on the leaves and stems. Again, it's not precise, and you will notice I left some empty bits. (Empty meaning just the base color.) The result is shown as B. You may want to click on the drawing to enlarge it, to see how very patchy it is at this stage. Note, A and B are two different images, but it gives you the idea.

The final step is to color over all the flowers with B41, and all the leaves and stems with B2000. Don't overdo this. The goal is to blur the colors together, and to lighten the blues in places, but not to blend them completely. The watercolor-y result is shown in my finished card at the top of the post, where I used image A.

Thanks for reading my post! Please feel free to leave me a question in the comments. If you'd like to see more of my drawing and coloring, you are welcome to visit my other blog, Mostly Markers. And if you're new (or not new) to using Copic markers, I recommend Marianne Walker's I Like Markers blog for wonderful Copic education and information- start with her older posts (June 2008) and work forward.