Our Design Team

We have had a few changes with our design team so I thought I would just give you all a chance to have a good nosy at them, our newbies are Gro, Coops and Vix if you click on there photos it will take you to there blogs, I just wanted to say a sad “Goodbye” to Sue and Maria who have left us, life has just taken over so we wish them both well.

Don’t forget to join in with the blog hop over on the main page, it lasts for 2 weeks so we want no excuses :)

Blog Owners/Authors/Design Team

Denise	Gina

Passion for ProMarker Design Team

Andie	Anja	Caryn	Debs	Emma
Gro	Ida	Julie	Michele	Nic (Coops)

Sarah	Sue	Tracy	Vix

Hugs Gina, Denise and the whole Design Team xxx

Weekend workshop#64

I can not believe a week has passed since I last posted, where does the time go!!

We have a surprise coming up next week on the main blog so don’t forget to pop over on Tuesday at 9am to see all the action!

This week we have a great tutorial from Sue, if you have bought some Aquamarkers and don’t know where to begin this is the tutorial you need……so over to Sue…..

 

Hi, it's Sue here and I've put together a tutorial to show you how to get started with Aquamarkers. As Aquamarkers are waterbased you need to use Stazon ink as this won't bleed or run when water is used and it dries really quickly. I've used Jet Black, but you could use any colour you like.

The paper that I've used is a Hot Pressed Watercolour paper which is great as it doesn't warp when water is used. I always have a sheet of kitchen roll next to me so that I can use it to dab off excess water from my paint brush. If you have a waterbrush, that's fine to use too, I just prefer an ordinary paint brush. The stamp I've used is a fab one by Whipper Snapper. First of all I scribble some ink onto an acrylic block and with a damp paintbrush, pick up some of the ink and do a first layer making the colour very pale.

I start to build the colour up going over areas where they need to be darker due to shadow.

To get extra depth to the colour I take the pen direct to the paper and then blend the ink with the damp paint brush.

The colour builds up quite slowly so sometimes it takes several layers of ink to get to the desired strength of colour. The beauty with Aquamarkers is that the colour blends so easily with a damp paint brush and you can get just about any shade you like.

For the neck trim of the gown I've used Sunburst Yellow and again I painted a pale coat first then I took the pen direct to the paper to add some depth to the colour, all the while blending with my damp paint brush.

For the wooden stand I've used Gold Ochre and Mahogany. I've used Gold Ochre first giving the stand an all over coat. I then used the Gold Ochre direct to the paper to add depth of colour and shade.

The Mahogany was just used where the shade would be the darkest, in this case the left hand side of the stand.

For the scroll I used Cream and Eggshell, just giving it a light coat and adding a little shade to the lower edge.

The last colour I used is my favourite and that's Sangria. It's such a deliciously rich colour, and I've used it for the tie around the scroll. It's also possible to use digi images with Aquamarkers by heat setting the image. Just use your heat gun to waft over the printed image for a few seconds. You do need to be more careful with the amount of water you use as the watercolour paper I've used here wouldn't go through my printer and the card wouldn't be as resistant to warping as it's not as absorbent. I hope you've found this useful ! Sue x

Now don’t forget to come and see us for a few surprised on Tuesday, you won’t be disappointed :)

Have a great weekend

Hugs Gina, Denise and the Design Team

Weekend workshop #63

The weekend is nearly here again woohooo, so we have a fabby tutorial to inspire from the lovely Julie, if you want to see the finished card just pop over to this weeks challenge. So without further a do here we go…………

 

Hi there, it's Julie, and I'm here to show you how I coloured my image from this week's challenge, in black and white tones with my Promarkers. The first thing that I would say is that I've used hardly any black as I find this can be too harsh when you're trying to blend your shades.

I used this fab Kenny K digi image which is perfect for black and white tones al a cartoon style! I've started off with the Ice Grey family - starting with Ice Grey 4 for my darkest areas.

Onto Ice Grey 3, gradually bringing in the colour further to the centre of the image, then Ice Grey 2 and Ice Grey 1.

I've then gone back and added some Ice Grey 5 to further accentuate his muscles/shadows,

and blended through again from darkest to lightest to blend together. I've done the same with his head, blending through from dark to light - you can see this in the final pics at the end.

For his legs, I've used the Cool family of Greys as using a different family of the greys adds to the depth and contrast in your image. Again, the same technique, starting with the darkest, Cool Grey 5, in the creases and the shadows.

This is the effect at Cool Grey 2, leaving a thin area uncoloured to capture the sheen of his rubber leggings - ooh er!!! I've also used my blender to soften the edges between the Cool Grey 2 and the uncoloured strip.

Again, the same technique and colours with his gloves, leaving the tips of his knuckles white as this would be the area that I imagine reflect the light the most.

