New Patterns Available

When Art Mimics Life

Blooming Beauties

Coral Reef

Chicken Little

PET-O'-WEEN

Spellbinder Witch

I have a number of new patterns available this week.  Phew, finally got them ready to go.  LOL.  All of these designs will be available at HOOT in the Ideal Wood Products Inc. booth, this company recently took over the Turns in Time company and will continue to produce top quality wood products which are all made in the USA.  Their products are fantastic and such a delight to paint on.  I look at so many of these and they just make me smile.  I think that these patterns are really cute and I had a blast painting them.  Take a look and let me know what you think.  All of these are available on my website www.chartmandesigns.com

Trifecta Brush Tutorial

Here are the instructions for the Shooting Star color worksheet that is in the following blog post.  This project uses the Deco Art So Soft Paints but your could easily substitute the corresponding Americana paint color. 




Shooting Star

Leather Coaster

Christy Hartman

C. Hartman Designs                                                                       

www.chartmandesigns.com

info@chartmandesigns.com

Palette:  Deco Art So Soft Paint      

Sweet Melon DSS71

Dark Burgundy DSS50

Fuchsia DSS52

Cadmium Yellow DSS3

Hauser Dark Green DSS46

Olive Green DSS98

Bright Avocado DSS99

Lamp Black DSS24

Brushes:  Dynasty Black Gold

Trifecta #4,6

Series 206 Script Liner: #0

 Lets Paint Wildflowers: 

 Load the #6 Trifecta brush with Fuchsia, dip the heel of the brush into Dark Burgundy and dip the tip of the brush into Sweet Melon.  Paint the two outer petals first to form a “butterfly.”  Paint the two center petals last.  Reload the brush with the same triple load and paint the buds.  Load the #0 SL with Cadmium Yellow and line the triangle point of the flower, using short strokes add the upper portion of the yellow tip.  Reload this brush with Lamp Black and gently tap in the area under the strokework on the upper portion and add black lines to the point of the triangle. 

Load the #4 Trifecta brush with Olive Green, dip the brush heel into Hauser Dark Green and the tip into Bright Avocado.  Paint the leaves around the buds, stems and leaves. 

© Christy Hartman

Trifecta Brush Tutorial Shooting Stars

Above you can see the Shooting Star Wildflower which was painted using the Trifecta Brushes found on my website www.chartmandesigns.com

Small Angle Butterfly Brush Tutorial

I did this tutuorial in Wichita in 2011 using the Dynasty Small Angle Butterfly Brush and thought that you might be interested in viewing it. 

Copic Demonstration

 Good Morning,

I seem to be on a Copic theme these days, don't worry I am still painting like crazy trying to get ready for my patterns to be at HOOT in August.  But what a fun way to spend my time when I'm not painting.  I'm going to share with you a few other stamped images that I have colored using my Copic Markers that were fun to color and used a technique that you can actually find on the Stampavie Blog that is excellent and I'm providing you the link.  http://www.stampavie.com/dt/2009/02/28/sarah-kay-coloring-tutorial-limited-copic-markers  I used this technique to color the hats and hair on this stamp.  The tutorial is excellent and shows step by step how to achieve the subtle shaded areas.  There are so many great tutorials out there on the web that you just need to do a Google search of Copic Tutorials and you will find a wealth of videos and blog posts about using these great markers.  Give it a try and get started using Copic Markers.  The markers are expensive but worth the extra cost in my opinion but you don't have to shell out a lot of money to learn the techniques as there is a wealth of educational material on the web and that is all free.  The stamps that I colored are Sarah Kay Designs stamp and is available at http://www.stampavie.com/. 

As you can see I've used a variety of marker colors and as I've stated in the past I do not always use the marker colors in the way that Copic has set up and I don't think that you have you.  Be as creative with these markers as you are with your other art media that you use.

Here is the same stamp only with a different color combination.

I love the color that I used on the boy's pants, I think that it isn't necessarily traditional but is certainly a color combination that I would have used if I had been painting.  Keep in mind that using Copic Markers is similiar to painting in that you can work light to dark and achieve great results very quickly. 

And the last color combination.  I'm not sure that I ever finished coloring the boy but you can see all of the combinations that I chose to experiment with. 

I'd love to hear about your Copic experiences or any other markers that you've tried and felt successful with. 

Copic Marker Tutorial

As many of you know I'm a huge fan of Copic Markers and have been using them for a few years now.  I've never taken a class instead have just taught myself how to use them by viewing online videos, a DVD that I purchased from Copic, magazine articles, and a variety of books but the other night I had a chance to take my first Copic class from Wendy Jordan and had a good time.  It was good to be able to know that I was on the right track and to share my love of Copic Markers with other enthusiasts.  I took the class through my favorite local scrapping/stamping store Memory Lane www.missoulamemorylane.com/.  I love this store as it isn't just for the scrapper but for stampers and paper enthusiasts of all kinds. They usually carry the newest and greatest products and the owners are two amazing woman who welcome everyone into their world.  They greet most customers at the door and even for those of us who only come in once in a while feel like we are old friends.  We colored a darling stamp that is called Tutu Cute from www.sarahkaystamps.com. 

On one of my online painting groups I was asked for more information about Copic Markers and thought that I would post a step by step using this stamp for any of you who are interested in learning more about these amazing markers.  I usually use them for coloring my own designs but like many of you, enjoy using darling stamps from other artists as well.  At a later date I will post additional photos of some of my designs that I've colored using my Copics and you can search through my older blog posts to see other posts about Copic Markers. 

For those of you who don't know a lot about Copic Markers they are an alcohol ink marker that is used by Anime Artists, graphic artists, used in illustration work, altered art designs, just to name a few.  I can see how they would be easy to use in Decorative Painting as these markers can be blended just like you would blend your paints.  In my opinion that is the beauty of Copic Markers as well as the fact that they are refillable, so once you purchase your markers in theory you will never need to purchase another and many of the retail stores that sell them also allow you to refill your markers for a cost as well as replacing the nibs when they wear out.  Copics are designed to make your coloring experience easy for anyone to use, the number on each pen represents the color family, the color tone, and the color value for example BG05 tells you that it is from the Blue Green color family, the 0 is the tonal color, and the 5 tells you that this is a midtone value.  This helps you choose your colors to use to get the fantastic blends that Copics are know for.  If you go to www.copic.com you can learn more about Copic Markers. 

I will be honest when I say that I do try to use the system that Copic has developed but frequently find myself using my own color combinations and because of Copic's amazing ability to blend colors find that my own color combinations are as easy to blend however when I took the class the other night Wendy used her markers as they are designed to be used and the colors were spectacular so I may need to rethink that.  LOL.  Probably not 100% of the time though.  I will admit that I have quite a few markers but do not have them all and because of that use different color combinations.  These markers are an investment and because of that have collected my set slowly but once you get the Copic fever you might find yourself collecting quite a few of these amazing markers and then as is the case for many of us then you need something to carry them in and purchase the bags and wallets as well as an interest in their other products.  LOL.