30th August, Week 10 - Graph'It marker challenge Reds and greens

Friday challenge time! 

So let's get to the challenge! Last week we challenged you to colour Red Hair - but this week we want you to show us your....

Reds and Greens for Christmas Colours

You can use ANY brand of alcohol marker to enter our challenges!

Before we get to this week's inspiration and prizes, it's time to announce the winner of last week's challenge which was to show us how you like to colour WHITES. We're so pleased to announce that our Top 2 entries are:

1.  Coops

2. Jane

We loved all your work and congratulations to Coops who won our fabulous prize of a 12 pack of Graph'It Wood markers worth £30! Well done! Please email Nikky here to claim your prize and please grab your winners blinkies from the sidebar.

The winner of this week's challenge will win a fantastic prize of 6 Graph'It markers and a Mix'It Blending palette and Mix'It Fluid! 

Let's get to the great team inspiration this week...Remember to join our Facebook group too, Graph'It Markers UK, where we have daily inspiration and share some of our favourite makes & hints and tips every day, it's a great place to be and we have some exciting news to share very soon!

Simonne ... I used the beautiful tree stamp from the *new* Winter Spruce clear stamp set and digi papers from the gorgeous Polkadoodles Angelberry Christmas CD for my red & green Christmas card:

Graph'it Markers used:

Tree: 8270 8260 8240 8110 .... Berries: 5245 ....Trunk: 3290 3255 3245 .... Sky: 7105 0000

Debs
For my card I used the gorgeous new Polka Doodles Angelberry Gift clear stamp set and teamed her up with papers from the Polka Doodles Angelberry Christmas CD

Graph'It Markers used:
Skin - 4180, 4170, 4155, 4110, 5110
Hair - 4150, 3245, 3280
Hat & Coat - 3190, 5250, 5245, 5240
Gloves & Boots - 8160, 8150, 8240
Fur - 3110, 1210, 4110 and blender

Cara
I  used the new Poinsettia  and Winter Spruce stamps from Polkadoodles, the lovely papers are from the new Angelberry Christmas CDrom.

Graph'it Markers used:
Poinsettias: 5245, 5240, 5220
Leaves: 8180, 8270, 8160
9507 for shading on all.

Kevin
I have used the beautiful poinsettia stamp set  from Premium Art Brands which is available from Polkadoodles here.

Graph'It markers used....
poinsettia 5245..5270..9304
leaves 8130..8240..8280..9201

Nikky
I used the lovely stamps from Premium Art Brands on this card - there is a fantastic Poinsettia, Spruce Tree and the Angelberry character which are all great and designed to colour in here...

Graph'It markers used:

Reds...5220, 5240, 5245 to shade: 3290

Greens...8220, 8260 and 8280

Skintones....4125, 4155, 4170, 4135, 4175

So there is our inspiration from the fabulously talented Graph'It team this week!...

You have until  Sunday 8 Sept at noon GMT to enter below by adding your creation to Mr Linky below - don't forget you have the chance to win a fabulous prize! The winner of this challenge will be announced on Friday 14th September here on this blog. 

Please check our rules for all entries: 

1. All entries MUST follow the challenge theme. 2. Please link your blog post and not your blog address with the linky tool - this saves us from searching your blog for your entry.  3. No back-linking to previous posts - these will be disregarded from our voting.

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August 23rd Week 9 - Red Hair

Happy Friday everyone and it's Graph'It challenge day!

Last week we challenged you to show us your Whites - but this week we challenge you to show us what you can do with...

Red Hair

So get those super duper colours out and show us what you can do - we want to see all your best techniques! 

Don't forget - you can use ANY brand of alcohol marker to enter our challenges!

Before we get to this week's inspiration and prizes, it's time to announce the winner of our Week 7 challenge which was Yellows and Orange. We're so pleased to announce that our Top 2 entries are:

1. Bunny

2. Cris     

We loved all your work and congratulations to Bunny who won our fabulous prize of a 12 pack of Skintone Graph'Its!! Well done! Please email Nikky here to claim your prize and please grab your winners blinkies from the sidebar. Don't forget to follow the blog and add us to your subscribe lists - as you can see below this post we are adding new tutorials and information regularly so don't miss out!