I've used the Warm Grey set for his boots, starting with 4 and blending down to 2.

As with his body, I've then gone back to Warm Grey 5 and added this to the darker area to increase the feeling of depth and shadow.

Just leaving a touch of white to show where the light catches on the back of his boots.

The briefcase is the only place where I used black to start off as my deepest colour, then used the Cool Grey set to complete my colouring and blending.

And this is my finished image showing the final effect obtained by using all three different families of the Greys and a hint of black. You can also see the little bit of flesh colouring where his face is exposed and for this I used putty and pastel pink.

 

Now I think you will agree that was a great tutorial.

We hope you all have a great weekend, don’t forget to take a look at our new challenge on Tuesday

Hugs Gina xxx

weekend workshop #62

Hope you are all well, isn’t it miserable with the dark nights now………NOOOOO it gives us longer to craft whoop whoop and we are here to cheer you up anyway and hopefully give a bit of inspiration along the way :)

Just a couple of things to tell you, firstly we have joined twitter so if you want to join us and keep up with all of our news and who knows there may be a bit of gossip :), you can find us by clicking on the pic, secondly……well I can not really say but just keep your eyes peeled in a few weeks time

Now for this weeks tutorial, we are very happy to have part 2 of Michele’s video for you, I hope you enjoy………

Next week we have a fab ProMarker tutorial from Julie, if you want a sneek peek pop over to the challenge on Tuesday, you may just see the image she has done the tutorial for on her card ;)

Have a happy and safe Bon fire night,

Hugs Gina, Denise and the Design Team xxx

Weekend workshop #61

Just a quick post this week as I have some family staying and feel a little ignorant being on the computer………but I know how much you all look forward to the weekend workshops so family will have to wait :)

This week we have a great video from Michele, so go fetch yourself a cup of tea or something stronger if you prefer and settle back and enjoy!

AquaMarker Tutorial

If you are all good you may see part two next week :)

Have a good weekend

Hugs Gina, Denise and the Design Team xxx

Weekend workshop #60

We are here again, another Friday so another tutorial, it is nice to know you are all happy we are back. If you have any ideas of tutorials or would like us to answer any questions just leave a message in the comments and we will do our best to help :)

Just a few bits of info before we get to the tutorial, Letraset have gone into social networking and have joined facebook and twitter so if you want to join them and be the first to hear all of the news, just click on the links below

          

 

Right onto our tutorial this week from the lovely Andie -

 

I'm sure many of you are aware of the new range of Letraset Aqua Markers. For this weeks workshop I wanted to try & show you why I think they are so fab! On the suggestion of my PFP D-Teamie Gina I used Daler-Rowney, The Langton Extra Smooth Watercolour Paper, Hot Pressed with VersaFine Ink.

Aqua Markers, up to this point, come in a much smaller range of colours than Promarkers. But that is no problem. They can be used like a paint pallette to mix almost any colour you wish. There are several techniques for using them. For this tutorial, I scribbled colour onto a non-porous surface & used a Water Brush to pick up the colour like paint.

I used a CC Design Kiki La Rue image for this tutorial.

1. Using small circular motions I coloured her face with Eggshell.

2. Rather like Promarkers I layered colour on top of colour to darken the areas in shadow. Round the edge of her face I used Deco Peach & Rose Blush. My brush was damp rather than wet. Too wet & the brush will lift the colour on the page & leave water blush marks. Patience is a virtue. Either wait for the area you are painting to dry or start colouring another area before you layer the colour.

3. On the pink areas I used Cherry Blossom as a base, again using my brush in small circular strokes, but using little dabbing motions to build a depth of colour.

4. To darken the colour, I layered Flamingo Pink over the Cherry Blossom. 5. I added Puce to add further depth to the shadows. 6. The blue areas were coloured in the same way, with Frost Blue as a base, & Storm Blue for darker shadowy areas. 7. On her hair I used Straw Yellow for the base.

8. Over the Straw Yellow I shaded Golden Brown & Mocha.

9. To add further depth to her hair. I used small strokes of Mocha, directly from pen to paper, & used my brush to pull the colour from the darkest parts to the lighter areas.

You can see the full final finished image & card on the Sweet Treats Challenge, posted on the PFP Challenge blog on 7/9/10.

I love the Aqua Markers for the range of effects you can achieve with them. There are several ways of using them, of which this is only one. Give them ago & discover which style suits you!

Thanks for Looking,

Hugs,

Andie xx

 

If you need any more information about aquamarkers click on the PDF below to give you some more tips and a look at all the yummy colours

 

Don’t forget if you have any tutorial ideas or would just like to ask a question just leave us a comment :)

See you all next week, we have a yummy video to show

Hugs Gina, Denise and the Design Team xxx