Intense reds

One word sums up today's gorgeous color swatch:

SPICY!

Just like concocting a fragrant batch of your favorite chili recipe for a cook off, realistic Copic Marker coloring contains a few secret ingredients. No, the shade color choice here is not obvious to most crafters. The pixel picker helps to set aside our assumptions about dark reds and get an accurate reading of the true shade hue.

Dark red is definitely NOT a pinkish burgundy.

The secret ingredient to this “Copic-con-carne” is BG02!

Don’t worry if you would never have considered using a blue-green marker for underpainting your red peppers. That’s what we’re here for! At Vanilla Arts Co., we are brimming with all kinds of tips and tricks, like this, teaching students how to color beautifully, yet realistically.

Best of all, you will learn how to think like a genuine, bonafide artist!

Remember: Real shade is not merely darker color, real 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 - Slow burn

Layering BG02 beneath R17 will make your red pepper digital stamps simmer with flavor! There is nothing boring or predictable about this Copic recipe!

Elena’s Advice:

Be brave enough to think outside the box! You can create sumptuous shade colors with a little experimentation. Not only does BG02 work wonders with this R17, R14 and R12 run, it also looks fabulous under a blend of YG17 - YG03.

Learn to use your BG’s to underpaint:

Vanilla Arts Company - Gray Matter (challenge yourself and substitute the suggested grays for BG’s!)

Vanilla Arts Company - Tulips & Ribbons (challenge yourself and change up the palette with BG red tulips & a complimentary background & ribbon).

Vanilla Stamp Shop - Hollyhock bring some spice to your life with some BG Red Hollyhocks. Check out a beautiful Henry the VIII Red Hollyhock for inspiration.

Crafts for Paws - Copic Coloring with Elena Casarez

Further Reading:

Depth & Dimension: Why Pretty Copic Markers make your Coloring look Flat

Copic Coloring: 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.