Mondays Marker news and some Tuesday tips

Good afternoon, I missed yesterdays news post as I was out all day long doing cleaning ... I would much rather have been colouring I tell you!! Then most of today has been spent catching up on emails and orders... lots sent out... and still more emails to sort through... sorry if you are still waiting on a reply.. will be there soon!!! :D

Ok.. so it's Tuesday but here is the MONDAY news...

We currently have in new The Greeting Farm stamps... we have the Creepin' Kit back in stock! We also have the new release stamps... both gorgeous princesses and the Ahoy set as well as a cheeky little sprout named Ryan!! :D

The colouring people book is almost ready.... I just had to make some changes to the people as I was not happy with them! So stay tuned on this!! :D

Marker supplies are being replenished.. the stands are looking much less depleted than before.. if I am out of stock on markers you want please send me an email asking me to order them in!!!

TODAY I paid a deposit for a stand at the Paper crafts Festival in Penrith in November (4th-6th) YAY!! Exciting... so Sydneysiders can now visit M4M at a paper show!! :)
Now... it's Tuesday and my video camera is still in need of a fix... so I'm going to give some tips on markers instead of a tutorial... but these will be back soon.. especially seeing as some of our team have now done Intermediate certification... so we'll be getting them to share some tutes ASAP... speaking of which pop back on Thursday for a post showing what Tracey has been learning!!


some tips in choosing colours!
A good resource is the Copic Australia Library - HERE! Where you can download this colour wheel! :D



First up a lesson/ reminder of what the codes mean on all Copic markers ... so using one of my current favourite colours as the example...
The RV is the colour family.. in this case RV63 - Reddish Violet.

THE 1st NUMBER is the Colour Saturation. It is the "Intermediate Classification" within the colour family 0-9 ... 00's, 10's, or 20's will be more vibrant (eg. B05, R24), 
Colours that are in the 70's, 80's or 90's have more gray added (eg.B97, G85) and are closer to the neutral/earthy end of the color spectrum.

so in this case... the RV63 is in the middle but heading towards the grayer end of the spectrum...

THE 2nd NUMBER is the Colour Brightness - how bright or light the colour is... it is the "specific classification" .. the variation within the Intermediate classification.

so RV63 - is pretty bright within the "RV60s" family.... the 66 and 69 are darker!!

One more bit of helpful info....

Color Group- A sequential group of colors within one color family with the same first digit (i.e. E30, E31, E33, E34, E35, E37, E39) where numbers ending in 0 are the lightest and 9 is the darkest, also called Natural blending group.


Now onto the choosing of colours.... Here are some tips..

for Beginners - Try choosing a couple of markers within a colour group... but jump up a couple of numbers at a time ... usually a jump of 2 numbers is good. Some examples

when colouring a light/ bright blue - B00, B02 and B05
a deminy blue - B93, 95, 97
Reds - R24, 27, 29
Pinks - R81, 83, 85

for Intermediate colourers - For a bit more variety/ interest... try jumping to a new colour family for your 2nd and 3rd colours...
(ie. R24, 46, 59, B00, B12, B34) (You can Find out a little more about this on Thursday!!)

for Advanced colourers - Try adding in some "other colours" use Complementary colours for extra contrast.... Complementary colours are those opposite on the colour wheel! You can see an example of this on Thursday also when Tracey's card is published HERE!

WHAT about when you are just working out what colours to have in the same image???? Here's a few tips....
Try only using 3 colour families on your image otherwise there is too much for the eye to take in!

Try using colours that are opposite each other on the colour wheel as they will look good next to each other.

If you want to play it safe you can use colours that are next to each other on the colour wheel as they will always "go" together. This will not look as vibrant as there is less contrast than the previous suggestion.

Hope that this might be helpful and not too confusing!!!

Let us know if you have questions, comments, your own favourite ways of choosing/ using colours!! :D