Colouring With Markers - The Fundamentals | Bärbel Dressler | Skillshare
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Colouring With Markers - The Fundamentals

teacher avatar Bärbel Dressler, Pattern designer & history nerd

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Intro

      1:46

    • 2.

      Welcome & Class Overview

      3:33

    • 3.

      About Markers

      5:59

    • 4.

      The Color System

      8:08

    • 5.

      How to choose and buy markers

      8:56

    • 6.

      Choosing paper 1

      8:25

    • 7.

      Choosing paper 2

      6:40

    • 8.

      Basic strokes & coloring techniques

      6:01

    • 9.

      Exercise 1 - The seaview

      5:15

    • 10.

      Exercise 2 - The misty mountain

      6:12

    • 11.

      Gradient color with one marker

      6:29

    • 12.

      Gradient color by blending three markers

      6:35

    • 13.

      Correcting mistakes

      1:59

    • 14.

      Coloring an illustration & student project

      2:08

    • 15.

      End note

      0:57

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About This Class

ABOUT THE COURSE

Alcohol based markers are used by professionals through a range of principles and areas like fashion design & beauty, comic and manga, book & magazine, architecture, technical and commercial illustrations.

And coloring with markers is such a fun way to give life to your illustrations and in many ways easier to learn than other medias.

As with any new craft it's always good to have some knowledge about the fundamental techniques and principals. In that way the learning curve isn't so steep and the fun can begin right away. But when I started to use markers I had to go to so many different places to get the basics and learn how to use them which was both time consuming and confusing and I remember wishing there had been just one place, one course to take to get started.

In this class I have done just that, gathered all the information and basics about markers I wish I'd had back then and now I want to share this with you and help you get started too.

THIS IS WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

  • The different types of markers there is on the market and examples of some popular brands.

  • The color system - how the markers are categorized in groups, saturation and shades and how to use the color system when choosing markers and colors.

  • The color codes of a couple of the biggest brands. You will find links to color charts with all available colors from Copic and ProMarker in the links below.

  • How to choose your first set of colors and begin you own marker collection and my recommendations of what colors to get. 

  • What papers to use and how to test them - we'll test a bunch of different papers to see the effects the markers have with them.

  • The basic strokes and techniques for coloring

  • Layering

  • Creating shades by layering with one marker.

  • Creating shades by blending three markers within a natural blending group.

  • How to correct mistakes

Throughout the class you'll get some fun exercises to practice what you've picked up.

And at the end of the class you will have taken a big step towards becoming a marker artist too and be able to add another skill to your artistic toolbox!

In the project section you will find both a list of my recommended starting kits and blank color charts from Copic and ProMarker to download and print and where you can start filling in the colors that you get.

See you inside the class!

/Bärbel

Links to color charts (with colors):

Copic color chart

ProMarker color chart

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Bärbel Dressler

Pattern designer & history nerd

Teacher

GET YOUR COPY OF THE PATTERNPEDIA HERE >> 

 

 

 I'm Bärbel Dressler, a surface pattern designer and educator living in Stockholm, Sweden - where I run my business Bear Bell Productions. 

My big creative passions ever since I was a kid are drawing and history. When I discovered that surface pattern design was an actual profession I found the perfect way to combine these two.

Studying historical patterns and styles is how I've learned advanced pattern design and it also helped me develop my own style.

With my courses I want to share this magical world of drawing, pattern design and history, help aspiring pattern designers learn how to create patt... See full profile

