Just Like Skittles

I own the colors of the rainbow, if the rainbow had sixteen shades of gray. Hehehe. Yep, my markers arrived. Happy, happy. Joy, joy. *Doing a little dance*. There are 34 colors, so far. The container holds 72... Ooh, room for growth! Other than getting the grays I wanted, I concentrated on the greens first. I must admit, the compulsive part of me wants to fill the container so it's all color coded and perfect. I obsess, ignore me. ;o)  Without further ado...and as one of my commenters alluded to last week... here's some marker porn, hehehe.

Ooh, purty! They're fun to play with and even better, they do what I want them to do without my having to fiddle! Everyone I had talked to about Copics said "You can't use them on cold pressed watercolor paper, they'll feather badly and just soak up ink like mad!" Ya, not true. Which is so very goooood for me. Seriously, I'm doing a little jig. I was convinced I'd have to hunt for a fixative to spray on the paper after I laid down the paint. I wasn't sure even that would work. I figured there was a 50/50 chance that I would have to switch papers if I wanted to combine Copic markers with my Holbein watercolors.

I already did a test on generic watercolor paper... as you can see on the left, there is very little feathering and the pigment laid down evenly, with little streaking. The results are so much better than my best hopes. With all the negative opinions I got, including the Copic rep's email to me, I figured it was going to take some serious tinkering to get these to work.


I feel like I've won the artist's lottery. On the right (this was my Arches paper test), you can see the clarity of these amazing markers. They lay down transparent color just like the Holbein watercolors I use. Copics also layer just like watercolors do, one color will affect the next color in similar ways that a color wheel shows... (ie. blue + yellow = green)


Playing again, I cut up an old sheet of paper I experimented on, then added zentangles on the back. I think it turned out pretty fantastically. Both the cool and warm grays are amazing! They make shading so easy, just a couple of swipes and, tada!!, depth. I can see now that I'll want to fill in the  missing colors in my Copics. I think that I'll want color mostly for the zentangling, though.  (If you click on any of the pictures they'll show larger, so you can see the detail.)

I still have a lot of testing and learning to do with the Copics. I've tested both generic watercolor paper and (my personal favorite) Arches watercolor paper but I haven't combined them with the Holbein paints yet. I'm being silly, but I don't want risk ruining a current painting by testing ideas on it. So, I'm going to paint some backgrounds then start playing and see what happens. I'll be sure to photograph the results so you all can learn with me! Obviously, not many people have used copics with watercolor paper, or so I've been told. It'll be interesting to see what we get! 

We'll talk soon, K?

P.S. I was talking to my Uncle Bob this weekend and mentioned this post about the Copics and he made a good point about them and some of the other supplies I've used in the past. He said I should explain the stuff I use more, don't just assume that you guys (my readers) know what frisket is, for instance. So, I'm planning a "Tools etc." post in which I'll give a little history of Copic markers, Holbein paints and tools I use to illuminate them more for you. Look for it soon! :o)

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