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Stamping and water coloring techniques using Marvy Markers
Supplies:

#4 white Taklon brush
Old CD’s you no longer require to use as a palette
A collection of Marvy Markers

The markers come in Sets 1, 2 and 3 designed to be used in conjunction with the appropriate Watercolor Books published by Art Impression. Each set is designed to be used with the specific Watercolor Book 1, 2 or 3 to enable you to re-produce their designs. However, after purchasing one collection of markers, you will find colors repeated in the other sets so you will only want to add open stock colors as you need them.

Memories Dye Ink pads - black and chestnut. Or an appropriate quick-dry ink pad of your choice

Marvy Marker technique:

To stamp with Marvy markers, apply the ink from the side of the brush marker, not the tip, and color in the appropriate areas with each color required, when finished, “huff” or breath closely on the rubber stamp, your breath will serve to moisten the ink to facilitate a better stamped image. The markers do dry quite quickly, hence the need to huff on the surface to re-activate the ink
You can take your wet brush and draw out some of the color from the stamped image to shade. This is an essential detail to give dimension to your project. For example, for round items like the large planter pot, the lighthouse, the watering can, will benefit by drawing the color in from each side leaving it untouched in the middle, this will have the effect of “rounding” the image. In the case of the walkway stones, rocks, bricks, etc. which may be essentially flat, draw in the color from one side only, the same side of each one though
If your markers are drying out and do not permit you to draw color from the image with your wet brush, take the marker and apply it to your CD, then take your wet brush and lift it off the CD and shade in the same manner. FIRST be sure to check the density of color on scrap paper, hopefully a scrap of the cardstock you are working on for an accurate test. If your marker is at the end of its life, mist the tip preferably or just dip it in a little water. It will work for water coloring but only a light mist if you want to color a stamp with it or you will water it down to much
For a multi-colored stamp, like the flower stalk, color the stem in green and color the flower stalk with dabs of two different colors, like sapphire and magenta. The large foliage stamp is incredible. You can ink it all over with one green, use two different greens for shaded effect, use just a small corner branch of it and dab with two colors for a mass of small flowers. Markers make it possible to color your stamp with exactly the arrangement of colors you wish for in one process
Greenery tips: When you stamp your foliage, ink and stamp the focal area, then continue to stamp two or three times more which will give you lighter and lighter images for background. Try to use 2 shades of green
Grass tips: Purchase the long grass stamp. It is so versatile and amazing, that’s right - amazing, that little stamp! I usually start by inking across the tips for short grass and start at the front of my grass area with it. Stamp and re-stamp for light and dark. For the back grass, you have the entire length. For thin grass reeds instead of a clump of grass, just ink two or three blades to the one side. Great filler. To create a flower bouquet, ink 2 or 3 stems and stamp them. Select a suitable stamp for the bouquet. This could be one of the end branches of the large foliage stamp, a short part of the floral stem near the top, ink with at least two colors, like sapphire blue and magenta, then stamp to create the flower bouquet at the end of the stems. Take a pen, draw a wrap around the stem, a bow, and a trailing wiggle. A nice accent for the corner of a gift tag or inside of a card
Yellow THE highlight. Always works. Add a soft shaft of sunlight to the sky, a light sweep of watercolor. Flowers, a few yellow dots, even off the tip of your marker, will highlight the finished picture
Skies: Add magenta softly to a blue sky to create a warm and pretty sky
PLEASE REMEMBER you cannot take the color back, so tread lightly, a watercolor is a soft enhancement, not meant to be exact, not meant to be in your face. Always test before you work

Other Coloring Tools
Memories Dye Ink Pads: Reliable, quick drying. (You may have another ink pad line that will work appropriately for you but these are our choice. Versafine we love, but have been caught when it did not dry quite quickly enough)

Use the dye ink pad to ink an image that is usually the focal point and you do not want it to "run" and mix if it gets wet when water coloring around it. We often ink the stamp and stamp it off on scrap paper so we have a gentle image instead of the usual bold result. The wrought iron chair and gate would be the exception. We found there was no grey marker in Set #3 so we used our Memories black ink pad instead. When stamped off once or twice, it will be grey
SHADE with your dye ink pad. That’s right, shade with it, watercolor with it. Take the ink pad and apply some ink directly onto the CD. Using your wet brush, draw out some color, test it on scrap until you have the right tone, and go ahead and shade with it. The bonus is, when the dye ink has been used for shading and dries, it stays dry and water coloring around it will not draw the color out
If you do not have the appropriate marker color, you can actually use any ink pad directly on your CD to watercolor in the same manner as using a marker

There are always options - it is just all about learning them and that is what we are all about, and passing it on to you. We don’t just sell products, we know them.

Stamp Positioner (A-ligna)
Amazing how many stampers do not own a Stamp Positioner, or worse, have never used one they do own. Some own a Stamp Positioner without the flat acrylic square needed to stamp on, interesting but there are quite a few out there like that. We do have available the acrylic sheets if you need one. Let’s explain them to you:

You will have a T or a corner square and a flat acrylic sheet
The flat acrylic sheet is to stamp the image on
The T or corner is to fit the acrylic sheet snuggly into so the image can be stamped and then the stamp positioned perfectly
It is important the T or corner has sufficient depth that, when the acrylic sheet is laid up into the corner, there is enough depth of the T or corner to guide the stamp along and down into the corner. If you are having trouble placing your stamp squarely, it may be your stamp position is not deep enough to allow you to work easily

To Work: Use a Marvy Marker, a slow drying pigment ink, a product that will not be permanent on the acrylic surface. You must be able to remove the image. If you do have an accident and use a quick dry dye ink, or StazeOn, etc. try lighter fluid, it will usually remove any remaining image for you.

Ink your stamp with a non-permanent ink, and with the acrylic sheet snuggly fitting into the corner of your stamp Positioner, stamp firmly and accurately down into the corner tight up against the stamp Positioner. (I always use one of my darker colored Marvy Markers because I know I will not have a problem removing it)
Clean off the stamp. Ink as desired for your image. We mention this step because you may want to stamp with a permanent dye ink, just don’t do it on your acrylic sheet
Take the acrylic sheet and lay it in position where you want the image to go, you can see this precisely because the image is visible on the acrylic sheet and you can see through it
Place the Stamp Positioner tight up against the corner of the acrylic sheet
Remove the acrylic sheet, keep the Positioner firmly in place and place the stamp back into the corner of the Positioner and stamp

Simple when you know how.

Got any stamps that the rubbers are not on straight and it makes you crazy or you don’t use them? The Stamp Positioner will fix that.

We recommend the Stamp Positioner from Art Impressions because it has a deep "T" Positioner making it easier to align our stamps in the corner and the acrylic sheet is large so we can stamp and turn using all corners before we have to clean it off.