Ok, so you’ve tried a few colored pencil projects and you can’t quite seem to get the hang of it. It looked so simple, it’s a pencil after all. So you buy some of that magic solvent stuff and blend the heck out of your project with a paper stumpy thing. But that just makes a slightly greasy smear and it’s paler than the original. So instead, you try…
You sit down for a little Copic coloring time.
You decide to color a daisy, or a fluffy bunny, or a piece of cake.
So you pick out your main color and then you start doing the math...
"Let's see, if my cake is YR31 then my shade color would be YR31 + 2 = YR33 but they don't make a YR33 marker, so maybe I need to do +3 or +4... but they don't make those markers. Darn it!
So let's try YR31 + 10 + 2 = YR43 but they don't make that marker either! Ack!"
Wait a minute, did you want to color or did you want to do math equations?
The idea started out simply- find an easy way for colorers to choose the correct shade colors for any project.
A lot of colorers swear by this addition method. "It's totally great!" It takes the guesses out of shading.
And the shading you get looks kind'a, maybe, sort'a almost realistic. Or at least "realer" than your projects looked before.
But hold on. I'm about to blow your mind...
Did you know that artists do not shade?
Nope.
This shading stuff? Shading is something crafters do.
But artists? The folks who paint and draw with stunning realism? We don't shade and we definitely don't do math problems to choose our colors.
Don't you love the part of the show where Bob Ross sits down and does long division to decide which tube of paint to use?
NO! Bob Ross never had a math segment because ARTISTS DON'T DO MATH!
So how do artists create depth, dimension, and realism?
Color Sculpting.
All objects have a shape, correct? Cubes, spheres, cylinders, or strange organic shapes that are hard to define.
And all three dimensional shapes have edges, right? The sides, tops, and bottoms.
As those edges get further away from us, the color desaturates- it gets grayer and less brilliant, less pure.
So all of those Copic formulas telling you to color the edges of an object one or two steps darker? They're telling you to do the wrong thing!
Copic says to ADD more color when you should be using LESS color.
And that's why your coloring isn't getting more realistic.
You can practice and practice and practice... but if you're always "shading" using Copic math, you are never going to add any realism.
Artists do not "shade". We use our eyes and our powers of observation to determine what the color is doing as it moves away from us. Then we duplicate what we see on our projects. That's Color Sculpting.
People have been using this method for centuries. They used to teach it to kids, so YOU can totally learn to do it too!
It's not magic.
It's not math.
It's using the eyes in your head and the brain behind them. You were born with all the tools required to color sculpt, you just need to learn to pay attention to what you're seeing!
Is an instant download from PowerPoppy.com; just print it to a Copic safe paper (like X-Press It Blending Card) and color along with me!
Lesson: Color Sculpting technique for realism, focus on white or light colored objects
Stamp: Layer Cake by Power Poppy
Medium: Copic Marker, Prismacolor Premier Pencils, Distress Ink (optional background)
Skill Level: Intermediate through advanced colorers. Once you can blend Copics smoothly and with confidence, you're ready to join us! No drawing skills necessary.
Back in the 1970’s, if you did crafts, you made them from a boxed kit. We didn’t have the internet for inspiration and instruction. We crafted by the box.
I loved one kind of box more than any other- the paint by number kit. I lived for the moment when all my weird globs of paint on the canvas finally coalesced into a prancing horse or a spray of roses.
The rule in paint by number was to stick to the numbering system. Bad things happened if you went outside the lines, put the wrong color in a spot, tried to blend two sections together, or if you ran out of paint and had to start substituting.
Up close, paint by number paintings are eye-scalding but from 20 feet away? You might be mistaken for Van Gogh… or so the box claimed.