The winner of today's Red hair challenge will win the fantastic prize of 6 Graph'It Skintone colours, a Mix'It Palette and Mix'It Fluid, and the 2nd prize will be a 3 pack of Graph'It Romance colours, so there are 2 chances to win this week!

....Let's get to the great team inspiration this week...we decided to challenge Red Hair because it can be so striking to colour a character in different colour schemes to the normal hair colours we all generally choose. Graph'It have many colours in their range which are not available in other marker ranges and their selection of Reds are amazing! Of course we are right in Christmas Season now for us crafters so make sure you check out the reds and greens which are all lush... you can mix Graph'It with other alcohol markers too so it's a good opportunity to try them in some specific colourways and see how you get on if you are wary of buying into a new brand. You can purchase through Premium Art Brands at the top of the page or one of the selected stockists from the tab at the top.

Before we get to the team inspiration, remember to join our Facebook group too, Graph'It Markers UK, where we have daily inspiration and share some of our favourite makes & hints and tips every day, it's a great place to be!

Suzi

I decided to go wild and try a really bright red hair combination on the beautiful Sweater Socks Fairy from Saturated Canary.

I used the following Graph'It Markers to colour my image;

Skin - 4110, 4125, 4145, 4155, 4170, 5110

Hair - 5210, 5240, 5245, 5270

Outfit and Eyes - 7240, 7250, 7260

Wings - 1170, 2105, 2110, 5210, 5240, 7240, 0000

Claire C

I've used one of the beautiful images from the Polkadoodles 'Fredericka' cd and gone for a traditional auburn hair, I don't often colour auburn hair so it was a bit of a challenge for me.

Colours used: Hair: 3160, 3140,3130, 2130,2105

Skin: 4180, 4155,4115,4110, 5125 and 5110

Red: 5145

Jeans: 7180, 7150,7130,7105

Karen

Oh I used to have a lovely natural red tinge to my hair but now I can only get it from a bottle!  I have used Sprout from Little Miss Muffet and love the rich vibrant tones you can achieve with Graph'It's.

Hair 2105 2120 2130

Skin 4120 4155 4175 5110 5115

 Pink 5110 5115

Green 7220 7250 7270

Jeans 9100 9103 9104

Faye

I have used one of the new images released on last week's Graph'It Show on Create and Craft, have you got yours yet? I wanted to colour her in non traditional Christmas colours, something I find hard to do. I went for a reddy brown colour...

Hair; 3130, 3170, 3180

Skin; 4120, 4155, 4170, 4180, 4135, 4145

Lilac; 6120, 6140

Green; 8270, 8280, 7290

Beige; 4110, 3210

White; 9500, 0000

Red; 5240

So there is our inspiration from the fabulously talented Graph'It team this week!...

You have until  Sunday 31st August at noon GMT to enter below by adding your creation to Mr Linky below - don't forget you have the chance to win a fabulous prize! 
The winner of this challenge will be announced on Friday 5th September here on this blog. 

Please check our rules for all entries: 

1. All entries MUST follow the challenge theme. 

2. Please link your blog post and not your blog address with the linky tool - this saves us from searching your blog for your entry.  

3. No back-linking to previous posts - these will be disregarded from our voting.

4. Please ensure you follow the challenge theme!

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Tutorial: Colouring Red Hair

Hi everyone! Simonne here with a little tutorial to share how I colour red hair with Graph'it Markers.  I have used a Saturated Canary digital stamp called "Fancy" for my sample image today.  I was lucky enough to grab her when Krista was giving her away for free last summer, but you can buy her here from the Saturated Canary digi store.

