Draw an enchanted pumpkin house

by Sandy Allnock | Sep 19, 2023 | Copic/Alcohol Marker Intermediate

Have you ever seen a pumpkin house? I’d sure love to stumble on one while walking in a forest!

After creating watercolor pumpkins in my previous post – as well as a beginner watercolor class at Artventure – I thought I’d tickle the fancy of my alcohol marker friends. Maybe YOU will be inspired to try one! In the video I list a bunch of ideas for ways you can customize your own, and I’ll add more in this post after you see the video.

Tutorial: Draw an enchanted pumpkin house

Watch the video below and scroll to the end to leave comments or questions — or click HERE to watch it on YouTube and leave comments over there. I read both dutifully!

Customize your own pumpkin house

There are so many ways you can change up a pumpkin house drawing and make it your own:

Google for pumpkin colors. There are blues, yellows, whites, stripes…..
Google for pumpkin shapes too! Short and squat, concave or convex, perfectly round. Lots of options!
Change the architecture. Use your grandma’s house or a favorite castle as inspiration!
Give it a yard. Maybe a fence, a garden? What else could you add?
Add a character! How about a mouse who needs a home?
Change the time of day or weather. Sunshine? Rainy day?

SALE!

This week only, both of the Enchantment classes are on sale. And if you get both together, you’ll get an automatic 5% off at checkout.

Copic Enchantment

This Level 4 class will teach students how to create 10 magical scenes, in a “slimline” (3.75 x 8.5) format perfect for cardmaking – but easily adaptable for animé artists too! Half are horizontal, half vertical scenes – and all can be adapted or just portions used for other size formats and art as well!

$52.99 $49.99

VIEW

Winter Copic Enchantment

This Level 4 class will teach students how to create 10 wintry magical scenes, in a “slimline” (3.75 x 8.5) format perfect for cardmaking – but easily adaptable for animé artists too! Half are horizontal, half vertical – and all can be adapted or just portions used for other size formats and art as well!

$52.99 $49.99

VIEW

Fresh Pumpkins Watercolor

This new watercolor class is for beginners! Join Artventure for free, then look in the menu bar on the left for the class. It’s only a few bucks for four pumpkins!

JOIN ARTVENTURE

What features would you add to your pumpkin house?

Even if you don’t plan to draw one, add some ideas to the comments and maybe someone else will be inspired!

Supplies

Some product may be provided by manufacturers for review and use. Compensated affiliate links are here at no cost to you. I appreciate your support of my work with your purchases! Full affiliate and product disclosure | My trusted partners in art

Sketchmarker Brush Pro Alcohol
Sketchmarker refills
Sketchmarker hex chart
White Signo Uni-ball Gel Pen: AMZ – BLICK

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Magical Rainforest Class: A peek into one lesson with a dinosaur!

by Sandy Allnock | Jun 17, 2023 | Copic/Alcohol Marker Intermediate, Copic/Alcohol Markers Advanced

Is a dinosaur magic? And do they live in the rainforest? Frankly both could be true, but I’m going to guess not. I’ve mashed together a bunch of things that have been going on in my head and in my news feed – and turned it into some really fun art you can learn to make with your alcohol markers in the new Magical Rainforest Class!

Let’s deal with the rainforest first; Have you seen the news stories about the children who were lost in the rainforest for 40 days? Oh my, what a story of tragedy – and ending in the blessed survival of the children! READ THE STORY

And then there’s another story about the Brontosaurus being restored to its rightful place after being displaced for 100 years (ineffectively!) by the Apatosaurus. It’s a rather long crazy story I tell in the video but you can read more in an article here. I decided the Apatosaurus would win the battle for who gets into my drawing.

Tutorial: Dinosaur in magical rainforest

Watch the video below and scroll to the end to leave comments or questions — or click HERE to watch it on YouTube and leave comments over there. I read both dutifully!

Scene first?

Typically I don’t color a scene first – I start with the featured image. But in this case, the scene is the bonus lesson in the new Magical Rainforest class, and the dino was just for YT – and thus, it’s scene first.

Sandy Allnock DInosaur in a rainforest 1

Dino sketch

The sketch for the dinosaur is also included in the bonus lesson, in case you decide to try this kind of a scene!

Colors

In class I use Copics, but you can also adapt to other brands. Note that Olo doesn’t have the pale colors that the other two do, but…..Olo users are likely used to finding adaptations 🙂

Magical Rainforest Class

This is a level 4 class – and a little of the backstory is that I wanted to have a Level 4 alcohol marker class that wasn’t as pricey as the Enchantment series or other advanced classes. Magical Rainforest Class is a good chance to see if you’re at that level without having to break the art bank to pay for a big class! So it has fewer lessons in it to keep the price manageable.

A little reminder: use code SUPERPOWER to get 10% off throughout June on all adult classes!

