Feeling Retro!

Hello friends! We have just started with one of our most popular themes at Addicted to Stamps and More, "Make Your Mark": use markers or any other coloring mediums! I used Copics to color in the pretty image from The Paper Nest Dolls, our generous sponsor this week. I thought it would be fun to share with you how I colored the umbrella with a "sliding colors"-look... Remember I'm not a trained Copic user and no expert in any way, this is just FYI and for fun! The paper I used is smooth paper meant for color copying and it's really thin, only 100 g -I have to use it when coloring digis because my laser printer doesn't take any thicker paper- But when I'm hand stamping images for coloring in, I use 200 or 250 g card. Anyways, here we go!

The Copics I used for coloring in the umbrella: 

Y21, R02, YR07

 First I laid down my base color, Y21. It does not have to be perfect. The base coat starts to saturate the paper and helps the blending in next steps.

 After the base coat, I added my medium color which is R02. Can you see how I've flicked the color upwards from the corners? I try to lift the marker in the end with my wrist. 

 I take my Y21 again and start to blend the R02 using those flicking motions. Circular motions can also be used and I probably did use some circular motions with the flicking too -when blending, everybody has own preference I guess! 

 Now I add my darkest color, YR07, to the corners. You can see that all my flicks are not perfect, I didn't lift the marker properly with my wrist in the end. I'll solve it in the next step!

I now blend my YR07 with R02. I use the tip of RO2 to take some ink from the tip of YR07: now, when I blend with my R02 it has little bit of the YR07 in it and that makes mixing those colors is easier. After I've done, I scribble my R02 to a scrap paper to make sure all YR07 is removed from it. Using markers like this should not harm them -or it hasn't harmed my markers anyway!

 Time to blend with Y21 again. You can see that my paper is really wet now. I'll leave it to dry -I can make corrections after it has dried and I see the final result. So...

... Time to do it all again to the right side of the umbrella! All the same steps. :)

 I've now done both sides. There's too much of the yellow in the middle to my taste...

...so I made more flicks with my R02  (from both corners to the direction of the center) and blended it with Y21 to make it more orange and less yellow. The coloring is still wet in this photo, you can see that the result looks a bit different in the final card. After my whole coloring was done, I cleaned the outlines with my blender pen, I had colored over the lines in some spots.

This is not my best coloring work ever (I should have done some more blending in the very center of the umbrella) but I wanted to show you how fun it is to use markers from different color groups and still blend them! I would love to get some feedback and advises! 

I'm off now, please join us at ATSM this week and enjoy the rest of the week, everyone! Thanks for popping by!

I'd like to enter the following challenges:
http://scrapbitzcopics.ning.com/group/cmccopicchallengegroup Retro fun
http://copicmarkernorge.blogspot.fi/2013/09/utfordring-42.html Inspiration Photo (colors)
http://cutedaisymay.blogspot.fi/ Fall
http://corrosivechallengesbyjanet.blogspot.fi/ All about fall
http://greatimpressionsstamps.blogspot.fi/2013/09/september-challenge-winners-and-sale.html Fall colors