Copics!

I can't remember how I found about Copics. They are excellent markers for coloring. Copics are alcohol-based which means you can blend them - no streaks!

Last Friday, I attended a papercrafting workshop at Long Beach that started at 8 a.m. (thus the absence of a blog post that day!). Initially I thought maybe I shouldn't have registered because there are tons of Youtube videos and tutorials on the Web for free. However, I found something valuable in working in a group setting (I was in a table with 4 other women - surprisingly, no men!). I got to see other people's work (each attendee had a different take on coloring even when following directions projected on a screen). I also realized that there is no right or wrong way to do art.

Here is what I did in my first try.

And then I got a bit better with shading:

I learned two things that day: shadows are very important (it gives life to the image from being flat to dimensional) and colors play a big part in blending. Here is a color chart from Copic:

By the second day (I took all the classes back-to-back), here was my last work:

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I was really proud of it because I was satisfied how my shadows and colors played out. Have you taken classes in person vs online, which one was more satisfying? Share your comments below.
I can tell that I really enjoyed the classes because I'm already looking for more classes to take in person! Here are some classes from the Copic website.