Vanilla Beans: Twister
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It’s Livestream weekend so if you’re a member of Color Wonk or Underpainters, I’ll be seeing you live.
Actually, I’m writing this on Tuesday and by the time this publishes, I’ll have already seen the Wonkers live yesterday.
So if you’re in Color Wonk and you missed the stream, head over to Teachable to watch the replay. I’m assuming we did a lot of great stuff and a fun time was had by all.
Then again it’s Tuesday right now, so what do I know?
Twister
It's an old Copic Marker myth:
Use a circular technique to fill areas with smooth color.
Have you tried it? Did it work for you?
Hmmm?
Okay, here's what's happening right now—
Half of you reading this are emphatically nodding your head. "YES! I use the circle technique all the time! It works great!"
The other half of you are rolling your eyes because circling makes a bunch of dark C shapes everywhere and if you try to smooth them out, you end up with oily spots. The circular technique never looks smooth! "Why would anyone ever color this way???"
Two totally different camps.
Guess what?
You’re both right.
Why does the circle method work for some and fail bigly for others?
Simple: we're coloring in two completely different worlds.
Some of you color small-- inchie sized stamped images for cards, bookmarks, or planners. Even when your stamp is large, the spaces are small.
The circular technique is easy and fun for tiny coloring.
But if the project is big?
Watch out, Toto.
Circling doesn't work for large areas.
For some reason, when the space is small, we make small, tidy circles. But when the space gets large, we get sloppy.
Very sloppy.
Your neat little circles turn into wild wonky ovals.
You make tornadoes.
And here’s the dangerous part— because tornadoes are loose and open, you may double-back over the area three, four, or five times to eliminate the white spaces.
Which means you’re tripling, quadrupling, or quintupling the layers of ink in some spots while barely single coating others.
It’s no wonder your circled areas look blotchy!
The size of your project really matters.
Frankly, if the image is small enough, you can color any ol' way you want— on your head, in your bed, in a box, with a fox.
Small makes it easy to keep everything wet.
And wet-into-wet coloring will always looks smoother than wet-into-tornado-alley.
Moooooooooooo.
C’mon, you were thinking it, right?
There's another reason why circling works for some but not for others.
Remember when I said it was an old myth?
That’s a clue.
The circle method started back when all Copics were Classics.
You know, the square barrel kind.
Yes child, once there was a time when dinosaurs roamed the earth and every marker had sucky nibs.
In the caveman days, we all used chisels and bullet nibs. Brush nibs hadn’t been invented yet. Chisels and bullets are kinda dry and stingy with the ink flow. They’re better suited for drawing and lettering than coloring.
In order to blend with a bullet, you have to circle and circle and circle the area a bunch of times, building up enough ink to kinda-maybe-sorta blend.
Circles are the easiest way to make bullets and chisels do what they don’t want to do.
And even then, they still protest.
Brush nibs on the other hand, work like a wet paintbrush.
La, la, la! I’m laying down a ton of ink with every stroke of my paintbrush marker.
Now here’s the thing about paintbrushes— you don’t paint with little circles, do you?
Nope.
It ruins the bristles, right?
So here’s the rule: You’d never scrub around in circles with a fine sable watercolor brush, so don't do it with a fine Japanese brush nib marker either.
Pssttt… if you do scrub circles with a Kolinsky, please don't tell me. My left eye is twitching just thinking about it... ugh!
To circle or not to circle? Here’s the test: Look down.
If you've got a bullet nib marker in your hand, circle all you want!
If not, then don’t.
Different nibs require different application methods and circles are for firm, precision nibs.
But if you’re holding a brush nib, please treat it like a brush.
Swish and flick like a civilized person.
BTW: the circle method totally works with fake Copics. Many of them have undersized brush nibs or the brushes are weirdly dry.
In that case, circle away!
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