Level: Beginner

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Transcripts

1. Intro: Everybody seems to be doing watercolor these days. But there is another great media to color your illustrations, and create decorative and colorful artwork, and that is markers. Markers are used by professional illustrators within different principles; fashion illustration, technical comic artists, and manga, commercial, as well as decorative pieces. You can create really cool effects using markers, and in many ways, they are easier to learn how to use them with, for example, watercolor. As with any material and craft, it's good to have some basic knowledge to get started. In this class, you will learn the fundamentals of coloring with markers. You're going to learn the basic strokes, and techniques, as well as the color code system behind everything. You'll also get acquainted with some of the biggest marker brands. This class comes with a warming though because markers are addictive. I'm not talking about any fumes or anything. No, I'm talking about the colors themselves, because there are so many pretty colors to get, and once you start collecting your markers, you are going to want to have them all. I'm Barbell at Barbell productions, and I'm a pattern designer, and illustration artist from Stockholm, Sweden. If you want to add another skill to your artistic toolbox, click the enroll button, and come a marker fan too. 2. Welcome & Class Overview: Hi and welcome to this class of artistic illustration and learning the fundamentals of coloring with markers. I'm Barbel at Bear Bell productions, and I'm a pattern designer and illustration artist from Stockholm, Sweden. As with any other material and craft, it's great to have some basics down before you get started. Because when I started using markers, I didn't really know where to begin and how to use them at first. I ended up picking markers based on the colors that I liked and not really what would work well together and for what I wanted to create. In this class, you will learn about different types of markers and some of the biggest brands that are out there. You will also get an understanding of the color system that's behind it all, and I'll also show you the color code system for one of the biggest brands. This is going to be a great platform when you start choosing and buying markers and starting to create your own marker collection. I will also give you some recommendations on what markers to start out with. Next, we will take a look at some different types of paper that you can use when coloring with markers, and I will test a bunch of papers just to show you the characteristics of the different types of papers. It makes it easier for you to choose the paper that will work best for you. You will also learn the basic strokes and coloring techniques. For example, how to make a gradient color and also how to blend colors. I will also show you a trick on how to correct some mistakes that might occur, and of course, we'll do some coloring exercises where you get to practice all those techniques. For this class and for your student project, you're going to need some material, and for starters, you're going to need some markers of course. Later on in this class, we're going to have a section where I showed you a bunch of different types of markers and also recommend what colors to start buying. Watch that section first before you go ahead and buy markers if you don't have any already. You're going to need at least three markers though and within a blending group, but more on that later too. You're also going to need some paper, of course. First you're going to need some paper to practice on, for of that I think you can just use ordinary sketching or printing paper. Later on when we start creating our colored illustrations and start practicing coloring, you will need some papers suitable for markers. In the coming sections, you will also learn more about paper, so watch that first. I'm so happy to have you here because, coloring with markers is so much fun and in many ways a lot easier to learn than for example, using watercolor. Let's get started and in the next section, we're going to take a look at some different types of markers, so I'll see you there. 3. About Markers: So about markers, there are a few different types of markers. First off, there is permanent alcohol-based markers and water-based markers. In this class, I will only cover permanent alcohol-based markers though, and they are often used by professional illustrators. For example, fashion illustration and technical illustration, Manga and comic artists, and commercial illustrations, and so on. It's because they are blendable and give a nice even and saturated coat of color, unlike water-based markers that tend to peel and soak the paper when blending. There are a lot of different marker brands out there, and I would like to mention a few of them here. The first one off is Copic markers. Copic is probably the most used brand among illustration artists. It's a high-quality marker and the colors will last a long time. Other upsides with Copics are that they can be refilled, you can buy refills to them, and the nibs are also exchangeable. There are also a lot of colors to choose between. The downside with Copic though, is that they are very expensive, they're about $5-8 a piece. Copic has a few different markers styles to choose between: Copic Marker, Copic Sketch, Copic Wide, and Copic Ciao. The Copic Marker is the flagship of the Copic Markers, and it has two nibs, one on each end, one with a small ball point nib, and the other one with a broad chisel nib. The small ballpoint nib is great for little details, and for sketching, and making finer lines, and the broader chisel tip is great for coloring in larger areas. The next one is Copic Sketch, and it also has two nibs. In one end, there is a brush nib which is great for sketching and making gradients, and when you blend different colors and shapes. In the other end, there is this broad chisel nib, just like the Copic Marker, and if you need to color really large areas, you can use the Copic Wide Marker, which has an extra broad chisel nib. The last one is Copic Ciao, and it's equivalent to Copic Sketch, with its brush nib in one end and the broad chisel nib in one end and the other end. The difference though, is that this one is a little bit cheaper than the Copic Sketch, it's because it's less ink. So it doesn't last as long as the Copic Sketch, but this one is a great marker to begin with, just to start getting to know Copic Markers. The next brand I'd like to mention is Windsor & Newton, and they also have a row of different types of markers. The first one I'd like to mention is ProMarker, which looks like this, and it also has two nibs. In one end, is this small ballpoint nib, and the other one has a broad chisel nib. The next