There hasn't been much time for crafting this year - more on that later - but watching this Sandy Allnock video inspired me to get out the Copics and work on my colouring. I took some photos of the colouring process but here's a card I made using one of the completed images:
It's not a patch on Sandy's, which you can see on her blog post here, but it was so relaxing to colour when I had 5 minutes without feeling under pressure to finish the thing! Looking at it now I wish I'd blended out some of the darkest edges a bit more although in real life they don't look quite so pronounced.
Stamping in a colour close to your chosen Copic shades makes a big difference, as you'll see when you look at the red and purple samples. I tried a few colour combinations so I still have some colour work on the go.
This is the pink-red combination - you can see where I've been playing about with different colours before I settled on RV25, RV29 and R39.
I still working on the red-orange combo, having eventually opted for R24, R29 and R89 although I'd like to try a more orange base using R08. Next time I'll use second generation stamping so that the red ink doesn't show through the colouring so much.
Here's the yellow version using Y13, 15, 17, 19 and some 35. As you can see from my notes, the jury is out on whether Y17 has too much orange in it!
Now for the purples. I struggled to find a true purple combination as so many of the Copics seem too pink or too blue or grey. Quite a few of the stamped images went in the bin as I tried the different purple/violet combinations, which is why there aren't any colouring notes on this sample. In the end I went with V17, V09 and V99. I used black for the stamping on this one as I don't have a Copic friendly purple ink.
So that's what I've been up to crafting-wise over the last few months (yes, months!). I'm not going to be able to post very much for the next few weeks as life has served up yet another mini-crisis and I have my parents moving in with us for a while. Mostly I think I'm pretty lucky to have the life I have, but over this past 12 months it's been one thing after another. Thank goodness for the BW and my lovely pals for keeping me going :)
The Boy Wonder and I are heading off to Italy next week for a much-needed holiday. Looking forward to soaking up the culture, seeing some sunshine and eating lots!
Hugs to you all
Tracey xx