Tutorial Thursday - Copic Background Technique

Hi All, 

Debbie here today with a fun little background technique for those of you who are Copic users. This technique works with a variety of different colour blends so don't feel you have to use the ones I'm using - experiment - have fun - that's what life should be about. 

For my Card You'll need:

Stamp - Coffee Break Marci plus sentiment

Dies - Coffee Cup, Stitched Circles Border, Double Stitched Circles, Pierced Scalloped Circles, Oval from Stitched Elements set

Copics for the background - I used E99, E97, BG32

Copic Colourless Blender

Now let's get started...

Print off your image and use the die you're going to cut her out with to trace a pencil line around. This ensures that you don't spend time colouring areas that will be discarded later.

Use your selected copics - I like to use no more than 3 - to create a camouflage style of pattern on the background.

Start dropping or dabbing colourless blender over the camo background - I use a cotton swab soaked in the blender solution and dabbed with varying degrees of pressure to give different sized areas.

Note - Make sure that you don't saturate any one area as you'll just bleed all the colour together and lose the fun bubble texture. Let each area dry and go back later.

Keep going until you're happy with the look. Some colour will bleed into the image but we'll deal with that in the next step. This is why we do the background first - we don't want the image to start "bubbling" along with the background.

Use your colourless blender to push any colour back out of the image and into the background. You will also be colouring the image in so will cover any persistant shadows. Also "ground" the image if you like. .

Colour in the image and cut out using your selected die.

Note - I have made sure the top of her head isn't cut off and I use a bit of washi tape to hold the die in place while cutting.  

I started putting my card together and realised I needed a dark trim around my image to give it some definition. I don't have a die that works with this oval to give it a border so here's a little trick for you....

...I die cut the oval in dark brown and split it down the middle before gluing it the back of the image. Make sure you hide the cut points behind the image. This gives a nice matching trim even if it's not all the way around.

And here's my finished card :)

Copics Used

Skin - E11, E00, E000, R24, R20, R11

Hair - E99, E97, E77, E49

Clothes - BG78, BG32, BG10, BG09, E99, E97, E77, E49

Coffee Cup - E99, E97, E95, C4, C2, C0

Shadow around Marci - C4, C2

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and have fun getting inky with your own version.

Happy Stamping

Debbie

xXx