one is Brush Marker, and it has a brush nib in one end, and a broad chisel nib in the other. Next one is a Metallic Marker which is what it sounds like. It has this metallic looking color, and it also has two nibs, a small ballpoint and a broad chisel nib. Next we have Neon Marker, which is also what it sounds like, it has neon colors. ProMarker, Brush Marker, Metallic Marker, and Neon marker, used to be by Letraset before, but now is under the Windsor & Newton brand. The ProMarkers are also a little bit less pricey than for example, the Copics, and even less pricey than the Copic Ciao. This is also a great beginners pen, if you want to start out and just start trying it. The color doesn't lay down as well as with Copic in my opinion, but you should really try them out and see what do you think. I use them as a complement to Copics too. The next Windsor & Newton pen I want to show you is the Pigment Marker, and this is their exclusive pen equivalent to Copic, also a bit higher quality, and also of course, a higher price. It has two nibs, small pointed nib in one end, and branches on it in the other. There is, of course, a lot of markers and different types of markers out there. I'm just going to mention one more which is called Touch, and it's quite similar to the previous ones that I've mentioned. Touch has Twin Marker and Twin Brush Marker. That was a little bit about different brands and types of markers that's out there, and of course, there is a lot more to choose between, just take a look around and try some of them out and see what will be your favorite, and we all get our favorites. Collecting markers is just like any other addiction. In the next segment, we'll even start talking about colors. I'll see you there. 4. The Color System: Besides choosing what type of marker and brands you want to use, there are also all of these pretty colors to choose between. What to choose? It might seem difficult and overwhelming, but don't worry. If you have a basic understanding of the color system behind it all, it's going to get so much easier. First, we have something that's called color groups or color families. They are made out of the three primary colors, which are red, yellow, and blue. When you blend these primary colors, you get all the other color groups, which are orange, green, and purple, and all the colors in between. These are the basics of the color groups that the different brands are using when they are categorizing their colors. For the Copic color code system, the color family is shown as the first letter in the color code. Here we have red, blue, yellow, and green. Here you have the color families yellow green, blue green, blue violet, red violet. Then there are earth tones and grays. C stands for cool gray, N for neutral gray, there is also a warm gray, and E stands for earth tones. When it comes to Winsor & Newton's Promarker, they have a completely different color code system. Their colors are called yellow, magenta, blue, red, green, orange, violet, and then they also have different tones of gray. These different colors usually also get names, not just codes. The blue violet 04 is called Blue Berry for example, and the red violet 42 is called Salmon Pink. Now, every color group has colors with different saturation. Saturation means how vibrant or rich the color is. Saturated color is clear and vibrant. A desaturated color is more mute, more mellow or adult. It appears to be more gray. If we take this red color group, for example. Now to the left, you see saturated red color and to the right, a range of desaturated colors. They become more and more desaturated the more to the right you get. When it comes to the Copic color code system, saturated colors have lower numbers and desaturated colors have higher numbers. For the Copic color code system, saturation is shown in the middle number of the code. Here I have picked out some markers within the color families of red and green. Look at the red markers to the left. If you take first the left red marker, you can see that the saturation number of that one is one, and so it's a very saturated color. The red marker to the right has saturation 3. As you can see, the red is a little bit more gray or more dull than the left one. The difference in saturation is even more clear with the green markers. The left green marker has saturation zero and the right one has saturation nine. So the right one is a very desaturated color. The next color variable is shade or tone, which means how light or dark the color is. Now, here are some different values or shades of the red color group, and still with just one specific saturation. As you can see, they are all ranging from light to dark. In one end, there are the light tones and in the other end, dark tones, and in the middle, what we call the mid tones. But still it's the same saturation. For Copic's, the shade or tone is shown in the last number. Here I have picked out some different shades within the red color family. They all have saturation 8, then they range from one to three to five to nine in shade or tone. Let me elaborate this saturation and tone a little bit more. Let's stay with that red color group. Here are that red color group, but with different saturation. To the left is a saturated red and to the left, they become more and more desaturated, remember? Let's pick that saturated red as an example and just show the different tones of that one with the lighter, mid and dark tones. Now we could pick a more desaturated red on that scale. Let's just pick this one and add different tones or shades to this one as well. Now I know that this color chart is not perfect. They could probably be more lighter, but just to show you how it works. Now we could do the exact same thing to the rest of the saturations on that scale. Then we would have a complete color chart of the red color group. Here we have the red color group again, and now we're just showing the different tones again. We just have picked one specific saturation in that red color group and showing the different tones or shades or value as you can call it too. If you want to create a natural blending group, you pick from one color family, one specific saturation, three or less or more different tones of that specific one. Here I have picked a light tone, mid-tone, and a dark tone. They become a natural blending group, which blend very well. Here is an example of a natural blending group. It's the color family red, saturation 8, and then four different tones. To summarize color system a little bit, these are the terms and principles that is good to have with you when you pick and buy markers. They are divided into color groups or color families. They come in different saturations and shades or tones, and that a natural blending group is a set of markers within the same color group with the same saturation but with different shades. Unfortunately, the different brands they don't have a standardized color-code system. So there are some differences between them and we just have to learn them separately. In the next segment, it's time to talk about how to buy and pick markers. I'll see you there. 