I always like to colour the skin first when colouring characters.  I always use (from dark to light) 4180 4155 4115 4125 4120 for the skin, then 4135 blended out with 4145 for the blush. On this image, I also added a bit of 4145 to her eyelids and to some of the darkest shadows to warm them up a bit:

These are the Graph'it Markers I am using for my red hair combination today - 3190 3180 3170 3130 4180 4155 4115:

When colouring hair, I always use my lightest colour first. I use quick, light strokes, working in the direction of the hair, and lift my pen off the paper at the end of the stroke. For this image, start your strokes of 4115 at the hairline (which will eventually be the darkest area) and work up towards where you want your highlights to be (the middle). Do the same from the top, working down towards the highlight area. At this point, leave the part you want to be highlighted uncoloured:

Next, add 4180 over the first layer of 4115, working in exactly the same way, but making the strokes a little shorter:

Now start to work on the darker areas. Working in the same way you did for the first 2 layers, add 3170 where you want your shadows to be:

Now add 3130. Again, start your strokes at the hairline, but this time make them a little longer than your previous strokes of 3170. You are trying to blend out the 3170:

Now add 4180 over the top of 3130, again making your strokes a little longer than before. Ensure you still leave your highlights uncoloured. Then use 4115 over your highlighted section and blend into the other areas:

I think this is actually quite a nice red hair color combination as it is!  You could choose to finish at this point (perhaps just tidying up a few areas), but if you’re like me and prefer to add really dark shadows to your colouring, read on......

We are now going to deepen the shadows.  Working from the hairline towards the highlight (and using quick, light strokes), add 3180 where you want your shadows to be:

Now add 3190 to small sections (as shown) where you want your very darkest parts to be:

Blend out 3190 with 3180 and then 3170. Make each colour's strokes a little longer than the previous ones:

Blend out further towards the highlighted area with 3130 then 4180.

Finally use 4115 to blend the highlighted area into 4180. (I found that the contrast between 4180 and 4115 was too harsh for my liking, so I added 4155 to blend 4180 into 4115). Now all you have to do is repeat the whole process on the other areas of her hair!

I hope you've found my tutorial helpful. (This is the very first time I've done one, hehe!)  So now you've seen me colour red hair, why not have a go yourself and join our Red Hair Challenge - you have a whole week to enter to win some fabulous GI goodies!

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Hugs,

16th August Week 8 - Colouring White

Friday challenge time! 

Before we get to business today we have to remind you that you can catch another great dedicated 

LIVE Graph'It show on Create and Craft TV

 this Sunday 18th August at 2pm GMT (Sky 671). Nikky will be on air live showing lots of techniques and sharing information for you so please make sure you tune in to see the latest goodies - there are some great products coming up and lots of new items and some gorgeous new stamps too! You can also email into the studio with any of your questions and she will try and answer them live on air if they're read out (email: studio@createandcraft.tv)

So let's get to the challenge! Last week we challenged you to colour Yellows and Oranges - but this week we want you to show us your....

Whites! Yes, we said white!

White can be such a difficult thing to portray and many people struggle with it but there are some cool tricks to getting it right, which we'll show you today...

You can use ANY brand of alcohol marker to enter our challenges!

Before we get to this week's inspiration and prizes, it's time to announce the winner of last week's challenge. We're so pleased to announce that our Top 2 entries are:

1.  Jaybe

2. Scatty Jan

We loved all your work and congratulations to Jaybe who won our fabulous prize of over £30 of Graph'It goodies!! Well done! Please email Nikky here to claim your prize and please grab your winners blinkies from the sidebar.

The winner of this week's challenge will win a fantastic prize worth £30 which will include the Graph'It marker 'Wood' set of 12 brown markers which is fabulous! 

Let's get to the great team inspiration this week...Remember to join our Facebook group too, Graph'It Markers UK, where we have daily inspiration and share some of our favourite makes & hints and tips every day, it's a great place to be!

Cara....I have to admit this is the first time I've ever coloured so much white on one image, because the papers I used were mainly blues. I used the cool grey's which have a blue-ish tint to them.  If the main colours on my image were... say purple .. i would use the lightest shade of lilac and a blender to colour in the white ... I use this rule whenever i'm colouring white and it seems to work for me!

