If you are a beginner with alcohol markers, or if you are thinking of trying them out, this is a video that focuses on the most basic blending techniques! Alcohol markers have been my favourite medium for the past few years, but mastering them took time and effort. That's not supposed to put you off! It means that there's tips and tricks that make this medium versatile and fun to work with, offering a potential that may not be so obvious in the beginning.
Whether you want to do the plainest one-colour gradient or elaborate combinations of blending and texturing for a realistic artwork, markers offer you the ability to pick and choose your techniques and even combine them with other mediums like gouache (another one of my personal favourites) or acrylics, or even water-based markers!
So watch the video and try everything out yourself! My advice is, to start by playing around doodling. Don't put the pressure of an artwork on yourself, just try out combinations and blending techniques in straight lines, or spheres to get the hang of it and then move on to an artwork. And you know what? If it doesn't come out great at once, don't stress, just try it out, look at it, and then do it again.
Enjoy!
Tools you will need:
A few alcohol markers obviously! If you don't have any, I suggest you get a few shades of the same colour like 4-5 markers from dark green to light green (just like in the video). I've written a whole article on just that, so if you need some guidance before choosing the right markers for you, click here.
A clear "blender" marker. This is an alcohol marker without any colour, just the alcohol, and what it does is, it fades the markers on the paper. In future videos I'll show some extra techniques with that marker, than just fading the edges to bend with the next colour, so stay tuned.
Paper suitable for alcohol markers. Nope, not any kind of paper will do, so read here all you need know before buying the right one for you.
Some patience. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's not. It may not be you, maybe it's just the paper, or even the markers. And what if you try something out and it's not really good? So what? Move on, next try! You will notice little things, like certain shades, that just won't blend well no matter what, or shades that made the paper more damp than others. After a few hours over the medium you will know your tools, and then trust me, it's pure fun!
So this is it for now! As mentioned above, learn a bit about your tools while you try out the techniques in the video. It's going to make everything so much easier.
I really hope this video was helpful and I'm looking forward to making more videos with every technique or trick I know of.
Have fun!
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