Vanilla Undercover: Underpainting with Copic Markers for Beautiful Realism - Leafy Green
Realistic Color
Traditional Copic Marker blending combinations can add a little bit of depth and dimension but they can not add realism.
It’s not a case of finding better marker recipes. You can not color with realism until you use the shadowy, grayed, and desaturated colors found in nature.
Always remember: real shade is not darker color, shade is desaturated color.
To create the desaturated colors that Copic does not make, Vanilla Arts Company teaches Online Workshops and Livestream Coloring challenges using the underpainting method. Students learn to layer colors realistically rather than blend.
Underpainting creates natural colors found in everyday life.
Copic - Leafy Green
Try layering B34 underneath YG17 with YG03 to lighten and brighten the end of the color run. You’ll love the slightly murky Sap Green color it creates. It’s perfect for the underside of raspberry leaves on a sunny summer day.
Elena’s Advice:
Make sure not to overstroke the B34 or it will disappear. And don’t go crazy; we’re adding gentle shadiness, not darkening the whole leaf.
Learn to use your B’s to underpaint:
Vanilla Arts Company - Sakura Blossoms Online Class
Vanilla Arts Company - Great Marker Challenge projects
Crafts for Paws - Copic Coloring Club with Elena Cazares
Further reading:
Why Artists Do Not Shade - Part 1
Why Artists Do Not Shade - Part 2
Looking for More Blending Combinations?
Elena Cazares is a Vanilla Arts student and a budding online instructor with beautiful sense of color and style. She is a hurricane of positive creative energy.
Elena runs CraftsForPaws.com, a 501(c)(3) non profit animal rescue. C4P’s donates 100% of their profits to rescue and care for worst-case stray dogs and cats in Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas.
Shop to benefit Crafts for Paws at their sister site - Violeta Ink. Join Elena’s Copic Coloring Club here for online class announcements and catch her YouTube cardmaking series here.