My Copic Swatch Book

Two posts in one day-wow! I am definitely going to be offering Copic classes in my area. I'm working out all the details. I've found a place to hold them. I'm busy making up my lesson plans and sample work to pass around in class. I've been polling all my friends and I'm going to hold them on Tuesday nights every other week. My husband doesn't understand why there is so much work involved in getting ready for the classes. He says just teach them something. Well, call me crazy, but having been to other Copic Classes and walking away disappointed, I want to make sure I really teach the girls something. I want them to leave feeling that they actually got their money's worth. I've completed my SWATCH Book for them to look at. That is what I'm going to post today. Here is how I did my Copic Swatch/Sample book. I purchased a simple Sketchbook with Heavyweight paper-70 sheets. I can write in it or tape my samples on the pages. I found you can't use your Copics on it cause they bleed through really badly. I pasted my True Copic Color Chart Pages on the first two sheets. I just make sure I add any colors I buy. I already have way too many pages to scan them all, so here is a sampling of how I did my book. I didn't decorate the book all fancy as I really care more about what is inside. I find all that fancy outer paper and stuff gets torn up too quickly anyway. I cannot believe just how invaluable a tool it is. I refer to it every single time I color something. If you haven't made yourself one, you really really should.

I started my book with Skin Tones. Then there is a page devoted to each type of hair color; brunettes, blonde's, blacks & reds. Here is a sample of one of those pages.

I then went into pages on doing specific colors; like this Black page and Red page..

I also have pages on doing Whites, Lilacs, Blues, Denims, Greens & Creams.

Next, comes a couple of pages on Shadowing: Clothing and other objects.

Then I move onto Landscapes, Trees & Leaves.

I have a couple of pages of how to color Woods of all kinds.

Then Stones, Bricks, Rocks & Pebbles.

I have a couple of pages on how to do Oceans, Lakes & Ponds.

I have a section of how to do Eyes & eye highlights.

Then a page on How to Do Glass and Metals, Fur, Misc Techniques using the Colorless Blender. How to do Translucent objects, like overlaying balloons.

Pages on doing Vintage and Pastels and Watercolor (all with Copics of course).

I then have another Techniques section where I have how to Flicking, Blending, Feathering, Scribbling, ET.

Then I have a Spotlight Section that I will add to as Marianne Walker spotlights colors.

Finally, another section on "Advanced Skin Tones". Obviously, I wish I could have grouped some things together, but that is one drawback of this not being a ringbinder. You can't take pages out and move them around after they are done. But I know where everything is since I put it all in there.

On each page, it is important to record certain things. For instance, the type of paper you did the sample on, the exact Copic colors used, and credits to someone else that you learned it from for future reference. I even have a page in the very back with 6 samples of the same stamped, colored image on 6 different types of paper for comparison.

Okay, I hope this helps someone out there. I know when I started learning about Copics, even though I was able to find some limited examples of people color swatch books, I didn't feel they were detailed enough. I felt lost. That's why I gave so much detail in this post.

Tomorrow I will post some sample artwork I'm going to use in my classes.