Colours used:

Wings and clothes: 9102, 9101, 9100, blender

Skin: 4170, 4150, 4135, 4125

Hair: 3270, 3250, 3220, 3210

Holly and ribbon: 5245 & 8160

Simonne ... I decided to create a scene using digi images and the fab cloud paper from the Polkadoodles Bonbon Belles double CD for my card. I find colouring white really hard. I usually leave the highlighted part uncoloured and then colour where I think the shade would be.  For this card I used the Neutral Greys (9500s) to shade the white parts of the parasol and the deckchair.  If I was colouring snow, I would probably use the Cool Greys (9100s) as they have a lovely blueish tone to them, and if I wanted to colour something like a wedding dress, I would use light creams and beiges for a warm ivory effect.

Graph'it Markers used:

Parasol & deckchair: Red 3180 3170 5250 5220 5210, White 9503 9501 9500 0000

Wood: 3210 3245

Huts: 5220 (red) 7175 (navy) 7130 (light blue) 9500 (shading)

Debs

I use a few different techniques when colouring white areas depending on what it is ..for snow I tend to use a blue grey then use the blender to soften the edges as I have with the snowman..but for the fur hat I felt it needed a warmer more creamy white so used 3310, then 4170 and 4155 then using the blender in a dotting motion lifted areas of colour to add texture and finished with a few flicks of white gel pen ...the image is from the gorgeous Polkadoodles "Here Comes Christmas" CD and the papers are from the yummy "Angelberry Christmas"...

Graph'It Markers used

Skin - 4180, 4170, 4155

Browns - 3190, 3150, 3125, 3280, 3245

Reds, 5245, 5240 (deepen with brown 3190)

Greens - 8160, 8150, 8240

Blues - 7180,9140,9103

Fur - 3110, 1210, 4110 and blender

Snow - 7105 and blender 

Kevin

I have used this gorgeous Angel image from the beautiful Angelberry cd rom from Polkadoodles, for my white I have used cool grays and the blender.

Graph'It markers used

Skin 4135. 4145.4155.4170. 5120

Hair & clothing 7125. 7105.9101.9201

1130. 1250 & blender 

So there is our inspiration from the fabulously talented Graph'It team this week!...

You have until  Sunday 26th August at noon GMT to enter below by adding your creation to Mr Linky below - don't forget you have the chance to win a fabulous prize! The winner of this challenge will be announced on Friday 31st August here on this blog. 

Please check our rules for all entries: 

1. All entries MUST follow the challenge theme. 2. Please link your blog post and not your blog address with the linky tool - this saves us from searching your blog for your entry.  3. No back-linking to previous posts - these will be disregarded from our voting.

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9th August Week 7 - Summer Sunshine

Welcome to the Graph'It challenge! 

If you have just come across our blog and are a new reader let me explain what this is all about! Graph'It are the new kids on the block in terms of alcohol markers, being launched in 2012 in France - but they are making an absolute storm in the colouring world where the quality, features and fantastic pricing of these markers is kicking up a real fuss amongst professional graphic artists, art students and industry professionals, but also amongst we crafters who are addicted to colouring in our digi images and stamps along our crafty journey! Graph'It are fast becoming THE marker to use amongst crafters! You can often see team Leader Nikky Hall on the UK's crafting TV channel Create and Craft demonstrating techniques and showing us what these pens can do, but we also have lots of information here for you which is updated all the time too. So make sure you join us weekly for our colouring challenge here!

Next Create and Craft TV show

Sunday 18th August at 2pm - join Nikky live with some great hints and tips on 

Sky 671 and Freeview 36

Last week we challenged you to colour Denim and Jeans - but this week we challenge you to show us what you can do with...

Yellow and Orange

You can use ANY brand of alcohol marker to enter our challenges!

Before we get to this week's inspiration and prizes, it's time to announce the winner of our Week 4 challenge which was Black Hair. We're so pleased to announce that our Top 2 entries are:

1. Merkkari

2. Michelle Shirley

We loved all your work and congratulations to Merkkari who won our fabulous prize of £30 of Graph'It goodies!! Well done! Please email Nikky here to claim your prize and please grab your winners blinkies from the sidebar. Don't forget to follow the blog and add us to your subscribe lists - as you can see below this post we are adding new tutorials and information regularly so don't miss out! 