5. How to choose and buy markers: In this section, I will give you some of my recommendations on what markers to start buying. If you can only get three markers or maybe 10 or 12 markers to start with, what should you pick? As I've mentioned before, markers can be quite expensive. There are a couple of less expensive ones, but not so much that you're going to want to go ahead and buy them all at once. A good tip is to put some money aside for markers each month and then just slowly watch your collection grow. How to start choosing your first markers. Of course, you want to start with some markers that will be really useful to you and that you will use a lot. That can depend on what types of illustrations you want to make and color. Is it fashion illustrations, food, faces, manga comic, animals, flowers and plants, for example? A pretty good advice that will work for most purposes, though, is to start buying some basic colors and then add a couple of accent colors just for the fun of it, of course. Now, I will show you some colors from these two brands, Copic to and Promarker. Both brands have these color charts that you can download and print, and they are really, really good to monitor what markers that you would like to get, and also maybe to mark out what markers you already have. They will show all colors available from these two brands. In the project section of this class, you will find two links to these color charts so that you can download and print them yourselves. Now for some recommendations, what should you start buying? First, I would start with some gray tones. I would recommend to start with some cool gray or neutral grays and, for example, get three shades within the same color group. My recommendation are to pick C-0, C-6, C-8 or N-1, N-3, and N-5. In that way, you will have some shades that are easy to blend. Next, get some earth tones from colors within the earth color family, and start with some light tones within different saturations. These are my choices: the E00, E30, E41, and E71. So these ones are great to use for sketching out a face or other organic illustrations. Then continue within the same color groups and the same saturations. You will get some midtones that will blend well with those light tones. So I would get the E04, E34, E44, E74. Then get some dark tones within the same saturation groups; E07, E37, E47, E49, and E79 are my choices. These earth tones are really useful for creating all from fashion illustrations to illustrations of plants and flowers and animals, and they are great for illustrating skin and hair. Next, I would get some desaturated colors, and preferably, if you can get two or three within the same group so you can have some natural blending groups. That way, it's going to get much more fun. I would get some blue-violets, some blues, blue-greens, yellow-greens, yellow, and reds. I think you're going to use them quite a lot. Then you can get some more fun and bright and bold colors, some more saturated colors. I would get some violet, blues, greens, and reds. If you can, get some different shades within those same groups. If I could only get three Copic markers, these ones are the first ones I would start with; it's not what I did start with but now when I'm older and wiser, these are my recommendations: get two neutral grays and one light earth tone. Then to start build on that, if can get 12 markers or the next step in your collection would be to compliment them with some more earth tones and add some blues, yellow-greens, yellow, and red. If you can get even more, like 25 markers, then just add more earth tones, get some darker ones, and also build on those desaturated pastels, and also get some more bold colors and even further. Then you have a really nice color palette and starting kit with 45 markers with both grays, earth tones, desaturated, and saturated colors. When it comes to Promarker, their color code system is a complete mystery to me. It's some anarchy and I don't really know how they structure and organize them. Maybe there is a way that I haven't figured out about. I haven't been able to google it or find it anywhere. I'm not going to be able to give you some recommendations within a natural blending group because I haven't really figured that out. But I will still give you some advice, what I would start getting. Here are the colors and they also include some earth tones. What I have found out is that they don't have a specific color group that is called earth tones. They have lots of yellows and a lot of orange colors and also some reds that would definitely be considered some earth tones. The only structured colors within the Promarker color system is the gray colors, the gray tones. They actually make sense. If I could only buy three Promarkers to start out with, I would get a couple of grays and a skin tone. Then I would build on this and get some more earth tones, some darker ones, and some colors that to me appear to be desaturated, and if you can get some in two different shades. If you can get 25 markers, you can add some more to those starting 12, just adding some more earth tones and grays and some more of those colors. Now maybe adding some more bold, saturated colors. Finally, somewhere around 45 markers, and now you have some light to mid and dark tones within some different color groups, and you have a lot of grays to work with and a row of earth tones. These two starting kits are going to be useful to you within all different types of illustrations. In the project section, you will also find a list with all my recommendations. Another great help, and that I use a lot, is to print out these blank color charts. They are also available for both brands, and I will post both color charts for this class so that you can download and print. When you start buying markers, you can fill in all the squares for that marker that you have bought, and you can see your collection grow on this chart too. Then they really, really nice to refer to when you want to pick colors and shades for an illustration that you want to color. I hope this has been to some help for you, and in the next section, we're going to look at some paper too. 6. Choosing paper 1: Using alcohol based markers, it's important to have paper that will work for that purpose. To make it easier for you, we're going to test some paper together. At the same time, you're going to get to know some of the terms used when using markers, and also get to know the different types of papers. Here are some variables that are great to look for when testing what papers to use. How smooth does the ink lay down