Blending with Alcohol markers/Difuminado con marcadores de alcohol.

English below • Español más abajo

I took an alcohol marker blending workshop with Quillish artist and cardmaker (among many other things!).  And I loved it. My main experience painting with markers were with acrylic markers; and frankly, I only used them for rudimentary lettering and coloring. But I grew up with alcohol markers.

Alcohol markers are capable of subtle shading. And they are a natural compliment to stamping or hand drawing. You can build up layers and they are delightfully vibrant. 

But here is the key. You need quality alcohol markers. Before, I had a knock-off, no name set of alcohol markers and pretty quickly realized I would only. be able to use them for my personal coloring book activities. They were not suitable for art.

Why, you may ask? Quality markers have a consistent ink color throughout the marker and within the set. Their colors match the company provided swatches and color names. And lastly, the actual marker needs to be made well. Nib tips and brush tips need to be durable and be able to create the lines for which they are intended.

I had given up on my alcohol marker set and wondered why artists used them as much as they did. So I decided to purchase a few sets from a high caliber supplier (Altenew). I started with a few sets of four in different color families. And I took a workshop on coloring with alcohol markers. These cards were the result of my first foray into alcohol markers. I like it! Plan to see more of this medium in future work.

Artist's Note: All artwork shown is my original creation. AI may be used only to stage photos of my work—never to create the artwork itself.

Recientemente tomé un taller de difuminado con marcadores de alcohol impartido por la artista y creadora de tarjetas Quillish (¡además de muchas otras facetas creativas!). La experiencia me encantó y me abrió las puertas a una técnica que siempre había querido explorar.

Hasta ahora, mi experiencia con marcadores se limitaba principalmente a los marcadores acrílicos, que utilizaba para hacer letras decorativas y colorear detalles sencillos. Los marcadores de alcohol, en cambio, ofrecen posibilidades muy diferentes.

Una de sus grandes ventajas es que permiten crear degradados suaves y sombreados muy naturales. Además, combinan perfectamente con los sellos y con los dibujos hechos a mano. Al aplicar capas de color poco a poco se consiguen resultados intensos, luminosos y llenos de profundidad.

Ahora bien, hay un aspecto fundamental: la calidad de los marcadores hace una gran diferencia.

Hace algún tiempo compré un juego económico, sin una marca reconocida. Muy pronto descubrí que solo era útil para colorear por diversión en libros para colorear. Para realizar trabajos artísticos no ofrecía los resultados que buscaba.

¿Por qué sucede esto? Los marcadores de buena calidad mantienen un color uniforme de principio a fin y los tonos coinciden con las muestras y cartas de color del fabricante. Además, están mejor fabricados: tanto la punta pincel como la punta biselada son resistentes y permiten realizar los trazos con precisión y control.

Después de esa primera experiencia pensé que los marcadores de alcohol simplemente no eran para mí. Sin embargo, decidí darles una segunda oportunidad y adquirí varios juegos de una marca de alta calidad, Altenew, comenzando con pequeños conjuntos de cuatro marcadores en distintas gamas de color. También me inscribí en un taller para aprender las técnicas básicas de coloreado. 

Las tarjetas que comparto hoy son el resultado de esa primera experiencia. Estoy muy satisfecha con el resultado y, sin duda, seguirán viendo este medio en futuros proyectos y tutoriales.

Nota de la artista: Todas las obras que se muestran son creaciones originales mías. La inteligencia artificial puede utilizarse únicamente para preparar o ambientar las fotografías de mis obras; nunca para crear la obra artística en sí.

Creating with an intentional use of colors

 

One of the most delightful aspects of card making is the choices you have in colors - both in inks as well as papers and embellishments. Indeed, my art is characterized by a bold use of colors.  I wanted to create a card being more intentional about my choices of how I use  color. 

I started out wanting to create a veritable kaleidoscope. I chose a stylized flower bud from Altenew's Simple Flower set and thought of filling my card's front with all different colors. 

I set out to use almost all my Altenew inks I own. I stamped with select individual Altenew mini inks from all my mini-sets (golden sunset, pocketful of sunshine, summer afternoon, red cosmos, lapis lazuli, sweet dreams, shades of purple and coffee break). I also used a few of Ranger distress inks and select full size Altenew inks in fresh dye crimson, sweet leaf, and crisp ink parrot. Whew! I went crazy with color and loved it. 

