I Didn't Want To...But I Do

Seriously, I did not want to like Copic markers, but I do. Like everyone else, I wondered if they would live up to the hype. I mean, I have some Prismacolor pencils and markers and pastels, do I really need another coloring medium? The $5-6 price tag per marker seemed too high to justify switching. So, I ordered just a few to try and I finally got a chance to play around with them. I tested them on one of the daffodil images from the Easter Daffodils digikit.

Now, I do want to say that they are not the easiest things to use right off the bat. Boy did I do some hideous work the first couple of tries. But if you know me, then you know that I am not one to give up easily! I don't know if I am happy or mad that I didn't give up. Because once I got the hang of it, I do like the results. (although, I am far from "good" at it) With even more practice, (and more colors) I think they could produce some stunning results. Hence the "mad" part...just what I need, another expense. ;o)

So which do I prefer? I still love my Prismacolor pencils for the textured look they create and ease of use, by far I find them the easiest to blend and the most forgiving. Between the markers..here's my basic breakdown:

Nibs
Prismacolor Markers (PCM) have a harder nib than Copic Markers (CM), I prefer the softer, paint brush like feel of the CM.

Color
I found them both to lay color with equal coverage and fluidity. If you are not careful, especially on porous paper, the CM color will bleed. However, the CM markers were much less likely to cause the black edges of printed images to bleed.

Blending
I found it much easier to blend colors with the CM. I also found the CM colorless blender performed much better than the PCM. The PCM blender acted much more like an eraser and removed color more so than the PCM blender. Tip: After more practice, I discovered that for me, it is easier to lay down all of my midtone color first, covering all areas. Then come back in with the shade where I want it, and blend the edges where they meet. I then come back in with the midtone and go over the blend. Last I go in and add my highlights using just the colorless blender. That way if I take away too much color, I can go over it again with a highlight color to further blend it.

Overall
If you are doing flat coloring, Prismacolor markers will do just fine, but I personally prefer the Copic markers over the Prismacolor markers for blending. The Copic markers also had next to no odor in comparison to the strong odor of the Prismacolor markers.

I will definitely be expanding my Copic collection, and will be sharing some more in depth coloring techniques with you all as I learn. Thanks for stopping by today and hope you are having a FABulous weekend!

Printing Digital Paper

Day two in Dawn's digital adventures, and I thought I'd tackle printing digital paper...and of course creating something with it!

This pair of cards was created using the Spring Argyle Digital Paper Pack available now at www.wplus9.com for just $2.00! Super simple layout, as is my usual, and I pulled the colors straight from the paper. After printing the paper, I used the Martha Stewart butterfly punch, and a little DMC floss for the butterfly bodies. Notice how well that paper coordinates with existing product colors! I used SU!'s Chocoalate Chip and Baja Breeze.

I practiced printing the papers a couple of different ways so I could share the methods and results with you. Here is a shot of three of the patterns printed three different ways:

The two smaller prints were both printed straight from my Windows Photo Gallery. I just double clicked on the file from Windows Explorer (double clicking My Computer icon on my desktop and navigating to the file on my PC) and it opened in my Windows Photo Gallery by default. From there I chose print from the menu. For the middle far right pattern, I chose premium paper as my paper option from printer settings. I noticed that it took longer to print and the colors came out very saturated and sharp. So for the next one I tried using plain paper as my paper option, and it came out much softer and faster. I actually prefer this as it gives the paper more of a real paper look and not a digitally perfect print.

Now for the larger print, this is actually identical in size and pattern as the other two. But for this one I printed it using Word 2007. Starting with a new blank document, I chose Insert; and then Picture from the menu, navigated to the file on my PC and selected it. After the image was inserted, I extended my margins running across the top and down the left side of the document, all the way to the edges so that the paper image covered the entire document. Now here's the good part, since this files are all created and saved out at 300 dpi they scale exceptionally well. I selected the image on the page, this automatically brings up your Format menu at the top, and in the size box, I typed in 26 inches for the height. This increased the size of the paper image, which in turn made the pattern a larger scale. See the screen shot below:

Hopefully I have helped and not confused you more. Or if nothing else, provided you something pretty to look at! ;o) Thanks for stopping by, as always, and I'll leave you with a parting shot of those butterflies in all of their argyle glory.

Let's Get Digital

I have a crazy eighties pop song running through my head now...great. LOL I wanted to share some digital cuteness that I am drooling over, and I don't usually go for cutesy, but hey, the heart wants what it wants. Right?

Ignoring my horrid coloring skills, isn't that just the cutest little chick on the block!? Love him. It's the boy chick from the Wplus9 Design Studio digital stamp set Big Easter now available for just $2.00. I used a mixture of prismacolor pencils (egg) and prismacolor markers (chick)to color in this image after printing. (I have some copics on order so I will share my thoughts on the differences once I get to use them.) I do like the texture the pencils added on the egg though, gives the appearance of an actual egg shell.

Now I'm sure there are some hybrid newbies out there like me and I wanted to share a few screen shots of how I did it. It wasn't at all hard and over the next couple of posts I'll be sharing my experience with you in the hybrid adventures. ;o) I wanted to use these files the same way I would imagine most people would, without the help of any graphics software like Photoshop or Illustrator. For this image I figured Word would be the easiest. Open Word, and using a new document, go to Insert in your menu; and select Picture. Select the picture you want to insert from your files. Click on the image below to view larger.

Repeat steps until you have all of the images you want to print.

For my card, this was perfect and I just hit Print, and printed on SU! Whisper White cardstock. My favorite for digi-printing, I find it to be the perfect weight especially for patterned paper. But if you want to "layer" images, that's simple to. Select the image you want to be in the background and then select Text Wrapping in your menu. See image below.

Select Behind Text. This will move that image to the background.

Now you can arrange your images the way you'd like.

For a fantastic video tutorial visit Savitri's blog and she will walk you through step by step.

Thanks for stopping in and I hope you'll give it a try!