Freshly Made Fairy!

So, my sister asked me to attend a free Copic Marker demo at a Michaels crafting super store this weekend.  I have a decent number of Copics, but I have never taken any particular Copic colouring classes, although I have watched many useful tutorials online.

Last weekend, we had a Holiday Card class with Close to My Heart and we made this really cute village scene to learn the technique of masking.  Well, I wasn't planning on buying any Copics, but my eyeball happened to fall on a colour that was just like the colour we used on the holiday village (which is a stamp set I bought too)!  The Copics were on sale as well, soooo.... I had to buy it.  And then.... I had to buy it a friend so I could blend too.

Next, I found a sweet little sketch challenge to allow me to play with my new Copic colours.  Here is the original sketch from Freshly Made Sketches Challenge #103:

Here is my entry:

It's clean and simple, which is right up my alley!  I used a digital fairy image from A Day for Daisies (which is no longer available).  The Copic colours BG72 "Ice Ocean" was the colour I had to buy and BG10 "Cool Shadow" is the friend I bought for it.

Now, the demonstrator at Michaels said she was told to use the dark colour first and then go back in with the lighter colours to blend.  I am used to starting light and slowly darkening an image.  So, that's how I do it.  I colour all over in the lighter colours first, leaving white where I want pure highlights (none in this case).  Then, I dab in some shadows and then I go back with the light marker to blend in that darker colour.

For this one, though, I tried it the other way: dark first and light after.  I left white when colouring with the darker marker for where I wanted the lightest highlights.  I found I had to go back over it a lot more than with my normal method in order to not have such a stark contrast where one colour ended and the other started.  But it still worked.

Click for larger view.

Personally, since these markers blend so well, I think it would work either way.

So, how well did I match the colour from last week?  (I should mention, Close to My Heart has alcohol markers too and I bought some, but they haven't been delivered yet for me to play with.  Their markers are much cheaper and come in blending pairs.  Since they are alcohol markers, I fully expect them to blend with my existing Copic markers.)

Here is the card we made last week.  The roof of the building in the middle is the colour I wanted to match.

This holiday card is designed for a No.10 (long, skinny) envelope.  I decided to try my masking on a regular small invitation size.  (Got lots of card and envelope sets on sale at Michaels when I went with my sister too!)  The original sample from our CTMH consultant was more monochrome, so I decided to try that out.  I haven't finished my card, but here is the village panel:

It's actually a very close match!  The colour I got has a little more grey undertone than the CTMH one.  The CTMH one has a little more green undertone.  You can't see the difference with the photo very well, but I can see it with my naked eye.

CTMH left; Copic right

I had fun playing with my new markers.  I love blues and teals!