on the paper, for example? Does it darken when you layer? How much ink does it take to saturate the paper? Does the ink feather with this type of paper? Does the ink bleed through? The first paper I'm going to test is just ordinary printing paper, standard thin as you know and has this smooth but still uncoated finish to the surface as you know. One effect with using printing paper with markers is something called bleeding. For this particular paper, I'm really going to need a scrap paper. I will show you exactly what bleeding means. But the first thing I want to test is how smoothly does to color lay down on this type of paper. So I'm just going to do like this. It feels dry and rough. The grain soaks it in unevenly. What happens if I layer it? Will darken. Do another layer. I'm just having a minimum pressure to this. Well, if this get darker when layering, so what happens if I apply another layer? Slightly darker and now as you can see, it has an even coat of color to it. If I do another one, there. So I have four layers here, but you can barely see the difference between the second, third, fourth layer. So it does darken but only with one layer. You can also see that when you apply more layers and more ink to it, it starts to spread outside the area where I colored. So I should have made an outline perhaps, just to let you see what happens. Let's do just this and then I'll apply some color to it, just next to the line, and then I'll do another layer. Now, you start to see what happens. The color start spreading outside of the line and this is an effect that is called feathering. So this one feathers quite a lot. Another thing that I mentioned before is bleeding, it's when the ink goes through the paper to the other side. A lot of papers, as you will see in the other papers I will test, they will bleed through, which means that they will be visible on the other side of the paper almost as if you have colored it on this side. But it won't make an impression or color the surface underneath, but this one does. So good I had a scrapping paper, otherwise it would have colored my desk too. This was just ordinary printing paper, I will show you another printing paper as well. This one is a little bit thicker, and has a much smoother surface. So what happens if we use this paper? I will make a little square, actually I'll make a bigger one so we can do some layering too. I'll just color this in, and just exact next to the line so we can see what if it feathers. Just slide the color like this. You can see already, I've made some more strokes on the edges there, so you can see that it darkens. But let's see what happens if I apply a second layer, a third layer. Well, on this paper you can definitely see the different layers. So here we have three layers already, but on the previous one, after the second layer, you couldn't tell any difference. Now, we have three layers, let's see if I can make another one. It does get more saturated with a fourth layer. You can tell the difference between this third and the fourth layer, but still there is a difference. It takes four layers to saturate this paper. Now take a look, along the line does it feather? I think it doesn't that much, quite good actually. Laying down the color it feels smooth, so it's quite easy. So how does it look on the other side? Here's a piece of sketching paper, a 120 grams, so it's a little bit thicker than the first printing paper. It has the same type of grain and surface as the first printing papers, so a little bit buff. Let's see what happens when apply first layer. They got colored outside the line but I can see that there is some feathering going on already. As with the first printing paper, it's rough and feels dry also to lay down the color, so it's not as smooth and easy as with second printing paper. What happens with the second layer? It does darken, but you can still see some of the white of the paper shine through. It doesn't really darken much from the second layer. Also as you can see here with the fourth layer it starts to feather a lot. Let's see what happens to the bleeding, yes it bleeds through and it creates some marks on the surface underneath. So I would not recommend this as a marker paper, not if you are really keen on having clean and sharp outlines. Here I have a bristle, 200, 220 grams, so let's make a first layer. Lays down really smoothly, it's easy to wipe, still not any feathering going on, and what happens with the forth layer? I think with the fifth layer it saturated the paper. Take a look at the outline, no feathering to speak of really. Very interesting is to see what happens on the other side, it did bleed through to the other side of the paper, but I think that this was from the previous paper, the sketching paper. 7. Choosing paper 2: Now to the next one, which is watercolor paper. Let's make that square, and apply the first layer. Surprisingly, it does lay down pretty easy and smooth, and evenly. Now you can see the paper is saturated. Let's see what happens with a thick layer. I want to say it takes like four, maybe actually five layers of ink to saturate the watercolor paper. But a good thing is that there is no feathering. I really like this paper. What happen on the other side? It did leak through, and there is just a little mark there. It did make an imprint on the surface underneath. The first marker paper is Copic Marker Pad, it's quite thin, only 70 grams. Actually it's the same paper I'm using underneath here because I already know that it won't leak through. But let's make a test for you guys. The classic square, or actually rectangle, and then apply a first layer. It feels smooth and easy to apply. There you can see some shining through, I guess, so it's not completely saturated yet. You have to make the color sit also little bit, and then some of the streaks will go away. With the four layers, you still see a slight difference. It does darken, but it gets saturated very quickly. What's good about this paper is that it doesn't seem to feather, but what happened on the other side, on the backside? No bleed-through on this surface underneath. This is Canson The Wall. It's quite thick, 220 grams also a marker paper. Let's see, let's make a rectangle and apply the first layer. Let us darken, and now the third layer. Now you can see that the paper is saturated and it's an even coat of color unlike this paper, plus it's really smooth and easy to apply. There's no feathering to speak about. Look at that. It is the first paper where it doesn't even bleed through on the other side. Now you have a few papers and you can get these papers too. Maybe you have some at home already, and just try them out, and see which ones you like the best, because it's really a matter of that, what you like. Here I have all of the papers that I tried. It was the first printing paper, not really good, lot of