Hi, everyone -- Sharon here, with a fun Copic "watercolor" technique to share with you today! While I've shared a few different watercolor looks you can achieve with your Copic markers and refills, I had never tried this particular look and loved the results!
You may be familiar with achieving this similar type of background, either by just watercoloring on paper, applying dye-based inks to a craft mat and then dipping your paper into it, or by applying color to an acrylic block and then using the block to stamp the color onto your paper. If you try the latter by using Copic Various Ink Refills on an acrylic block and then stamping onto watercolor paper, this is usually what you will get:
Because the natural properties of the Copic alcohol ink is to dry quickly and will immediately soak right into the paper, you don't get that pretty watercolored look of some of the colors blending together. While this may be a look you would like to use sometime, it just wasn't the look I was going for today! But when my sweet friend, CLASSroom alum and fellow Copic teaching team mate, Debbie Olson shared her successful results with this technique on White Glossy Cardstock cardstock, I just had to give it a try! Many thanks to Debbie for sharing her results!
Here are the steps:
1. Lightly squirt 2 or 3 coordinating colors of Copic Various Ink Refills onto an acrylic block (I used a 3.50" x 4.50" and a 3"x4" Acrylic Block). For best results use colors near each other on the color wheel -- in my first sample, I used B23, BG01, YG07. Otherwise, you may end up with mud! :)
2. Lightly spritz (3-4 times) Copic Colorless Blender Solution onto the colors, to keep them wet and help them move around and blend a little.
3. Then you can apply the color to your Glossy cardstock one of two ways. Shown above, I laid a piece of cardfront sized (4.25" x 5.50") cardstock onto the block and then lifted it off. You'll want to do this quickly after spritzing the acrylic block -- I let a little too much time lapse in the sample above, while I was taking photos and the color dried a little more here than it did in my other rest runs!
#4 above are the results!
With the photographed sample above, I tried spritzing Blender Solution directly on the Glossy cardstock, tilted the paper downwards and let the colors run together a little more and really liked these results, too!
As you can see on the acrylic block above, there was still quite a bit of color still on the acrylic block. You can either spritz it again with Blender Solution, to get another lighter impression.
6. Or you can do what I did below, and add a little more Various Ink Refill color, spritz again with Blender Solution and make some more impressions!
7. This shows the other way you can apply the ink to the paper -- turn the block over and "stamp" it onto the Glossy cardstock. It's fun to watch the colors move around, by applying pressure in different spots on the block.
8. The results of this stamping.
Here are more of my blue-aqua-green results . . . some really fun patterns!
To make the blue card, I white heat embossed MFT's Grand Peaceful Wildflower stamps and stamped a sentiment from the same set in Jet Black Archival. The watercolor panel was trimmed and popped up on Copic Foam Tape on a Mixed Pool Hero Arts Folded Card:
I also played around with this color combo -- RV25, Y04, YR04 -- for some really BRIGHT results:
To make the pink-red-orange card, I stamped MFT's Sweet Roses. leaves and sentiment from this set in Jet Black Archival ink:
This stamp set does not offer stems, so I just drew some in with my Copic Black-100 marker:
I finished this card by also trimming and popping it up on Copic Foam tape, on a Mixed Blush Hero Arts Folded Card.
I hope you will have fun trying this technique! ~ Sharon
