Copic Creations Challenge: Blues

The team over at Copic Creations is challenging Copic lovers to use their Copic "blues." Sugar Nellie is sponsoring this challenge and offering four of their stamps to the random winner of this challenge. Take a look at the stunning images that Sugar Nellie produces and distributes. Their stamp artists do show some very beautiful work. Find out more about this challenge and the sponsor here.

Blue is associated with stability and is said to symbolize loyalty, wisdom and sincerity. It produces a calming effect and is good for the body and mind.

I was drawn to this 2010 Kathy Hare Sugar Nellie image named Worried. I found something touching about this little guy with his bear and this image seemed perfect for filling with "blues."

Once filled, this image still seemed a little flat to me . . . maybe more texture will help . . .

So, I covered my dried colored image with a negative mask and prepped it for a colorless blender technique. I crumbled a paper towel, spritzed the towel with a touch of colorless blender and touched it to the surface of my bear. Using colorless blender straight from the bottle can make it too wet so I like to spritz the solution from a mini spritzer.

Repeating that a few times really softened up the layers of color for my bear and gave him some wonderful texture . . .

Oops. I pounced a little too heavily with the colorless blender and wet the paper so much that my color seeped beyond the lines of my image. I plan to airbrush a background so I'm not worried about that right now. These bright blues can be tough to push back inside of the lines of the image so when I plan to keep the background white, I'm more careful and use more very light layers.

I used a QuicKutz scalloped circles die and die cut my image. Keeping that die in place, I masked my image and began airbrushing my background. I like the results best when I aim the spray directly over my mask and allow the overspray to add the color to my background. With the die and mask in place, I added a few spritzes from Ranger's Perfect Pearls Mists in perfect pearl to give some shimmer to the background. It sure doesn't look pretty at this stage . . .

Now for the big reveal . . . I love this part. It's like a wonderful surprise every time . . .

If my mask doesn't fit precisely over my image, resulting in a halo of white in places, sometimes I leave them alone and let them act as natural highlights. The only way to correct those areas is to very lightly (very, very lightly) stipple tiny dots of medium gray to cover that white.

This Top Line Creations genuine boy plaid paper seemed perfect for the outside of a fun Spinner Card. Magnolia's Doohickeys Bon Voyage Foliage and Shabby Chic White Garland added a simple border with some May Arts ribbon.

This sentiment is from a Hero Arts Woodland Creatures set . . .

Spin the wheel on the right to read this sentiment from another Hero Arts set . . .

Spin the wheel again to see one of my favorite Motivet sentiments . . .

Why not use your Copic "blues" to fill one of your favorite images? Enter this Copic Creations Challenge for a chance to win Sugar Nellie's fabulous prize.

Copics Used:
Skin - E50, E51, E53, R30
Hair - E31, E35, E47
Pants - B91, B95, B97
Shirt - B21, B24, B28
Bear - B41, B45, E95, 0
Airbrush - C5, G82
faux stitching - atyou Spica sky blue