But a funny thing happened. After I had filled the cover of my card with a rainbow of swirls, I noticed some blank spaces that seemed to interrupt the flow. I saw a tiny circular-ish stamp in the Simple Flowers set and used embossing ink to stamp the small shape in the large blank spots. My plan was to heat emboss it so that I had a faint clear, shiny design in the empty spots. It did not turn out as I hoped. I do not know why but they embossed in varying shades of brown and basically looked messy.

So, what is a girl to do but improvise. I cut the paper in strips, avoiding the ugly embossed stamps.  I layered a black cut out over a white card front and added the strips of color with a Hugs sentiment from Altenew's Garden Gala set in the upper left corner. Since the card was already becoming quirky, I chose different lengths and widths of colorful strips and placed the hello at a slant. In the end, I really like the bold variety of colors. This design was not a favorite of mine, but I did create an interesting look after all was said and done. This is how it goes - occasionally "oops" will happen. Sometimes your art muse lets you succeed in salvaging the design.

Because of the hitch in this card's design, I chose to make another. This time I chose a monochromatic use of color. I absolutely like this card. Not love or even prefer. For me, the hand drawn petal outlines make it look less polished than I wanted. And the choice of silver for the sentiment was not wise, as the silver is too close in tone to white and light lavender to really stand out.

But c'est la vie. I learn from my mis-steps. The two cards are nice. Just not ones I like to look at over and over, lol. Do you agree with my assessments? What do you think?

Supplies

• Altenew's Blooming Thanks stamp set
• Altenew's fresh dye ink in limestone
• Altenew's Fancy Hello die
• Altenew's Solar White card stock
• Altenew's Lavender Fields card stock
• Altenew's metallic watercolor 14 pan set
• Altenew's double sided tape and glue
• Alcohol marker in deep purple
• Acrylic lavender marker
• Metallic silver card stock
• Die cutting machine
• Sequins: clear and lavender 
  
  
  

1. Cut and fold an A2 (4.25"X5.5") card. Cut an A2 size single piece of lavender card stock. 
2. Using the limestone ink, stamp the Blooming Thanks flower all over the lavender card stock. Create a haphazard arrangement with some stamps cut off by the paper's edges.
3. Outline the flower with a deep purple alcohol marker. Leave the leaves in the pale grey color so that they do not detract from the purple theme of the card.
4. Use your metallic purple watercolor to paint the center of the flowers.
5. Paint in the petals with the acrylic lavender marker
6. Place your Hello die center on a 5.5" side of lavender card stock and let half be off the paper. Die cut the Hello die. Glue the lavender card stock onto the white card front.
7. Die cut a full size Hello from silver card stock. Cut two more Hello's from white cardstock (Not the A2 card).
8. Stack and glue the three Hello's with the silver Hello on top. 
9. Glue the thickened Hello cut-out onto the card front where it fits into the half cut-out. The effect is to have the silver Hello lying on top covering the card front - half on white and half on the lavender card stock.
10. Glue a few sequins in upper corner for embellishment.

As an aside, since I am one of many artists who offer written and video tutorials online, I try to offer something unique with my contributions to this field. I enjoy checking out other card makers and craft companies. It helps me grow as an artist and crafter. But I have noticed one thing with the majority of online creators. And that is an almost pristine presentation in so far as the actual vibe of their visual and written content. I admit, this is a weak spot for me as a content creator. I am naturally a messy girl and enjoy a kitchen table feel to my writing. This translates as my being OK with less than perfect tidiness in  crafting workspace and in a writing style that is transparent about my errors and bloopers. 

I hope you find this refreshing- my writing about two cards that did not measure up to my preferred standards. I value transparency and realness for my readers and viewers. I know that is what is attractive to me as a lifetime student of the arts. I hope it makes me more relatable and encourages any shy crafter out there thinking of purchasing their first supplies. I say "clear that kitchen table and roll up your sleeves". Don't worry about making mistakes. Everyone has a creativity muscle, you just have to exercise it. And I see all my missteps as valuable lessons and  every now and then I let you, dear reader, in on some of my bloopers.