Supplies

Neenah Cardstock, Solar White 250pk
Copic Markers – Copic Hex Chart
Sketchmarker Brush Pro Alcohol – Sketchmarker hex chart
Olo markers – Olo marker hex chart

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Olo Markers + Colored pencils on colored cardstock

by Sandy Allnock | Mar 16, 2023 | Copic/Alcohol Marker Intermediate

Hello and welcome to my stop on the Colorado Craft release partayyyy! I’m super happy to welcome you here for this little garden party today – be sure to read to the end to check out ALL the giveaways!

My project is complex but simple….I used Olo Markers along with Prismacolors to make a 7-stamp-set-one-layer-card!

Tutorial: Olo Marker + Prismacolor on Colored Paper

If you haven’t tried Olo yet, they’re a marker that I’ve reviewed — and made a hex chart for! While they’re missing some colors I’d loe to see, combining them with pencils really does solve that issue pretty well.

Watch the video below and scroll to the end to leave comments or questions — or click HERE to watch it on YouTube and leave comments over there. I read both dutifully!

A few tips

To set up a layout, just stamp everything in a light ink on desert storm cardstock – let them layer over each other! Pencil and marker will cover most if not all of the excess lines.

Color from front to back; don’t get distracted by the cacophony of stamped lines, just tackle one bit at a time.

Try just one or two images in this technique before this many. It was a bit…overboard. LOL!

Bleed-through

Neenah does allow some color to bleed through; but I did only a limited amount of blending so that was minimal. It was easy to add a layer of desert storm behind the card front, which also gave it a little more heft as a card to survive better in the mail.

One of my Patrons will be getting this card! In the next few weeks I need to get a new batch out. If you’d considered joining our little Patreon band now’s a great time to maybe get in for a card!

Join Artventure

My little Mighty Networks community called Artventure isn’t so little anymore! I’m SO excited about how it’s taking off. Lots of people are sharing their work, encouraging each other, getting answers to questions, and inspiring each other. Best thing? No ads, no algorithm, no viral dancing…just ART! 🙂 Join us – it’s free!

The new little gouache class will be there in the near future; I’ve got the class videos ready and the classroom built but now I’m awaiting Apple’s approval. (Any time you sell anything through an app they get to weigh in, lol!) The class won’t be expensive – but you’ll need a few things so see the post over there with a peek and a supply list if you’d like to be ready ahead of time.

THREE Giveaways!

Giveaway 1:
I’ll be giving away the Veg Out set from this release to a lucky winner that CCC will draw from all the comments left on my social media hangouts like this blog, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook – the more sites you visit, the more you increase your changes!. Leave a comment, follow or like and be sure to join my email list too.

Giveaway 2:
CCC will be giving away a complete bundle of this release to one randomly chosen winner that has placed an order using my link!

Giveaway 3:
CCC will be giving away 3 sets to 3 randomly chosen winners on their Instagram.

Bloghop!

It’s a hop of course so check out the others who’ve made beautiful creations with these stamps. Hope you get inspired!

Adrienne Kennedy (CCC)

Amy Tsuruta

Amy Young

Bibi Cameron

Cathy Zielske

Daniel West

Donna Hitz

Erin Thompson

Jenn Gross

Jennifer Kotas

Jessica Frost-Ballas

Kassi Hulet

Kelly Griglione

Kelly Taylor

Michelle Lupton

Nancy Sheads

Sandi MacIver

Sandy Allnock <-that’s me!

Supplies

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Alcohol Marker Comparison Part 2: Unique colors + Human Rainbow

by Sandy Allnock | Feb 18, 2023 | Color Studies, Copic/Alcohol Marker Beginner, Copic/Alcohol Marker Inspiration, Copic/Alcohol Marker Intermediate, Copic/Alcohol Markers Basics

I promised you I’d tell you about the unique colors in Sketchmarker and Olo, as well as my overall assessment of the three brands….and this is the day. But I’m SUPER excited to also have a new Human Rainbow class ready – scroll on to see more of that, and in the video you’ll see a little peek inside class!

The art demo in this video, in addition to lots of color tests I’ll explain, is this picture of these birds – if you’ve taken the Whimsical Sketching class you might recognize these cuties! I scanned my original and printed it out smaller.

Tutorial: Alcohol Marker comparison: Unique Colors + Human Rainbow

Watch the video below and scroll to the end to leave comments or questions — or click HERE to watch it on YouTube and leave comments over there. I read both dutifully!

Unique colors

I gathered up the colors that were not included in my conversion charts for Sketchmarker and Olo – these colors may still be close to a Copic color, but when I did the assessment I found a color that’s a better match to that color, so that’s why some colors you may recognize are here. But I’ve noted a few colors I find particularly interesting to a Copic user:

Greens

I wish I’d done this little exercise before the previous video – it really would have helped me out! ha. Better late than never though. You can see here the progression of colors – in Copic it shows the relatively regular steps toward desaturation; in Sketchmarker it shows….well, that they call YG green, and they call BG green, and BG is blue gray, and the numbers…well yeah. I’m lost, but it’s not necessary for the numbering systems to make complete sense, it just helps!

