Hi everyone!
Out of respect for all our foreign readers I´m gonna do this blog post all in English. But I guess that you Swedish readers won´t have any difficulty with reading this either! ;D
So today I´m gonna try to show you how I use the Spectrum Noir pens. Don´t hesitate to ask me anything if you wonder about something. Just use the comment field below. I hope that you get some ideas...
Let´s begin with a little presentation about the Spectrum Noir pens. It´s an alcohol based, acid free and fast-drying pen that comes in 168 colors. You start with buying the pen sets that each has 6 colors in different shades. One of the sets are for skin color. There´s totally 12 of these sets and gets you 72 markers that gets you really far. None are duplicate in any of the sets so you don´t have to worry about getting the same color twice! Besides the small sets there are the 24 pen sets that comes in four different color schemes. Here´s some photos so that you´ll understand it better:
All pens are refillable and you can change the nibs too!
So here´s my little humble guide to how I color with Spectrum Noir...
First of all I recommend you strongly to print out this little chart from Crafter´s Companion home page so that you can see what colors you have:
Yep, that´s my chart and I got all the 72 start colors!
Next - let´s talk paper and ink....For best result you should use Neenah paper or Ultra smooth premium card stock from Crafter´s Companion. The best ink pads by far is Memento. So I stamped a couple of motifs from Reprint:
SKIN
For the skin I use the following colors - FS2, FS3, FS6 and TN2:
- Start with coloring all the skin with the lightest color - FS2
- Use the darkest for where you should expect shadows - TN2.
- To blend the colors I use FS3 going over the edges between the darkest and the lightest moving the pen in circles.
Brown hair
I use EB2, GB8 and GB10:
- As with the face, start with coloring the hair with your lightest color - EB2. I forgot to take a photo of that-sorry.
- Next step is using the darkest - GB10 - like around the face and picking strands of hair (this is photo no.1).
- To even out the colors use GB8.
Coloring clothes.
What I try to show here is that I use several different shades of the same color to get the effect that I want. Whatever color you want - choose at least 3 different shades. I wanted her to have something with a summer feeling so I chose turquoise - BT1, BT2 and BT4.
- The same procedure once again...First the lightest one - BT1.
- Now the darkest for shadows - BT4.
- Use BT2 to even out the sharp edges.
- On the edges of the apron, socks and lace I used EB1.
Here´s the result:
Blonde hair:
I use CT2, CT3, CT4 and GB8.
- Start with CT2 - the lightest - all over.
- Next is GB4 where you want it to be darkest.
- Now blend them together using CT3 and CT4.
I didn´t photographed coloring her clothes, but I used the same technique as for the other girl. Personally I never use the blender pen except when it comes to correcting colors that goes stray ie. outside the lines. I prefer using many different shades for this.
The last girl I used for a tag and I think it looks alright to me... ;D
Here´s a list over all the gorgeous stuff I used from Reprint:
Thanks for reading my post and I hope you enjoyed it!
