New Blendabilities Markers

This post is designed to give you a bit of insight on the new Stampin’ Up! Blendabilities Markers.  You are going to LOVE these markers- they are the BEST coloring tool available!  

I have gathered lots of information from the internet on various sites, and simply compiled it here for you. 

WHAT ARE BLENDABILITIES MARKERS?

Blendabilities are like copic markers, which are alcohol based markers...whereas  Stampin' Up Stampin’ Write Markers are water-based. 

The alcohol allows to you fully saturate your paper thus making it easier to develop rich colors and to blend colors- and NO LINES or unintentional darker areas!

Blendabilities have a brush tip and fine tip similar to Copic sketch and ciao.

Blendabilities come in sets of three coordinating shades (light medium dark) designed to specifically work together and blend beautifully. There is also a set of skin tones as well as a blending marker.

Features and Benefits

•       Alcohol marker
•       Leaves no streaky lines
•    Blend beautifully
•     Intense, vibrant color
•    Does not fade
• ·      MUST use Memento ink to stamp images- do not use STAZON it will ruin         your markers!
• ·    Whisper White cardstock
•       Have a fine and a brush tip
•       Tips made of durable nylon which means no fraying
•     Rectangular barrel so they will not roll away
•       MUST store flat so the tips do not dry out
•        Ink color is cap color
•     Caps fit snug so marker does not dry out
•      Caps click when closed properly
•      Designed to shade images light to dark
•       Come in a 3 pack- light, medium and dark shade- makes easy color matching
•        More affordable than other alcohol markers such as Copics

CAN BLENDABILITIES DO EVERYTHING A STAMPIN’ WRITE MARKER CAN DO?

Blendabilities cannot be used to color directly on stamps.  They dry too quickly for you to apply multiple colors. 

BASIC COLORING

 

Saturate it

To get the full depth of color, you cannot be afraid to saturate the paper.

Here's the front of the circles:

Here's the back - totally saturated!

Circular Strokes

Coloring in little circles will give you better coverage.  If you color back and forth, you will be surprised how often you will notice - often not until the card is entirely done - that you have white streaks where you didn't quite get everything colored.


Shading

The links that I have at the bottom of this post give you some very artistic examples of light sources, etc. to create amazingly realistic shading. 

Add caption

1. Give your image a light coloring with your lighter marker. 

2. Before it dries, add your darker marker around the edges.  If you do this right away, the "wetness" of the bottom layer will start blending the darker marker by itself.  Be sure to use circular strokes or lightly draw "feathers" toward the inside - you just don't want a defined line because it's hard to blend. 

3. Color over the whole thing again with your lighter marker. Keep coloring until you don't see the edges any more. Remember - saturating the paper is good! 

**BONUS**

Did you notice the gems on the card?  Did you notice that they matched?  Gems and pearls can be colored with Blendabilities!!!  Once you get a collection of Blendabilities, you never have to buy a colored gem or pearl again!

Basic Coloring Technique with Blendabilities Alchol Markers by Stampin’ Up!

Step 1) Stamp your image with MEMENTO ink and allow it to dry; or heat set with a heat tool

 Step 2) Pick your lightest color and fill the area you are going to be shading completely from edge to edge.  Working with the brush tip, move your marker in small circle strokes, this helps avoid streaking. 

You want to get nice even coverage. Don’t worry about getting the page too wet, the alcohol that suspends the ink is not like water, it will not tear up your paper. 

Step 3) Take your next darkest marker..  Add this darker color on top of your lighter color where you want your shading to occur.  If you are not sure where to put the shadows, try experimenting with edges and along creases for now.

Step 4) Come back with your first marker, the lighter one, and again using small circular strokes go over the area where the two colors intersect. 

The alcohol in the markers acts as a solvent softening the edges and blending the two colors together.  You want to work fairly quickly through steps.  Letting the inks dry in between makes it considerably harder to blend and often leaves your work blotchy. 

Step 5) You can finish with step 4 or you can go on and add the last, darker shade. 

Each time you will work back through your lighter pen to blend the colors together. 

Do not worry about contaminating the tip of the lighter pens they do not pick up the ink they just push it around. 

