The rest of my notes from my Copic certification:

I have been practicing my marker blends, as well. If I ever start drawing again, my shading will be much better. Light colour first, then dark, then saturate with the light colour again to get a nice smooth transition!

One of the markers that we sell is called "0 Colorless Blender" and from the name, you would think that it blends. Well, it does not. In fact, that was the part of our certification that amused me the most:

Marianne, the teacher and my coworker, lays down one colour and then a different colour, right next to it. Then she goes over it with the "Colorless Blender"... and the two colours do not blend.

That was exactly the thing that I did when I came home with my first batch of markers, including a Copic 0. And when my two colours did not blend, I was all "dang, this is a worthless marker!"

laughs. Fortunately, at the certification Marianne taught us exactly what the blender marker does do. While it does not "blend" the way you think it should... it does do some cool things!

It pushes ink out of the way... to create highlights, or to erase your little mistakes. You can also use the 0 markers or the ink to create some textures. See the neck on my dragon...

I coloured the dragon, first, and then I played with blender... At the top of the neck, I was just dotting with the sketch 0 colorless blender marker. A bit above the midline I had dabbed some blender on a terry cloth rag and then pressed it against the green. At the base of the dragon neck, I soaked a crumpled paper napkin with blender and pressed that against the green. And the very light arc above the "S" of the static8.com, just happens to be my finger print: I dripped some blender on my finger and then pressed it down! haha.

So I guess the Copic 0 that I got won't be so useless after all.

:)

Static8 > Journal > Archive > 23 may 2009 Entry