“Lest we forget” – We celebrate Remembrance Day on November 11 here in Canada and poppies were adopted as a symbol of Remembrance after the First World War. With the turmoil going on around the world, it is even more important for us to remember those who sacrifice their lives for our freedom. Hence the theme of my design for this month’s free Creative Scrapbooker Magazine coloring card is poppies. I colored mine with Stabilo pen 68 and was totally blown away by the result. This is the most glamorous poppies I have ever seen! I am sure you would be interested to know how I achieved this effect with these fibre tip pens by Stabilo.
The Pens – Stabilo pen 68
Pen 68 is available in 47 colors including 6 fluorescent shades. I have the 30 colors set shown above. The colors of these felt-tip pens are very intense and vibrant. The line width is approximately 1 mm. The beauty of these pens is that they can be blended using brush and water like watercolor.
The paper
What I find is that the type of paper you use plays an important role in achieving the desired effects. I experimented with regular card stock (65 lb) as well as watercolor paper (90 lb). The result is dramatically in favor of watercolor paper. The fiber in the paper allows water to interact better with the ink and stay wet longer so you can move the colors around.
I used the lightest weight watercolor paper I can find which is 90 lb. This is because I need to feed the paper into my inkjet printer. I don’t think the roller in my printer would pick up anything heavier and thicker. Even with 90 lb sometimes I have to manually roll the paper a little – roll and release – before I put it in the tray.
As always, if you want to use these pens in a coloring book, be sure to test for bleed through and how they respond to water blending. I have seen the coloring artists suggested putting a thin layer of colored pencil down first before blending colors with the Stabilo 68 in coloring books.
Tips
Just a couple of pointers:
- As with any water application, the control of the amount of water is key. The brush has to be damp but not dripping wet. I have a paper towel handy to dab off excess water if I see water pooling. On the other hand, if the brush feels dry, squeeze more water into the brush and dab off excess.
- Do not oversaturate the painting area. Avoid the urge to keep brushing over the same area repeatedly to try to get the blend you want. Let it dry first and then you can add more color and blend again to achieve the desired effects.
- Blend from light to dark colors. Be mindful of how you want the colors to blend. If you move from dark color to light color, then the light color becomes a medium dark tone. Hence, if you want a light yellow color to stay bright yellow, don’t allow the red to move too far into the yellow area. The trick is to “clean” your brush to remove the dark colors as needed and blend again from yellow to red. With the water brush, I find that just dabbing the brush on my paper towel is enough to clean the brush. There’s no need to dunk it in water.
Video
Now download the card from the Creative Scrapbooker Magazine and color along with me. I have uploaded a youtube video to demonstrate how I colored these glamorous poppies. Hope it helps!
Happy coloring!