feathering and bleeding through to the other side and on the surface underneath. The second printing paper, but thicker and smoother. Pretty good actually. I think this is a great budget paper if anything. It did bleed through, and I think also that it left some marks on the surface underneath. At least for to the last layers where it was saturated. Then we have the sketching paper. Actually that was the wrong side. This one was almost like watercolor when looking at it but lot of feathering and very uneven, and you can also see some white dots. It's the grain of the paper shining through, not my favorite Bristol paper. As you can see, the color applies smoothly and it saturates pretty quick, no feathering, but I think also that the color is not as vibrant clear as with stroke sample of watercolor paper. The watercolor paper, surprisingly, is one of my favorites. When you do over-saturated, it uneven or if you can see the grain of the paper shines through. That's something to be careful about. It bleed through quite a bit, but no feathering, so good one. Then we have the Copic Marker paper. I would probably use this for exercises and just trying out things, but not for finished colored illustration. If you're going to scan it and then make it into a printable illustration, maybe you can use it too. But it's floppy, and it's not my favorite really. Plus it's dull, almost like the Bristol paper, the colors are not that vibrant. Then we have the Canson The Wall. It's good, because the thickness makes it sturdy and it's nice to create with this type of paper, but the color is not as vibrant as I would like it probably. With this test, the watercolor paper is my favorite, but try out something up of papers of your own and see which one is your favorite. In the next segment, we're going to take a look at the basic strokes and coloring technique. I'll see you there. 8. Basic strokes & coloring techniques: Hi, and welcome back. In this section, I'm going to show you the basic strokes and coloring techniques. The first technique is different levels of pressure. Let me show you what I mean with that. It can just be really light handed and just really swiftly apply color, just touching the surface of the paper very swiftly. Then the color becomes very light and the paper shines through a lot. Then you make a different effect if you apply pressure, you press the nib to the paper and so you push down more ink on the paper in that way. See the difference. The second technique is streaking and this is actually what I'm doing here now. I'm applying color by making streaks like this. This is quite good when you want to color larger areas and if you use the broader chisel nib on the other end. Another way to apply color is by doing circular movements with your nib, either with your circular and slow strokes like this and then when you do that, you saturate the paper right away. You could probably do it with lesser pressure too, just smaller movements there. But you do apply more ink to it when you make the circular strokes. This is a way to create an even and smooth coat of color. The fourth technique I'm going to mention and I have mentioned it already and I've actually used this word quite a lot is layering. Let's use this. I know actually I'm going to create a new area. If I color in maybe this area here, and then I want to create an effect that I make different, the effect of a darker area but still within the same color, I can use different or more layers to create an effect of a gradient effect. Then when you want to make a gradient effect, you can also use layers but instead of using streaks as I've done before when creating the darker effects, you'd use something called flicks. With your wrist, you do like this. You put more pressure on the beginning and then you just flick it and with lesser and lesser pressure until you release the paper with your nib. In that way, it comes from dark to white. It's the same principle as with pressure. This flicking is a technique that you use when you want to blend colors as well. Pressure, light pressure and more pressure, streaking, circular movements, layering, and flicking. Now it's your turn to practice these techniques. Grab a piece of paper and pick a marker, any color you'd like, let's learn to practice strokes. First, really light swift strokes with little pressure and then go in and apply more pressure. Next, you can make some squares. The first one you'll color in with streaks using a broad chisel nib and try to make an even coat of color and then go in and make a second layer, trying to saturate the paper and also make a covering coat. Now, change to a small ballpoint tip or a brush tip and start coloring in the second square using small circular strokes. Make an as even coat of color as you can. Color the whole square and then go over it again and make sure that it's completely saturated. With a brush nib, try to make some flicks too and you can make them separate or overlapping each other like this. With the brush nib, color in another square with very slight pressure. Then come in with flicks, varying the pressure and see what effects you can create. Then just keep playing around with the different strokes and coloring techniques and just see how they feel and how they work. 9. Exercise 1 - The seaview: Here is another coloring exercise for you using streaking, pressure, and circular strokes. We're going to create a seaside view. So for this exercise, we're just going to use one marker and I want you to pick some kind of brush marker or for this exercise, you can actually use a small ballpoint marker too, but my favorite is the brush marker because it's more flexible. With a softer nib, you can create cool effects, I think. For this one, I'm using a Copic Sketch. Let's pick a light to mid-tone color and you can pick any color group you like and saturation. I have picked a blue color and zero saturation. So it's a very saturated clear color and the shade number 2, so it's fairly light. So that's good to have for this exercise. Don't pick a too dark one but not too light either so we can create some shading effects. You're going to need a piece of paper and for this exercise, I'm using a Copic marker paper. Start out by making a rectangle, which will be your image. Don't make it too big, it's going to be too much to color in for you. Something like this. Definitely doesn't have to be perfect. I also want you to mark just roughly where you want your horizon to be. So here's the sea. Like here and here, perhaps, you're going to want to have some clouds, so don't fill in those areas. You always start from the edges. Now, we're going to use streaks to start coloring in. Now, I'm leaving some where I want the clouds to be. Try to be as light-handed as you can. Make this sky the brighter area. Something like that. So you have some skies and you can probably make