Spectrum Noir tutorial

Hi everyone!
Out of respect for all our foreign readers I´m gonna do this blog post all in English. But I guess that you Swedish readers won´t have any difficulty with reading this either! ;D

So today I´m gonna try to show you how I use the Spectrum Noir pens. Don´t hesitate to ask me anything if you wonder about something. Just use the comment field below. I hope that you get some ideas...

Let´s begin with a little presentation about the Spectrum Noir pens. It´s an alcohol based, acid free and fast-drying pen that comes in 168 colors.  You start with buying the pen sets that each has 6 colors in different shades. One of the sets are for skin color. There´s totally 12 of these sets and gets you 72 markers that gets you really far. None are duplicate in any of the sets so you don´t have to worry about getting the same color twice! Besides the small sets there are the 24 pen sets that comes in four different  color schemes. Here´s some photos so that you´ll understand it better:

All pens are refillable and you can change the nibs too!

So here´s my little humble guide to how I color with Spectrum Noir...

First of all I recommend you strongly to print out this little chart from Crafter´s Companion home page so that you can see what colors you have:

Yep, that´s my chart and I got all the 72 start colors! 

Next - let´s talk paper and ink....For best result you should use Neenah paper or Ultra smooth premium card stock from Crafter´s Companion. The best ink pads by far is Memento. So I stamped a couple of motifs from Reprint:

SKIN

For the skin I use the following colors - FS2, FS3, FS6 and TN2:

1. Start with coloring all the skin with the lightest color - FS2
2. Use the darkest for where you should expect shadows - TN2.
3. To blend the colors I use FS3 going over the edges between the darkest and the lightest moving the pen in circles.

Brown hair 

I use EB2, GB8 and GB10:

1. As with the face, start with coloring the hair with your lightest color - EB2. I forgot to take a photo of that-sorry.
2. Next step is using the darkest - GB10 - like around the face and picking strands of hair (this is photo no.1).
3. To even out the colors use GB8.

Coloring clothes.

What I try to show here is that I use several different shades of the same color to get the effect that I want. Whatever color you want - choose at least 3 different shades. I wanted her to have something with a summer feeling so I chose turquoise - BT1, BT2 and BT4.

1. The same procedure once again...First the lightest one - BT1.
2. Now the darkest for shadows - BT4. 
3. Use BT2 to even out the sharp edges.
4. On the edges of the apron, socks and lace I used EB1.

Here´s the result:

Blonde hair:

I use CT2, CT3, CT4 and GB8.

1. Start with CT2 - the lightest - all over.
2. Next is GB4 where  you want it to be darkest.
3. Now blend them together using CT3 and CT4.

I didn´t photographed coloring her clothes, but I used the same technique as for the other girl. Personally I never use the blender pen except when it comes to correcting colors that goes stray ie. outside the lines. I prefer using many different shades for this.

The last girl I used for a tag and I think it looks alright to me... ;D

Here´s a list over all the gorgeous stuff I used from Reprint:

• Spectrum Noir pens
• Stamps for coloring: The sitting girl on the tag is soon to be released,  EZR032 
• Stamps used on the tag: RSET012 RSET014
• Reprint´s patterned paper RP0044 Ballerina
• Tim Holtz die "Tag and bookplate"
• Flowers GAR001 Gardenia White  R3366 Blommor rosa R3367 Blommor Grön
• Ribbons and lace R3060 R2007
• Bling R0706 Champagne
• Memento stamp pad MD-900
• Stickles 

Thanks for reading my post and I hope you enjoyed it!