Chroma Coloring: Preclass

Welcome to our preclass lesson! I’m so excited about this course, and I hope you’ll enjoy it…it’s a joyous celebration of color!

The limited selection of colors – 24 in all – can create all six drawings, and we’ll be learning how to mix, layer, and combine them to create all kinds of colors. Including – gasp – some neutrals that have more life than any brown marker is capable of! You’ll learn skills that will help your art for  years to come, and I’m looking forward to seeing your gorgeous creations!

Before we start…a little housekeeping

I retain the copyright to the content you are learning in class. That means…

1. Do not sell or give away the concepts from my classes – you may not re-teach my instruction contained or created within these lessons.
2. Do not post a video tutorial or step by step photo tutorial of your own redraw of class content.
3. Do not repost any handouts you receive in class.

However…I love to see students making strides and taking this teaching and personalizing it with your own skills.

1. DO make your own designs and develop your own style! I love that!
2. DO gift your creations made with these techniques, of course!

At the bottom of each lesson you’ll see some ways to share your homework and ask questions, so that’ll be handy for you.

Video: Supplies

Sketchbook layout

Since this accordion sketchbook creates double-layers of paper as you adhere it back to back, you’ll want to either:

1. draw the pictures yourself, OR
2. leave the sketchbook unassembled until you trace the sketches

The sketches are not “print this sketch and color it in” types; this is a level 3/4 class, so it’s expected you can trace in a light alcohol marker. You can tape the printout to a window and place your sketchbook page on top so you can see through it, or if you do lots of tracing, I recommend having a lightbox on hand.

Artograph LightTracer light boxes Blick | AMZ  | JACKSONS

Each lesson will have a PDF sketch to download, so you can do the sketching or tracing as you get there, or zip through the lessons (hit the “mark complete” button if you have trouble fast forwarding to later lessons) and get them all done at the start.

Below is the hexagon PDF to print to cut the pages, and a graphic to show you how the sketchbook lays out; to simplify it – the first “spread” has art on both halves, and all the rest have art just on the RIGHT half. The greyed out panels are the ones that glue to the back of the preceding panel. You can create a neverending sketchbook following this, too!

When it comes to the first and last pages, those will have single thicknesses, but you can glue a new single hex onto it so you can create art on all the pages, both sides.

Alcohol Markers

You can use any brand of markers for this course – the lessons are demonstrated in Olo Markers, but other brands will be just great. While brush nibs are recommended, if you’re used to drawing with those, you’re welcome to use what you have.

Below, the colors for Olo and Copic are listed; each of these also has a one-stop link to get ALL the colors on one page to make things easier.

COPIC MARKER

YR04  Y06 Y11  YG01 YG13  YG17
B26 B02 B000 BG10 BG23 BG18
FV2 BV11 BV00  RV55 V04 -0-
RV09 RV04 RV00 R32 R17 R39

Paper

The demonstrations are created on Neenah Cardstock (Solar White ream) but you can make your sketchbook out of anything you’d like. Or even make it a square rather than a hexagon. Or just draw on a piece of paper! It’s up to you.

Other tools

The course does need a white gel pen – I personally love a Signo Uniball Gel Pen (BLICK / AMAZON) but you can use your favorite brand whatever it is.

A sharp knife is crucial for cutting the paper! Shown in the demonstration is a Xacto Sur Grip Utility Knife  – and you’ll want a mat beneath it that is self-healing, or just use some cardboard. Just don’t wreck your table.

Adhesive is a personal choice; I recommend something that’s strong and won’t fall apart! ScorTape comes in Doublesided Adhesive Sheets but also in rolls of tape 1/2″ and 1/4″ – think about what you might use for other projects since this sketchbook assembly won’t use all the sheets or rolls.

Video: Unsticking a stuck gel pen

These tips don’t work EVERY time but might give more life to your jar full of white pens!

New to Olo markers?

Here’s some more info about the pens!