them even more diffuse. Now, we're going to do the ocean. Now, I want you to use more pressure. With these streaks, you press your marker pen and your nib harder to the paper. That's going to have to be like a seal or something bobbing around in the ocean. So make sure your paper doesn't bulge or move. As you see, the streaks also create an effect of waves or ocean lines. You can actually emphasize that, and you can go in and make some more lines. So now we have colored in this area using pressure and also leaving out some areas. So keep going with those streaks and see if you can create some effects. So maybe, perhaps you want to make a very distinct horizon line and smaller streaks. Something like that and now you can go in and make even more details if you want to. So perhaps we want to add a piece of land here. Let's make some kind of rock that cuts in. Something like this, and now you want to apply even more pressure. Now, we're going to use some circular strokes to fill this in and really, really saturate and darken this area. Of course, you can make even more details. You can create, maybe want to have seals there, bobbing around in the ocean or you can have some birds in the air and you can just see the silhouette, so just make them look a little fleeing birds. 10. Exercise 2 - The misty mountain: Here is another exercise for you where we will practice some more of those streaks and layering, and for this, we're going to create a misty mountain landscape. Make a rectangle, don't make it too big now because it's going to be a lot to color in. First, we're going to start with a little lake. Then we're going to have the first mountain line or something like that and another one, just something like that. Then we're going to have some dark land here, I think. We're going to create this image with different layers and create the effect of different shades with the same marker. The lightest areas are going to be the sky and the lake. With streaks and a really light hand, not much pressure, color in the whole thing, creating the first layer. Don't worry if there are some black lines shining through or not colored and so we can just go in and fix those later. Always begin from the edges like that. Now for the next layer, we're going to leave out the sky and the lake. With not much pressure still, just mark that contour and from the edges again, come in and apply a mixed layer, creating a darker shade. Light handed still because we're going to have to distribute the ink for the different layers and be careful so that we don't do the first layers too dark. Like I did, leave out the lake. Good. Now to the next layer, which is this one here, leave out the lake, something like that. To the next layer which starts somewhere here, and now to create a difference, you might want to apply some more pressure, not much though, because you still have another layer that needs to be darkened, and again, leave the lake alone. If you start losing your contours, don't worry, you can do the freehand later, I guess. Now, we have just one more layer left and now I want you to leave out the piece of land in the forefront. Let's see, here is the last layer contour like this. This was the darkest one and you can always go in and adjust that, if you want to change it and make it a more irregular perhaps. Now with a much more pressure, go in and fill those into using streaks or circular but this layer is going to be the darkest one, so you can really now saturate the paper in this area. Now, the cool thing is to make really sharp contours to make the different layers pop. So come in and now take a look at the contours again. There you have a misty landscape to be the highlands of Scotland, perhaps. "You can take my life but you can't take my freedom." You can also go in and make some more effects if you want to, like these two layers are maybe a bit too alike. So you can go in and make the contours a bit darker. Great. In the next segment, we're going to make some gradient coloring. See you there. 11. Gradient color with one marker: The next technique I want to show you is how to create a gradient effect by creating different levels of light and darkness using only one marker. I'm going to make a quite narrow rectangle first. I'm going to create a gradient or shade going from dark to lighter. First I'm going to color in the whole thing with just really light pressure creating a lightest shade that I can and just lay down the first layer of color, just like I did when I was testing paper. So something like that. Next, I'm going to apply a second layer and start from the bottom, and still not using too much pressure, because I want to distribute the ink over the different layers. In the end, I'm going to make a few layers, and in the end I don't want the paper to get saturated too quickly because then, there will not be any difference or any darkening effect anymore. I want to be quite light-handed still, some pressure and then do a strike like this. In the end, I will do this flaking movement, releasing the paper with the nib so that the transition will be smoothly. Now, I'll make another layer and this one will end somewhere around here. Now I can use maybe slightly more pressure, but still not too much. Another one, strikes ending with that flick, and another one. Now I want to apply more pressure and begin at the end of course, as always, like that, and it's becoming more saturated now. With this typical paper, which is the copic marker paper, the ink will saturate the paper pretty quickly. Now let's see if I can make another darker layer. Maybe a little bit. Here's shading or a gradient coat of color with just one marker. For the next exercise, we're going to practice pressure, some layering, and flicks. For this, we're going to make a bottle. Grab another piece of paper and see if you can freehand, make like a bottle shape. Now gradually color in this bottle by using flicks and layers. First we're going to decide where are the lightest areas going to be. It's going to be somewhere from the lightest coming from this direction, I think. Start from the edges always, and now use flicks and different pressure. First, more pressure to start and then gradually release, like this. Now you can have to imagine that with these strokes, you follow the direction, the roundness of the bottle. This technique is something that you can also pick up in my other class, drawing from objects, how to build a shape by following the shape of the object. Area is the first layer and we're going to work on this a little bit. You can already see that there is some shape going up. Leave out the label, of course. Now we're going to do the same on the other side, but be careful not to do too much. So let's see. We're going to want to have still some light areas right next to the label. Now the label also need some shading and textures. This was an exercise to create a gradient effect using flicking and layering. I really hope you enjoyed it. In the next section, we're going to take a look at another technique to make a gradient effect, which is called blending. 