Most alcohol marker colorists have heard of blending trios…those are groups of light/medium/dark colors that blend nicely.
There are “natural” groups that share the letter code (the color family) and first digit – at least in some brands! (Some have no rhyme or reason, or an inverted version of the Copic model.) I’ll be dealing with Copic and Olo markers here, which are similar in their numbering system.
(Olo’s numbers aren’t the equivalent of Copic’s, but the first digit before the “.” is still saturation level, and the part after the period is the value–just like Copic.)
If you understand some basics of color theory, you can add to a trio in a way you can create expected results – though practicing to see what the results will be is important when getting started!
Tutorial: Blending Groups “+”
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!
Black Bear – with underpainting
Using a blending group underneath with greys on top helps to bring that black “alive”–greys can look so dead! Experiment with lighter vs darker greys; each situation will be a little different. If you use too light of a color, it can pull color OUT from underneath, so the value needs to be a little darker than the underpainted color.
On the left is the example using browns (E42 E44 E49 Copic), and on the right are purples (V12, BV08) with some of the grey shading added with greys.
White vs Cream in animals
Each animal will have a different flavor to its white – some feel more creamy, some more greyish, some more bluish – if the cream shown on the left is what you want but lighter or more desaturated, try a pale grey over it; that will lift out some of the color as well as value. On the right is what greys alone look like.
CLASS REVAMP!
A while back I had changed the class title from Copic Jumpstart to Alcohol Marker Jumpstart. I always meant to go back and add more to it and refres things, and all this, plus finding my notebook, made me do a little more!
If you’ve purchased the course already you can just log in and go to the Light and Shadow lesson. There’s individual jpgs you can resize, or use the PDF version with all of them on one page!
In September I’ll be going through class “as a student” and adding more written content – I want to redo the pdfs at the end of each lesson, but not til I review everything to see what was missed. 2016 was a long time ago and I learned a ton since then!
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Sandy’s Favorite Blending Trios
As I was working on all of this, I also put together a trios chart with 21 combos each in Copic and Olo….it’s really cheap but if you want to get it, this PDF comes with a color version but I recommend printing the black and white one and creating your own samples; scanning marker color translates so poorly when printed!
Stay tuned for Saturday’s fun!
Not only is it new-class day, but it’s also giveaway day as I wrangled a partner…and I’ll show you how to make a SIMPLE hexagonal sketchbook because the big one I made was silly-hard. ha! Sign up for my newsletter if you want to be first to hear!
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