Saturday, May 26, 2012



Hello Everyone,

I am here today with some fun and exciting ways to use your Spectrum Noir Blender Pen.  I think it is a funny name for such an amazing tool.. I call it my Magic pen.  In my world, anything that can correct my mistakes and add a bit of texture is nothing less than magic!
I colored this image for someone dear to me who has not been feeling well.  I wanted to make him "looking a bit spotty" for more of a get well type image... That's easy to do with one of the techniques I describe below.  First let's take a peek at learning how to correct a mistake (accidentally going outside of your image line).

CORRECTING A MISTAKE:
  1. First add a clean paper towel or absorbent paper under your image.  (This will help wick some the excess color or fluid through the paper rather than sideways.)
  2. Using the nice bullet tip of your Spectrum Noir Blender Pen - GENTLY push the mistake back into your image, stopping before you get to the line of your image.  Do not over soak. Adding too much fluid will cause excess bleeding into the image (see picture)
  3. Let blender fluid completely dry, then repeat this process.  It is best to take several baby steps rather than trying to complete the correcting in one "too wet" step.
  4. Note the position of my pen at the bottom of the picture is aimed towards the image, and stops just before touching the image line.
  5. Light colors are pretty easy to clean up with just one or two tries.  However, dark inks are a bit more trying and may require repeating the process several times as the dark inks stain the paper more than the light colors and have more ink to dilute.  Take it slow with those dark mistakes.
  6. If all else fails, remember that you can cut out your image and adhere him onto your project (adds a fun 3-d effect and everyone will think that was your original intent!)

ADDING TEXTURE
  1. Color your image and blend colors as normal.
  2. Using the nice bullet nib aimed straight down, gently dot the image where you want to add dots/texture. Do not add too much fluid at one time or your intended tiny spot will become a large spot.
  3. Repeat for the entire area that you wish to have textured.
  4. After blender fluid has completely dried, you can add another layer right on top of your original dots to "bleach" the color even more.  Each time you repeat this process your dot will be come lighter and lighter.  It's fun to sometimes mix and match some light and dark spots.

This picture shows one dot on the mussel of the dragon's face where I repeated the above process for a lighter dot.  The center of his mussel is where the ink was already lighter before I started adding texture.  I like the end result, as the lighter center of his mussel adds a round shape to the face.  The possibilities with this technique are endless!  Think about adding pebbles to sand, scales to a fish or mermaid image, polka dots on a little girls dress, soooooo many possibilities -

Colors used for rest of image are as follows: Greens: CG2, CG4 and a bit of CT2 Purples: PL1, PL2, PL5 Orange: OR1, OR3 and a bit of CT2 Sky: BT2 Flower pot and seed pack: BT2, BT4 Ground: TN1 & TN2
I really hope you enjoyed my tips today... see you again soon.

PLEASE ADD YOUR TEXTURE IDEAS OR FAVORITE WAY OF USING THE BLENDER PEN HERE UNDER COMMENTS..
Jennie Black

2 comments:

  1. Love the blog - new to the spectrum world. Appreciate all the tips and tutorials.

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  2. Fantastic! Beautiful card, love what you've done with the blender. Donna x

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