Playing with alcohol markers

I like to keep my eyes and hands busy playing with beautiful  colors and shapes, even when relaxing. So it is no surprise that I enjoy coloring. I found a love of coloring when I was in hospital. And I continued with it when I got home.  I bought an inexpensive medium set of alcohol markers and now you can often find me coloring pages in front of the tv. And that satisfied me. That was the extent to which I used my alcohol markers. 

I had been hearing about alcohol inks and of course, I wanted to get my hands on few bottles of spray alcohol ink. But I told myself that I had many art supplies and was not sure I would get a lot of use with these sprays as they only work on non-porous surfaces; and I love working with papers or canvases. So I only explored my alcohol ink markers coloring adult coloring books.

Then I took a class with Sara Naumann called Magic Marker Techniques (offered through Altenew's Academy). And I learned I was sitting on those alcohol markers with a myopic eye. I learned I could use my alcohol markers to create beautiful effects on my cards. 

I created this simple flower card using those alcohol makers on metallic paper. While not totally non-porous, metallic card stock was a suitable enough non-porous surface. At first I was not keen with the effect I saw. But when it dried and I looked at it with fresh eyes, I saw a graceful speckled effect. I like it! 

Here is how I achieved that look.

Supplies

• 
  Altenew's Nostalgic Florals outline stamp and die set
• Altenew's permanent black pigment ink
• Altenew's solar white card stock
• Altenew's black card stock
• Altenew's ornate nesting die set
• Altenew's double sided tape, foam tape
• Altenew's permanent black pigment ink
• Altenew's scissors
• Metallic card stock
• Small spray bottle filled with rubbing alcohol
• Embossing ink and powder
• Embossing powder tool
• Heat tool
• Die cutting machine

Optional: Altenew's Stampwheel 2.0, Altenew's fine line brush

1. Cut and fold an A2 (4.25"X5.5") card and set aside.
2. 
   
   Using the largest of ornate nesting dies, cut out a large piece with your black card stock
3. Using the next smallest die (from the largest), cut out a piece with your white card stock.
4. Affix the large black nesting cut-out to the center of the front of your card. Then affix the white nesting cut-out centered onto that black background.
5. Prep your white card stock with an anti static medium. I use corn starch with an embossing powder tool. Stamp your selected sentiment with embossing ink. Then pour embossing powder over the ink. and shake off excess. You may need to repeat pouring powder to get complete coverage. If you find stray powder on your powder close to your design, use a fine line brush to brush stray powder away.
   
6. Use your heat tool to emboss the sentiment. Cut out the sentiment.
7. 
   Select alcohol markers in the desired colors for your flowers and leaves. Cover large areas (at least 4"X8") with your alcohol markers onto the metallic card stock. Since the alcohol makes the markers dry quickly, you will need to work fast. After you cover a large area with your colors, immediately spritz the area with your alcohol spray. I kept my spray around 6-8" from the metallic paper. The spritzed alcohol will react to your alcohol marker and create beading and movement of the pigment on the surface of your metallic paper. This effect is more dramatic if you use an even more non-porous surface, like a craft aluminum sheet of about 0.15 millimeter thick. You can find that in craft stores. Let dry thoroughly. I did around three passes of this process to get the effect I desired.
8. Now stamp your flowers and sentiment onto the metallic cardstock with the dried alcohol ink. Use the black permanent ink. Using the Stampwheel 2.0 helps me ensure I will have dark uniform outlines. 
9. Use your die cutting machine and dies to cut out the flowers from the inked metallic card stock. Use scissors to cut a framing piece to go under your sentiment.
10. Design the card layout and glue on your cut-outs. For visual interest I chose to incorporate heigh differences with foam tape for the larger flower and leaves. I also purposefully let my flower overlap the edge of the frames. I used flat double sided tape for the smaller flower and leaf. 
    
    
    
11. I made the sentiment really pop by foam taping both the white sentiment cut-out onto the metallic base cut-out and in turn, foam taping the entire sentiment onto the card.

The end result was highly dimensional card with unique inking. There are many points of interest on this card. What started as a simple design in my mind turned out to be intricate in it's

subtlety. I am so happy to have dipped my toe into working with alcohol inks in more artistic ways.

If you would like to purchase this card, head on over to my EBay store VanGoghChicaStudio The link is in my link list on this blog side panel.