Hello Copic readers! In our previous blog, we practiced writing pangrams with both manuscript and cursive letters using a pencil, eraser and acrea 6pc sets. Today, we’re going to apply our handwriting skills to create common card designs using the acrea 6pc Essentials and 6 pc Vivid sets. And with that, let’s get started by taking a look at the two designs below! 

In an increasingly digital world, receiving a physical card in the mail (or in-person) has become a very special treat! Small letters, notes, and other tokens of appreciation can go a long way in telling someone that you care about them. In today’s lesson, we’ll be showing you how you can use acrea on two common card exclamations. We’ll begin by swatching our colors below.

Seeing your marker colors swatched before coloring on the actual design should help in the decision-making process. With that being said, the artist in this blog chose to use the metallic Gold and Silver of the Essentials set for the “Thank you!” design, while using all six colors of the Vivid set for “Congratulations!” 

Metallics give off a mature, sophisticated vibe, matching the elegance of the loose curly cursive. On the other hand, the tall manuscript handwriting used to write “Congratulations” gives off a more youthful, playful vibe, pairing well with the fun bright colors of the Vivid set. Choosing these colors is, of course, a personal preference, but it’s worth noting the thought-process behind why the artist chose the colors that they did! 

Now that we’ve swatched our colors, let’s get started by adding Gold and Silver to the “Thank you!” card! As you can see in the timelapse above, the artist chose to keep the black linework of the phrase exposed, and instead, chose to create a drop-shadow out of the metallics. This is a fun way to use metallics without having them dominate the composition - especially since a different metallic is used for the second word, “you.”

Once each drop-shadow has been made, the artist went back over some of the areas of the black cursive that were accidentally smudged or covered with the metallic ink. This is a great way to clean up your line work to create a crisp final result!

Colors used: Gold, Silver and Rich Black from the 6pc Essentials set. 

The next card to be colored, “Congratulations!” follows a different coloring approach. For this design, the artist decided to cover the black lettering, as well as all of the celebratory decorations in the background of the design. With Copic acrea, covering existing letters and shapes is possible since the ink is paint-based and opaque. Additionally, once an acrea color has dried, you can draw on top of it with another acrea color, making this a very layer-friendly marker! 

Colors used: Tomato Red, Flamingo Pink, Mandarin Orange, Lemon Yellow, Leaf Green and Sky Blue from the 6pc Vivid set

In general, the number of times you can layer with acrea is much higher than with the number of times you can layer with Sketch, Ciao or Classic (an alcohol-based marker). With alcohol-based markers, you can only apply 4 or 5 layers of color before the paper becomes overwhelmed with ink and can no longer absorb any more (the number of layers also depends on the thickness/sizing of the paper). Both marker types create amazing results, it just depends on what look and type of layering you’re going for!

And with that, we wrap up today’s blog! To give this lesson a try yourself, download the above  template here from our line art gallery and print it on a thick sheet of cardstock suitable for paint markers. We recommend either Neenah Bright White Premium Cardstock 65 lb. paper (which was used in this blog) or Neenah Exact Premium Cardstock 110 lb. paper. Then, after you’ve printed the template, grab your Copic acrea marker set(s), swatch your colors, color your design and cut it out, ready to be colored and sent to a friend! 

Until next time, don’t forget to follow us across our social media channels @copic_official_us, and sign up for exclusive discounts and prizes by joining the Copic Club! One last thing - use #copicwithus or tag us @copic_official_us for a chance to have your drawings or workspace featured on our Copic US social media channels.

Thank you so much for reading and enjoying Copic markers as much as we do! 😀