Alcohol Marker Jumpstart Preclass

Welcome to class! I’m so glad you’re here. I worked on this class for so long…well let’s get you prepped for the lessons to come with some basic information. Even if you’re an experienced colorist, I hope there’s some interesting information here for you that will make your journey in Alcohol Marker coloring a little easier!

This course was filmed back when only Copics
were available and ubiquitous for artists; but all marker
brands are welcome! See lesson 2 for more
information for those with other brands.

 

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.

Marker Basics

I wanted to share the product info with you, but many of you know this already – so I came up with a fun way to entertain you a bit while I chat about marker bodies, etc….if you’d like to color this picture yourself, see the resources section at the end of the lesson!

 

Color Charts

Creating basic color charts may not be the most interesting part of class – but you’ll want to have at least one on-hand for reference as we work.

I always keep one of a company’s own numerically-oriented charts on hand, as well as a hex chart. If you colored yours ages ago, it’s a good time to make yourself a fresh one; alcohol ink fades over time, so making a new chart can be helpful. Besides, it’ll show you if you’ve misplaced a marker or two (ask me how I know!)

Links to all these charts are in the Resources section at the end of this page.

Maintenance: Refilling, Changing Nibs

Got a few streaky markers in your collection? Pre-class is a great opportunity to get them all refilled or to order in some replacement inks. Blending works SO much better when there’s plenty of color in your markers! Check your nibs, too, and order in a few extras in case you get a “booger” like I show in the video! 

 

Stamping supplies: Paper, Ink, Stamps, Printer

Since many folks coming to take this class are crafters, I’ve included some basic information on stamping – papers, inks, and ideas for the kinds of stamps you may want to try out based on line weights. See the Resources section at the end of this lesson to download the 3page pdf and examine the line weights for yourself.

Assignment

Before beginning you may want to your markers in order, refilling and cleaning as you need to, do a little shopping, and get your charts updated if needed. Otherwise – get some stamping and coloring done!

Downloadable Resources

Please feel free to download these for your personal use, but no materials provided to you in this class may be posted as blank PDFs for others to use. (Feel free to link to this class, however, so your friends know how you got to be so smart!) Just please be considerate of my content and the owners of other charts below as well. Thanks!

1. Marker drawing to color: Download  
2. Alcohol Marker Charts:
3. Copic Charts:
   1. Copic Blending Group Chart (free)
   2. Copic Ciao Labels
   3. Copic Hex Chart, $5.99 (not included in class, also not required, but helpful)
4. Olo Charts:
   1. Olo Hex Chart $5.99 (not included in class, also not required, but helpful)
   2. Olo Blending Group Chart (free
5. Conversion Charts
   1. Copic/Olo conversion chart (free)
   2. Copic/Sketchmarker chart (free)
6. Stamp Line Comparison: Download PDF – clickable links inside take you to the store to shop for that set, though by now many may be long out of production. But it’ll give you an idea which company to google for!

 

 

Markers

The markers listed below are the ones that will be used by me in the class. HOWEVER: You may have markers very similar to some of these! Please do not feel you must have exactly these pens. I’ve created THIS little PDF to provide just a few suggestions of colors that will probably be just fine to replace those, so when you hear me say “B24” you can look at this chart to find another similar color.

I’ve had emails from a few of you about not having any Copics yet – and this list is daunting from that perspective! Please don’t despair. What I would recommend is one of these two options.

I shop for my Copics at Blick here.

 

OPTION 1: Basic rainbow plus

While most of the time we want threesomes (the natural blending groups) to do great blending, you’ll learn in class about how to create some colors out of layering one shade over another. The first several lessons are on color theory and will literally use these markers to see what they can do together. You can use those learnings to create colors in the rest of the lessons.

If you get this basic set of 12 and supplement with neutrals, you’ll possibly learn even MORE than those with a lot of color options – which wouldn’t be a bad thing!

This specific list is used for many of the color studies in the first few lessons and you’ll see how to create colors for the rest of them.

Ohuhu 48

primaries

R160

Y050

B140

secondaries

YR170

V060

RV070  

tertiaries

YR090

YR190

RV070

BV250

G360

G170

Neutrals:

*RG150

*RG159

*BG070

*CG070

*ZERO

*THE 48 SET CONTAINS A LIMITED SET OF NEUTRALS, NO LIGHT GRAYS

 

OPTION 2: Trio of two favorites plus 4 neutrals

Choose your two overall favorite colors to use on your favorite imagery to color. Florals? Maybe it’s pink and yellow. Animals and birds? Perhaps browns and blues.

Then choose markers with suggested “natural” blending groups discussed in the video above. A dark, medium and light that share the same saturation group. Picking 2 color groups means SIX markers so far.

Add some greys – a light (1, 2, or 3) and a medium (4, 5, or 6) and a 0 colorless blender– so that’s a total of 12 markers. That could be enough to get you rolling for class, even if you might end up coloring a purple turtle. The ideas are still the same and you wont have to break the bank!

Paper

While my favorite is Neenah, you can use YOUR favorite paper in class. You need to get to know it better, so what better to do than practice! If getting neenah be sure to get the right one – the kind sold in office supply stores is generally NOT correct; if it’s too cheap there or on Amazon, it’s the cheap office version they make.

1. Neenah Cardstock, Solar White, ream AMZ

Other marker supplies (NOT required)

This section is filled with a variety of supplies – many of which we won’t be using in class but you may find them interesting. As well as the products I used to make the cards for the lessons. I’ve included the Airbrush supplies (the class covers no airbrush) – but before purchasing, please see THIS post for more information on which set you may want to try out.

1. Airbrush
   1. Airbrush ABS3 Blick – AMZ
   2. Aircompressor- go to your nearest Harbor Freight or other store like it, and find a compressor similar to this one.
   3. Cord, you may need one if the compressor doesn’t come with it
2. Copic Reinkers are now in new bottles, not what’s shown in this lesson.  Colorless blender is no longer sold in the big 200cc bottle. BLICK
3. Copic Multiliner, alcohol marker-safe pen Blick – AMZ
4. Copic Tweezers for changing nibs (works on other brands too) BLICK – AMZ

Stamps

In some lessons, demonstrations use all downloadable digital images provided for you, along with and making a number of charts to refer to. Some lessons will be use specific stamps – but many are out of production by now. You an pick any similar stamp you wish. 

Non-stampers need not worry about becoming stampers! Just draw images with similar shapes for practicing blending techniques.

1. Paper Smooches: Vegtastic and Great Chemistry – no longer available; there’s a digi stamp to download in tha tlesson instead, or use any stamp with round images to practice!
2. Lawn Fawn: Critters Down Under – we’ll look at fur on this card, and a few other things to assemble a scene. So any animal stamp like this – and if you have flowers or plants, you can have fun with setting up the scene or just practice fur! 🙂
3. Ellen Hutson, Mondo Hydrangea = no longer available. Flower petals will be in this exercise – soft layering of colors. Any of your pretty flowers will work.
4. Lawn Fawn, Monster Mash and Gerda Steiner Designs, Monster Party (no longer available)  – in this lesson we’ll be playing with odd colors to shade with. Monsters are fun, but you can find lots of stamps you can do this kind of thing with too.
5. Avery Elle, Pixie Dust (no longer available) – this is our little lesson on skin and hair – keeping it simple, so simple people stamps are great. if you have complex ones and are up to that – feel free to use those too!

When I make cards with a lot of amazing coloring, I keep the cards themselves simple – embellish in your own style!