Calamity Jane strikes again

For my latest post on behalf of the

Make It Crafty

Inspiration Design Team

I wanted to do something a little different..........

So I am about to share with you what I lovingly call

"CREATIVE CALAMITIES"

I have named this little chap "Blooper" and he and I are going to highlight problems that I experience and how I have learnt to correct or overcome them.

SHINY COPICS

You can see at the base of Bloopers cheek that the Copic ink is sitting on top and refusing to blend and although you cannot see it in the picture it has gone shiny.
I find this particular problem really annoying and because as you know I am renowned for layering oodles of Copics in my artwork I experience this phenomenon quite often.

Firstly, why does this happen?
You have probably saturated the cardstock or paper with too many layers of ink and I have noticed that it tends to occur most often when I am using very dark, strong pigmented colours.
I’ve found it also happens if I allow layers to dry and then go back to it especially when using deeper colours.

What can you do if it happens?
Firstly, don’t panic or rip up your work!

You can sometimes remove the problematic layer with the Colourless Blender, but this solution tends to just remove the top layer and if you try to apply more ink it does on occasion go shiny yet again.
So if having tried unsuccessfully to add more colour I reach for my coloured pencils, they enable me to add the additional colour and have the added benefit of reducing or eradicating the shine.
If you look very carefully I have done just that on the upper portion of Bloopers cheek.

(I will explain how I use Copics and pencils together in a future tutorial)

SMUDGING

This happens quite alot with digital stamping for several reasons:
You have not allowed enough time for your printer ink to dry properly – if in a hurry, blast the image with a heat gun to seal the ink.

A note of warning – some printer inks just do not play nice with alcohol markers!

If you are unlucky enough to be struggling with this issue I do have a little piece of advice:

The eagle eyed amongst you will have spotted that the top half of the above image has been coloured using a very pale yellow and has not smudged whereas the bottom part lets be honest looks a mess!

Now as long as I am careful and allow the ink to dry I do not have a problem with my printer but you can see that I managed to make a right pigs ear of poor Bloopers dorsal fin by repeatedly colouring over the inked lines.

So regardless of your brand of ink or printer the best advice I can give to avoid unwanted black smudges is to colour up to and around the printed lines when using very pale colours, avoid the temptation to colour over them and you should eliminate this particular problem.

BLEEDING

How many times has this happened to you when you have been using those scrummy reds and hot pinks!!
They are notorious for bleeding so extra care needs to be taken, try not to colour too close to the lines, in other words allow for the fact they are probably going to bleed.
This can occur with other colours too if you get carried away with your blending and saturate your paper/cardstock

Again, do not panic!

Allow the area to dry and then carefully try and push the colour back using the colourless blender.
Please note, if you do it whilst the main colour is still wet you often find the unwanted colour bleeds into the area you have dampened with colourless blender and you make the bleed worse
(been there, done that)
Be aware however that some deep colours will be much harder to push back – so when using dark shades, just take extra, extra care!

Another cause of bleeding is inappropriate cardstock or paper.
We all experiment with different types of cardstock until we find one that suits our particular colouring style.
I personally have found that alcohol markers are quite fussy little devils and they work best on ultra smooth cardstock such as
Make it Crafty Blending Card
especially if you add oodles of layers of ink like I do!

BLOBS

Oh boy, this always seems to happen when I am behind on a DT deadline or am half-way through a really important project and I have over filled a Copic marker!!!

Hands up who has seen/done this!!!
You are merrily colouring away and all of a sudden a huge amount of ink comes down the nib – grrrrrr!

If you use a pale colour, in this case it was E0000 and E000 then you can with a little patience remove most of it with colourless blender, but patience is a virtue and you have to allow the card to dry before adding more blender or the colour as I have already said before will bleed back into the dampened area.

Darker colours will prove more problematic so you may need to, oh I don’t know incorporate the blob into your design or add a strategically placed sentiment, chippie, button etc and hey presto no one will ever know it’s there!!!

At the end of the day, regardless of your ability or experience the above ”creative calamities” happen to us all!

I hope this post has shown you that with a little patience, ingenuity and a Colourless Blender your work does not have to go flying in the bin.

Crafty Hugs