Hey guys, Julia here from Just One Markard and welcome to today's video. Today I'm going to be using my water colors again and I'm going to be also using these fantastic stems by the French company CutlerCraft. I'll be linking to it in the video description below. You know I like monsters, quirky stems, they're just my thing. And so I'm super excited to work with those today. I'm also going to be using various watercolor markers. Now before you panic because you don't have these exact markers, it doesn't matter which markers you use. I'm simply using them because I have them available. If you have just one brand of markers or you have liquid water colors or water colors, in pants use those, it doesn't matter, I swear. Now I've been practicing a bit, you know, just in case you guys think that you know I do a video and that's the first time I do it, I usually not. I practice beforehand and you can see, for example, that I wrote down which color combinations I was using and what I liked about a coloration or not. I've used various colors, various combinations of colors and I was trying to figure out, you know, like where do the highlights go, where do the shadows go, how deep should the shadows be or how light? And what helped me as well is just creating a color swatch chart. I basically grabbed all of my watercolor markers, it doesn't matter which brand and put them down here on a piece of watercolor paper, just smeared some of them down and then used a brush, you know, like just a wet brush to fade them out so I would see how it would look like. And this helps me to quickly pick the colors which I like. If I would have a separate sheet per brand, that would make it kind of difficult to compare the colors. This is why I just put it down all on one sheet. And I noticed I can't buy more colors because I don't have bigger sheets. Now this is a red rubber stamp and it will not stick to your acrylic block by default. So that's why I have this one acrylic block that where I have a tack and peel on top of it. That's like a thick layer of adhesive that you just permanently basically apply to your acrylic block. I have two acrylic blocks which are like dedicated to this and you can see that it's very sticky. And you just put your stamp face down and pick it up. If your tack and peel ever gets dirty, all you need to do is just rinse it with a bit of soap, like regular soap that you use for your hands and warm water. And it gets clean and super sticky again. So you can basically just leave it on your acrylic block forever. I have stamped the image first on this acetate sheet that comes with the stampa magic. The stampa magic is this green tool. It's like a T or L-shaped tool that helps me to place my rubber stamp exactly where it needs to be because obviously I can't look through the rubber stamp. So, you know, I kind of have to figure out where everything goes to make sure it's straight. Just sliding the stamp in. Checking it is the right way around because you know, not the first time that I stamp stuff upside down. And I'm using my favorite things hybrid licorice ink because that works fine with watercolors. Now, for the first few layers, what I'm doing is I'm using my watercolor pens, markers, whatever, to apply the color directly onto the paper. I want a nice intense color. And what I'm doing here is I have the smallest brush that I have and I'm dampening it. So it's not like dripping wet. I'm just dampening it and I'm just moving the color out a little bit. And this was just to help me figure out where I want the deepest shadows to go. Now that I've done that, I coming in with my darkest green color. And I'm deepening up those shadows. And you can see that I'm just pushing the color a little bit further up, not too much further. Because I want the deepest area really to be limited to certain areas. I don't want everything to be dark. Because otherwise I will lose definition in the image. You will see hopefully you'll see it throughout the process. Now for the subsequent layers. First of all, I'm drying it a little bit here with my heat gun. And I'm also using just a piece of like, like where stamps come in just a piece of plastic or acetate. Scribble down my ink there and then I'm picking it up with a wet brush. And this helps me to dilute the color and to blend it out more easily. If you would apply it with your marker directly to the paper, the color would be very intense and you can't really vary it. And by scribbling it down on a piece of acetate and picking it up with your brush, you have much more control over how light or how intense you want this to be. If you don't have watercolor markers, you can use your, for example, your distressed ink pads. Press them down onto a piece of plastic and pick up the ink. It's the exact same ink as is in the distressed markers. You know, so like you don't even need to go out and buy markers. Use what you've already got. And you can see here that I'm just repeating this process. I'm layering these colors because my goal is to have very, very deep shadows. And I'm actually coming in here with the, I think it's the Walnut stain, which is a brown color. And adding this in the very deepest shadows. And instead of blending it out with just clean water, I'm blending it out with dark and light green. Just gently building up the color because I don't, if you add too much of the dark color, you lose the highlight areas, you lose the definition in whatever you're coloring. And I mean, you can always go on top of it, but you can also see that, you know, when you go on top of it and the wet areas dry and you haven't wet everything, then you have those lines along which, you know, it dried. And I kind of like that, but I want to have more control over where exactly that happens. So you can add as many layers as you want. You just have to be careful because you'll always wet whatever is underneath. So that requires some, you know, some careful studying. And at the very end, I just went over everything with my yellow marker simply to give this all a little bit of a warmertone. You can see here, I have prepared some distress inks. This is going to be for our background because I want to really make a really contrasty background. The black thing that you see, that's the mask. Yeah, ignore, don't ask why it's black. Anyway, this is basically a fuzzy cut, a mask out of masking paper. So I would not color in my little critter here, colored in the background with my distressing. And I used some black, even the black suit, just to make sure that the edges would be really crisp and dark. And I have masked off like a tiny edge, so there will actually be a very thin frame. You will see it when I reveal it, just for additional contrast. And then I'm using some pumice stone ink for the ground on which the critter is standing on. And I sprayed it with a mix of perfect pearls and water to add some shine. With the marker, I'm just drawing in like a little smile, just a little bit so that the little guy looks a little bit more friendly. And then those of you who know me and to follow me know that I just can't stop doing dots. And now I'm even adding some stars with my sharpie marker here. Just for some additional interest. Of course, we still need a sentiment. This is from a stamp set by my favorite things. Again, all the products will be listed in the video description below. And here you have a close-up of our little guy and then gorgeous sky that I've created. I hope this inspired you to take another look at your coloring mediums. If water colors is not your forte, you can of course do the same thing with like intense pencils, with pencils, with Copic markers, whatever strikes you fancy. I hope you've got inspired. Again, all the products listed in the video description below. If you have any questions or comments, let me know. Please subscribe. I've got a lot more videos to come and thank you so much for watching today. Bye bye.