12. Gradient color by blending three markers: In this section, I'm going to show you how to make a gradient effect with another technique called blending. First, we're going to choose three colors, or a three markers within the same color group and saturation, but with three different shades. I'm choosing these three; RAD 1, RAD 3, and RAD 5. When you are starting to color something, it's great to just try out your colors first, the color got many color chart, and just to see how they look and also how they behave. We definitely see quite a lot of difference between the three. So you want to have that. Now I have chosen my colors, my natural blending group that is. For this one, I just quickly draw a tulip flower that I'm going to color in. You can draw a simple flower or another shape or maybe just a circle or a rectangle if you want to go along and practice blending with me now. The trick is to work when the ink is wet when you blend. Wet and wet blends. Start with applying the lightest color. In my case, the Ra 1, which is also called the base color, and you apply it with slow circular moves, strokes so that you get an even and saturated base coat of color. I'm going to fill this in and fast-forward. An important thing to remember when you create an illustration like this, and you want to use a pencil to draw some outlines, is to use one that is as hard as possible. Otherwise, the lead or the pencil lead will probably smear and contaminate your color. Now I have the base color down, and now you continue with the midtone, which is called also the midcolor, and you apply where you want it to be darker or like shadows. Do that using the [inaudible] technique and apply from the end with edges toward the lighter areas, leaving the lighter untouched, and something like this. That was the midtone. Now continue and come in with the darkest color for the areas where you want it to be darker or the most shadowed area. It's there. Now we have some shades. Now to blend all these colors together, we're going to color again, but now backwards. You can only color or you can only blend two colors at a time and always blend with the latter of the two. Going backwards, we're going to start blending with the two darkest areas. The lighter of the two, which is the midtone, we're going to blend the two darkest colors. With flakes, again, fly some color in the areas where they overlap. So over here, just like swift strokes again, and in that way, you make them blend. Be careful not to overdo it. Just do swift strokes like this, a little at a time, because it's really easy to just do too much and everything will end up looking the same color. So see if you can go over those overlapping areas and apply until you are satisfied. So that was blending the two darkest areas, and now we're going to blend the two lightest area. Now I'm going to use the lightest color of the three. Don't go into the lightest area too much or everything will just end up being the same color. You're going to see that the smaller illustration, the easier it is, just two blends everything together. Be careful when you have small illustrations. Be careful not to go into the dark areas, because if you do, you will just move around the color and you will actually remove color from this area and move it to another, and you will create a wider or a lighter spot. That was blending three colors. In the next segment, I'm going to show a trick how to correct some of the mistakes that might occur. 13. Correcting mistakes: In this section, I'm going to show you a trick on what to do if you do a mistake, like coloring outside of the outlines, an illustration that you are working on. For this, I'm going to use a colorless blender. So let's say I'm coloring this circle, doing a really good job and everything, and this happens to me a lot. Whoops, I happen to color outside of the line, and that's a catastrophe for this piece of art. So now how to correct this, you grab the colorless blender and then you start making strokes right outside and start closing in on the area that you want to remove. Just start doing like this, and slowly get towards the outline. In this manner, you are pushing the color back inside, and just keep going until you see that you can't remove anymore color. So that's a trick that will work for some colors and some papers, not all of course, like really bright and dark colors and colors like red are really difficult to remove and there will definitely be some residue left. But you can correct a lot of mistakes this way. 14. Coloring an illustration & student project: Now my friends, we are getting to the best part which is to start coloring in an actual illustration. This is going to be your student project for this class. For this, I have created an illustration with only outlines for you. It's a posy of flowers. Of course, you can use one of your own illustrations if you want to and perhaps you took my previous class, the artistic illustrations, learning how to draw from objects and can use one of those illustrations that you created there. It's up to you. For this project, I want you to use all of this strokes and techniques that you have picked up from class. So use different types of pressure. Use or make gradients with one marker or two or three. Actually, you can use as many markers as you want to for this illustration. Just knock yourselves out, use lots of colors and just have fun. Before you start coloring, you have to choose what colors you want to use. I also want you to make a color chart with the markers and the colors that you have chosen. On the color chart, you can test how they blend. Then just get started. Color away, use different colors and different techniques and just have lots and lots of fun. Another thing I would love to see are your exercises, the [inaudible] and the misty mountain exercises. So please post those too alongside with your final illustration. You will find the outline illustration in the class project section. I can't wait to see your colored illustrations posted in the student projects section. 15. End note: That's it, folks. That's all for this time, and I hope that you have enjoyed yourselves, and that you have picked up some good stuff so you can get started using markers. This was the second class of the series I call Artistic Illustrations. In the first one, you learn how to create an illustration by drawing from an object. In a structural step-by-step way, you will learn how to create body to that illustration and texture. So if you haven't discovered that class yet, go ahead and check it out. With that, I would like to say goodbye and thank you so much for joining me.