Here is the finished butterfly:

Slightly More Detailed Shading

Even without getting overly "artistic", Blendabilities make it amazingly easy to add a variety of colors to an image.
 

Layering up colors like this is quite easy.

1. The first step is to add the highlights in the darkest color (you could lay down a light color first to help blending.

2. Then add highlights in the next color.

3. Color over the whole thing with the lightest color - just color until it is saturated and colors are blending.

4. In the fourth tulip, I went back and added some of the darker color again - I didn't want it quite as washed out.  You can do this dozens of times.  Let's say I add too much of the red, I can color over it again with the yellow and add a little less red.  Blendabilities are very forgiving!

Shadows and Dimension

So far my examples have been filled-in areas.  Blendabilities are also excellent at adding shadows and dimensions. 

Again, I cannot emphasize enough that I am a VERY basic Blendabilities  user. 

I have put links below in which people create true art with perfect shadows and subtle skies.  I believe you can still create a wonderful card with these basic tips.

So, let's break down the shading on this snowman.  It should be subtle, but it makes a HUGE difference!

1. The first snowman has his muffler, hat and the little bird colored.  He's cute, but a little flat.

2. On the second snowman, I have taken a light gray marker and run it around the inside edges of the snow.  This gives the appearance of a rounded edge, giving this guy a little more dimension.

3. On the third snowman, I focused on popping him from the background.  A light line of blue sky makes him appear more "forward", giving it even more dimension!!!

These basic shading colors are a must-have in your collection.  I even find myself shading around solid stamps to pop them from their background. 

Coloring Faces

Start with an allover wash of lightest skin tone.  Add depth and highlights with darker shades.

**BONUS**

Did you notice the polka dots on her shirt?  I used a Colorless Blender. 

 I think this pen has been named incorrectly.  You do NOT need it to blend colors as I have previously demonstrated.  What it does is pick up color. 

 For her shirt, I just dabbed it around to pick up some color and lighten the polka dots.  I also know that it is used to pick up mistakes like when you color outside of the lines. 

 Frankly, I have never had much luck with that, although I have seen great demonstrations. 

 You can see by the close-up of this little girl that I didn't even try to pink up the pink smear on her back!


TIPS AND HINTS

Does cardstock make a difference?

Yes.  Watercolor paper is the way to go- but Whisper White works very well too.

Does ink make a difference?

You will get smearing with Stampin' Up ink and Blendabilities.  

DO NOT use Staz-on with Blendabilities - it's alcohol based and will smear and get into the tips of your markers and ruin them..

The best inks that I use for Blendabilities coloring is Memento.  I have a black pad and a brown pad from each of them that I use every time I bring out the Blendabilities!  Make sure to let it dry well before coloring- or heat set for assurance that it will not smear.

OTHER LINKS and RESOURCES

Basic Copic use:
A book by Annie's Attic called Copic Coloring Guide (and also two new books on coloring nature and coloring people) is a very nice resource  It starts at the VERY beginning with types of markers and the coding on each one.  Then it goes through basic coloring and blending tips.  The pictures are nice and the card samples are basic, yet cute.  (Annie's Attic also has a good book called Coloring Techniques for Card Making that includes colored pencils, watercolors and even some basic info on Copics.)

Danielle, on her Neat & Tangled blog, just did this post with a video of her using Copics on a butterfly.  It's so easy to see the idea of circular strokes, feathering and blending when you see it done!  She also says she will be doing further posts on Copics.


For advanced techniques:

You will be blown away by the amazing fall leaves on this post on the Prickley Pear blog spot.  They give a dozen different color combos and samples.

Amy Rysavy, on her Prairie, Paper & Ink, has done dozens of videos on coloring with Copics.  She's in the middle of a series of Christmas cards that are amazing.  Amy is a true artist with Copics (as compared to my simplistic style).  Check out this post and video to see the attention she gives to a face!  Amy's blog is worth watching as her videos are detailed and informative.

This YouTube video with a great demonstration of blending techniques.  She discusses "palette blending" and "feathering".  This video and this one by Kristina Werner are great with faces and hair.

There are hundreds and hundreds of videos out there - I just selected these few to give you a taste of how Copics can work.