Highlighting and Shading Alcohol Marker Coloring with Pencils

Many years ago...

when I had a small collection of my first Copic alcohol markers...

(Too few to blend and shade adequately)

a salesperson at a local Pearl Art store suggested that I combine Prismacolor pencils and alcohol markers..to get lots of shading and color variation.

I went home that day...

and got out my little tin of Copics...and my big tin of Prismacolor pencils...

and gave it a try.

I was thrilled with the result that day...
and...

I have used this technique countless times over the years when making cards.

I've tried it with an assortment of pencils...

and an assortment of markers

(alcohol..and non alcohol)

and.....it works beautifully every time.

Recently...

My personal Santa (aka Gary) 

gave me the complete set of Faber -Castell Polychromos pencils for Christmas ...

along with a back up set of the complete set of Prismacolor pencils

(I already had the full set...but a back up set of duplicates is always a good thing...

especially because I color images...a lot

"Santa" also surprised me with a whole lotta Copics...

(YAY!)

I also had a gorgeous Catherine Scanlon stamp that I hadn't used...yet...

so I thought that I'd give the Polychromos  and Copics a try.

I've combined Prismacolor pencils and Copics in the past...but never Polychromos and Copics...

So I was really looking forward to trying this combination out.

I've used the Polychroms alone...and love them..

They lay color down sooooo smooooooothly.

So I was thinking that they'd work well over copics.

And..

they did!

What do you think?

(**NOTE: Next time I will choose a different green Copic....a shade or two darker..

This green is okay.....but not perfect ...to my liking)

Still...I love how this card turned out...

even with the "green issue".

If you like this look...

give it a try!

You'll need some Ultra smooth card stock...

(I use Spectrum Noir Ultra Smooth Card stock...it's Copic friendly...

and it's ideal for pencil coloring because it really is.....Ultra Smooth)

Start out with stamping and image with Memento Ink...

Then...color the image with one chosen Copic/marker color...

then shade and highlight with pencil colors over the Copic color

and....That's it!

Simple and easy!

and..

if you have a small collection of Copics...

Shading with pencils will expand your color palette....enormously.

I used Clarity Stencil brushes and a Stampin Up ink pad 

to add some background color around the flowers.

I didn't ink the area around the quote because I wanted it to be highlighted by a white background.

Here's the Catherine Scanlon Stamp that I used when creating this card...

*All of Catherine's gorgeous stamp sets....along with this set called  Words of Wisdom 2 
are available on line at:

Art Gone Wild

I didn't include info about the quote...

because the company that offered the quote stamp is no longer in business

It's always a great day when I get to create some cards..

and it's an even better day when I whip out one of my Catherine Scanlon stamps

and enjoy creating a card.....or 2...or 10...with it. 

Creating this card allowed today to qualify as being....
 "one of those days"!

Now it's time for YOU to get out your markers and pencils 

and...

it's time to give this coloring technique a try!

Thanks for visiting...

Have a wonderful day my crafty and creative friends...

Michelle.