The winner of today's yellows challenge will win the fantastic prize of 12 Graph'It skintones from Premium Art Brands, worth £30! 

....Let's get to the great team inspiration this week...we decided to challenge Yellow and Orange because sometimes they can be the colours we tend to ignore. Graph'It have many colours in their range which are not available in other marker ranges and their selection of yellow and oranges are sublime! Perfect for blondes of course but they work with the browns and earthy colours so well too... go check out the colour palette above. Before we get to the team inspiration, remember to join our Facebook group too, Graph'It Markers UK, where we have daily inspiration and share some of our favourite makes & hints and tips every day, it's a great place to be!

Faye

I've used yellow and orange as the main colours for my image, but then I added a splash of hot pink with my DP too. These colours scream summer to me. I love watching sunsets in the evening, when you get one with the hint of pink in it too, you know you're in for a corker the next day!

Graph'Its used: Skin; 4120, 4155, 4170, 4180, 4135, 4145, Hair; 2130, 3150, 3180, 3190, Yellows; 1110, 1150, Oranges; 2150, 2180, Background; 9100, 0000, Ground: 4110, 3210

Karen

I enjoyed using this colour combo, its so zingy and refreshing, took me out of my comfort zone but that's a good thing!!

SKIN 4120 4155 4170 4145 5115 HAIR 1210 1230 1280  ORANGE 2105 2110 YELLOW 1130 1150 GREEN 8260 8270 PUPPY 9401 9403 9407 JEANS 7105 7140 SHOES 3245 3250

Claire C

I've used one of the fab images from the PolkaDoodles CD DigiStamp Heaven. I don't usually use yellows and oranges but the Graph'It range is fab so it makes a lovely change to use these zingy colours. I've used

Hair: 3210, 1270, 1130, 1210

Skin: 4180, 4155, 4115, 4125 and 4110

Dress: 1250, 1180, 1150, 1140 and 1110

Dog: 2130, 2120 and 2105

Grass: 8260, 8250, 8240

Suzi

I decided to try a different skin tone this week, to go with the bright orange hair and yellow and orange outfit.

I love how it turned out, here's the colours I used;

Skin; 2160, 3210, 3255, 3270

Hair; 0000, 2150, 2160, 2170, 2180, 3210, 4175

Outfit; 1150, 1170, 1180, 2150, 2160, 2170, 2180

Background; 0000, 3210, 8220, 8260, 8280

So there is our inspiration from the fabulously talented Graph'It team this week!...

You have until  Sunday 19th August at noon GMT to enter below by adding your creation to Mr Linky below - don't forget you have the chance to win a fabulous prize! 
The winner of this challenge will be announced on Friday 23rd August here on this blog. 

Please check our rules for all entries: 

1. All entries MUST follow the challenge theme. 2. Please link your blog post and not your blog address with the linky tool - this saves us from searching your blog for your entry.  3. No back-linking to previous posts - these will be disregarded from our voting.

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Skin Colouring Tutorial

Hello

Its Karen here today with a little tutorial for you on colouring skin! There is no right or wrong way of doing it the best thing is to just try lots of different techniques and colour combinations and see which one suits you best!  You can get lots of different skin tones with Graph It Markers but this combo is one of my favourites.  You will need the following for this skin tone:

4125  4155  4170  and for blush 4145 and/or 5110.

The image I have used is a Polka Dot Pal from Little Miss Muffet stamps.

Step 1 - I cover the whole area with my lightest shade 4125 and I don't worry about even coverage at this point.

Step 2 - I have now added the middle shade 4155 but not taken it so far in.

Step 3 - I now add my darkest shade 4170 around the edge of her face and under the hairline, I find it useful to turn the image as I do it and don't worry that it looks a bit messy at this stage!

Step 4 - Now I take my lightest shade again 4125 and blend it all together, again turning my image makes it easier.

Step 5 - Now I give her cheeks a little colour by adding 4145 and blending out with 4125.

Step 6 - If you like really pink cheeks like me then you can also add 5110 and again blend out with 4125.

