Coloring cute geckos with tiny spots…

But unlike last month's pointillism technique, this month the dots are REMOVED rather than ADDED.

I do this with a 0 Copic marker- that's a zero, the so-called Colorless Blender.

But there's a trick to getting pretty little colorless blender dots like this:

Unless you just refilled your colorless blender marker only seconds ago, it doesn't have enough juice to lay down perfect dots each time.

In order to get good dots, you've got to have enough moisture in your brush tip to get in and really push the base marker color away. You need a shiny-wet brush tip.

Remember- subtraction requires more moisture than addition.

But frankly, most of my markers haven't been full and shiny tipped since they left the factory. And I'm usually pushing to get the project finished quickly. Who wants to stop everything just to fill a marker?

Tip-loading for Extra Moist Marker Nib

Tip loading is easy and quick. 

• Uncap both your marker and your Various Ink refill bottle.

• Insert the tip of the brush tip into the opening and gently press to form a seal.

• Move both the bottle and marker around until the bottle is above the marker.

• Letting gravity do the work for us, lift slightly on the bottle. Don't remove the tip completely from the opening, just lift a micro-amount to let the solution flow. You'll see it start to ooze out around and down the sides of the brush tip.

• Adjust the opening as necessary, you want just enough fluid to wet the tip BUT the tip should absorb everything you release. You DO NOT want ink dripping down the sides of the marker. Go slow at first until you're good at this.

• Repeat 2-3 times until the tip looks shiny and moist.

Wait about 30-60 seconds before touching the tip to paper, just enough time to let it sink in a little. You don't want to accidentally leave a big blob of blender on your paper. I usually dab it on the back of my hand or a bit of paper towel once to insure that I didn't overfill the tip.

You can do this with colored ink too, it's usually enough of a boost to get you though the section you were coloring. It's not enough to finish an entire image but it can keep you from interrupting the blending process for a full-blown refill.

Oh and one more thing... 

Use the small refill bottle.

Yes, I love the big 200cc bottle dearly but even I'm not brave enough to try tip loading directly from a big bottle.

Whoa. I see disaster looming there.

I use my big bottle to refill my smaller bottle.

I know, I know. It's a pain in the keister to buy both. And I know it feels like absolute idiocy to refill a refill bottle. But I guarantee, you will have a lot more control working with the  25cc bottle than the mongo bottle.

This stuff isn't cheap and there's no way to get it back into the bottle after it has dripped all over your hand, desktop, lap, and all over your little dog too.

Save the tight-rope walking, the base-jumping, and the 200cc tip loading to those who don't mind dying today.

I'll sit over here with the chickens, refiling from the dinky bottle.

Tip-Loading: My secret for perfect Colorless Blender dots 

It's also the closest I ever get to livin' la vida loca.