While cruising the net have you seen those beautiful cards with that soft blended coloring, a little like watercoloring but more controlled ? Yeah, me too, and I got tired of seeing those and not knowing how to recreate them myself, so I did a little more net cruising and found some good tips. This week's "Tipsy Tuesday" topic includes these tip jems for colored pencils.
It seems that wax-based colored pencils, like Prismacolor, blended with Gamsol odorless minimal spirits is what they're using. They use them with a fast-drying die-based ink (e.g., Staz-On) on outline stamps and kind of take elementary-school coloring to a new level. After lots of practice (I hadn't colored since before Disco dancing was hot) here's an example of a card using the "magic pencil" technique with the same card pattern we did here.
There are several really good tutorials on the web for the "magic pencil" so I won't try to describe the technique. These ladies have done a fabulous job:
- Sassy and Sweet Notes Prisma Color Pencil & Gamsol Tips
- Splitcoast Technique Tutorials Gamsol Magic
- Debbie Gimbel: The Magic Colored Pencil
Primsacolors have thick, soft, wax-based leads made from light-resistant pigments that make them easy to blend. They're not watercolor pencils, though, so you'll need the Gamsol and blending stumps. The tutorials above include Internet links to purchase the pencils, blending stumps, Gamsol, Emory boards, etc. While Prismacolor pencils are lovely, they're not cheap. They are, however, easy to find at Michaels and Hobby Lobby and often on sale. I had a difficult time tracking down the Gamsol colorless minimal spirits and finally found it locally at Jerry's Artorama.
Before I started my Primsacolor collection I did a little research on colored pencils and, unfortunately for a demonstrator like me, the word on the street is that Primsacolors are more vibrant and blend better than Stampin' Up!'s pure color pencils. But, my heart went pitter-patter when I came across this document that matches the Prismacolor pencils with Stampin' Up!'s colors, so we can still match them up with our ink and papers. You can download it by clicking here:
Or, you can go to Splitcoast Stampers, where I received the chart by clicking here.
The chart doesn't include the 2006-2007 In Color ink colors, so here they are:
SU Bucky Blue is the same as Primsacolor Slate Grey (#936)
Cool Caribbean is Light Aqua (#992)
Cranberry Crisp is Henna (#1031)
Marigold Morning is Goldenrod (#1034)
True Thyme is Green Ochre (#1091)
Vintage Violet: none
My other invaluable tip about magic pencil - just practice, practice, and enjoy the results.