The number system for Olo generally-ish seems to jive with Copic’s; they place a dot (.) between the digits, which helps to separate them – because each digit means something different, just like with Copic. Great idea to help us remember that fact.

Grays, grays, and more grays

I’ve always said for the majority of folks, some warm and cool grays are plenty….though some of these new ones are interesting!

Pinks and purples

For those who love these colors, you might be especially excited here! Note that this is marker paper, which shows color more dull-ly than a nice bright cardstock.

Browns for flesh, hair, animals

I wanted to see how much each brand is “weighted” in their browns, and this was the one way I could figure out how to depict that for myself. What it shows me is there are few light tones in Olo, wayyy lots in Sketchmarker. And for my own liking, since I love my dark colors, I wish everyone had more darks in all the columns (reddish, yellowish, greenish and purplish).

The Human Rainbow!

The browns were a big part of choosing colors for the new course – I’m SO PROUD of Human Rainbow II. The last time I created a class with people drawings in it, they were embarrassingly bad to me given my current skill level – and rather than being down on myself for HRI, I’m just ECSTATIC that I’ve made progress that’s truly visible! My Life Drawing Group as well as a lot of pen and ink practice has really grown me. So even if no one takes this class, I’m still going to puff out my chest a little bit and cheer for me!

But if you WOULD like to take this class, well, I hope you love it as much as me! It comes with the printable images ($30 value, included in the price). You could also purchase just the images and color them without the class. If you do that and change your mind later about class, just email me and I’ll invoice you just for the class fee minus what you paid for the images. All the printables are here.

I’m pooped!

Do you ever bite off more than you can chew, artistically? Does it drain you like the past few weeks/months have done to me? Man, oh man, I even made myself sick! (Might have been norovirus by my symptoms…but they went away as soon as I had everything prepped for today, so I’m thinking it was stress!)

I’m hoping to now return to my more chill artistic self and let go of some of the testing I’ve been inundated with. What would you like to see me playing with next? Either a medium or a subject, lmk if you have a challenge or an idea!

Supplies

Copic Markers
Sketchmarker Brush Pro Alcohol Markers
Olo markers
Hex charts

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Copic + Pencil: Drawing a Mercury Glass Vintage Ornament

by Sandy Allnock | Oct 7, 2022 | Copic/Alcohol Marker Intermediate

I’ve always had a weakness for vintage ornaments – and anything with pretty glass! Since this was “shiny things” week I decided ending with a lovely red ornament would be a fun challenge!

Sandy Allnock Mercury Glass Vintage Ornament 1

Tutorial: Drawing Mercury Glass Vintage Ornament

Colors for markers and pencils are listed in the supplies at the end of this post.

Watch the video below and scroll to the end to leave comments or questions — or click HERE to watch it on YouTube and leave comments over there. I read both dutifully!

This one is super easy to draw: two circles, a hangy thing on top, and point at the bottom! Or use a stamp for a round ornament and make the ridges in that – it’s fun to try!

Sandy Allnock Mercury Glass Vintage Ornament 2

You may be wondering why I used a Stonehenge sketchbook for this: it’s because I wanted to finish off with pencil. I knew that top layer was what would make or break it, and needed the texture of this paper to pull out the richness of the Polychromos pencil pigment.

Sandy Allnock Mercury Glass Vintage Ornament 4

Closing thoughts and question

Supplies

Jingle Bell Art: Copic Coloring 3 Types of Metal

by Sandy Allnock | Oct 3, 2022 | Copic/Alcohol Marker Intermediate

It’s October….and INKtober! That means that….

INKing an image I can color counts (and you can go buy it and color it too!)
It’s time to jam on Christmas cards because WHOOPS! I’ve not got much done yet!

I was inspired by a jingle bell that’s gold – and wanted to see if I could color a variety of metal types – brushed, polished, and glittered…I’ll let you be the judge as to whether or not I succeeded!

Tutorial: Copic coloring 3 types of metal jingle bells

If you’d like to color along, there’s a printable for sale over HERE!

Watch the video below and scroll to the end to leave comments or questions — or click HERE to watch it on YouTube and leave comments over there. I read both dutifully!

By the way, a few months ago Blick started following my YT – they always leave such encouraging comments! I hope to meet their commenter someday….keep an eye out for theirs when you look at one of my YTs!

The idea for the glittery metal would be awesome for things like gumdrops, don’t you think?

The sentiment here is one from All is Calm by Colorado Craft Company – but lots of sentiments could easily work!

Be honest.

How badly did all that blue freak you out? I know, I know. I’m weird. I’m brave. I’m crazy. But isn’t it beautiful?

Grab the printable jingle bells!

Did this inspire you to want to color them up? Head over to pick up your own image and follow along with this tutorial; remember, you can change the dark gold to dark grey, light gold to a pale grey, etc. That allows you to make Santa’s lost jingle bells any color at all!

Your suggestions?

All week I’ll be coloring shiny things – while you watch, be thinking of what kinds of objects I should color and post over at Artventure and on social media. Leave me comments!