And here she is all finished.

Hope you found this helpful, why not give it a try and see how you get on!

Karen xx

2 August Week 6 - Jeans & Denim

Welcome to another great challenge! 

Last week we challenged you to colour Blonde Hair - but this week we challenge you to show us what you can do with colouring...

Jeans and Denim

You can use ANY brand of alcohol marker to enter our challenges!

Before we get to this week's inspiration and prizes, it's time to announce the winner of our Week 4 challenge which was Black Hair. We're so pleased to announce that our Top 2 entries are:

1. An

2. Lucy

We loved all your work and congratulations to An who won our fabulous prize of over £30 of Graph'It goodies!! Well done! Please email Nikky here to claim your prize and please grab your winners blinkies from the sidebar.

The winner of this week's challenge will win a fantastic prize - a 12 pack set of Graph'It Skintones from Premium Art Brands - so if you're dying to try these wonderful new markers make sure you're in it to win it!

Let's get to the great team inspiration this week...we decided to challenge denim and jeans because there are SO many different colour combinations and cool techniques for getting a great denim look and it's one of those things we get asked about all the time. Graph'It have some fantastic colours which are great for denim...the selection of blues is one of the best around and even the Cool Greys are stunning for stonewashed denim effects - go check out the colour palette. Before we get to the team inspiration, remember to join our Facebook group too, Graph'It Markers UK, where we have daily inspiration and share some of our favourite makes & hints and tips every day, it's a great place to be!

Simonne ... All my digi images and papers are from the Polkadoodles Bonbon Belles double CD and I used them to create a scene for my card. As I don't have the cool greys (...yet, lol!) I used the deepest aqua colour (peroleum 7290) with my Denim (7180) Graph'It marker to achieve a deep shadow for my jeans:

Graph'it Markers used:

Skin: 4155 4125 4115 4120 4135 4145 ... Hair: 3245 1280 1230 1210 4110 ... Jeans: 7290 7180 7115 7110 7105 ... Fence: 3250 3245 3210 ... Trunk: 3250 3245 ... Greens: 8260 8240 8220 0000 ... Purples: 6110 6120 6130 6140 6180 ... Turquoise: 7260 7240 7220 7210 ... Bird: 9503 9501 9500 0000

Cara
I've decided to go with a dark bleached denim look and I also followed the colours through into her hair (I do like to co-ordinate) but it does show that you don't need the full Graph'it Marker collection to colour a decent image - I basically used skin colours, a few greys and a few blues.

Graph'it Markers used:
Skin: 4125,4145,4155,4135
Clothes,hair and blue parts of weights : Black, 7180,7170,7160, 7130,7110
Grey's for weights: 9108, 9106, 9104

Kevin  I have used this gorgeous image from the Polka Doodles Pretty Sweet cd rom and went with the washed out jeans look.

Graph'It markers used.
Skin 4115. 4135. 4145. 4155. 4170
Hair 3190. 3150. 3125. 3110
Top & Shoes 1130. 1150. 1250. 2140
Jeans 7105. 7125. 7180

Debs

I wanted to achieve and older worn denim look so added Cool Greys as they have a lovely blue tinge to them and they blend so well with the other Blues.

Graph'It Markers used: 

Jeans - 7180, 7110, 7115, 9104, 9102

Tee - 1250, 2105, 1210

Hair - 3280, 3255, 2245, 1250

Grass - 8280, 8240, 8220

Skin - 4180, 4170, 4155, 4110, 5110

Cloudy Sky - 7105 & Blender

So there is our inspiration from the fabulously talented Graph'It team this week!...

You have until  Sunday 11th August at noon GMT to enter below by adding your creation to Mr Linky below - don't forget you have the chance to win a fabulous prize! The winner of this challenge will be announced on Friday 16th August here on this blog. 

Please check our rules for all entries: 

1. All entries MUST follow the challenge theme. 2. Please link your blog post and not your blog address with the linky tool - this saves us from searching your blog for your entry.  3. No back-linking to previous posts - these will be disregarded from our voting.

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