Vanilla is from Amy Shulke. She is amazing with markers and she teaches very well! I’m doing a course The Point (pencils and markers) from her. Amy has a list with markers for beginners. She also has some videos about explaining the numbers in Copic. This helped me a lot to understand the markers. When you do a blend, use the lightest marker all over the area and let the paper do the work for you. I’ve also learned that translucency and opacity in pencils are key for darkening areas. Example: for a leaf use an opaque green as a base layer. Use Prussian blue (prisma) lightly in the area you want to darken. You will notice that the area is getting a muddier colour. It has darkened the area without turning into dark blue.
It's a bit late but a bit of history of Underpainting and explaining why it does what it does: Underpainting was used a lot for oil painting back in the day, though a lot of them usually started with like browns, ornages yellows and reds to give a painting a bit of a warmth. It's why a lot of paintings you sometimes seein musuems seem of a warm glow to them. There are some cases where they did do the oppisite color situation but that's when they wanted to deepend the shadows even more than what black could do in a vibrant way. It's also why you may notice some blues in a shadow that you didn't understand before because they wanted that shadow to feel colder than the flat black. Now to explain why you would use the oppisite color: When you look on the colorwheel, it's usually a primary with a secondary (Blue- Primary, Orange- Secondary; Red- Primary, Green-Secondary; Yellow- Primary, Purple/Violet- Secondary) The reason why they seem to "pop" or "deepening" Is because you are adding in the color that is missing in the secondary. when you mix all three, it does become a brown, sure. But this push and pull is why color reacts the way it does. When you think of it this way, it makes more sense why it does what it does. I could also go into more depth such as you can have a cold yellow and a warm yellow for example but that gets into more then what you were showing.
I will subscribe to Waffle with Claire, I'm here for it! I learned this technique from you so long ago with using the Grayed Lavender to help take some of the redness out of skin tones with Prismas. It completely changed the way I made shadows after that.
So happy to see someone talking about this. I've been experimenting with pencils with this and some with w/c marker underpainting in order to desaturate the bright colors, especially on buildings. It just makes it more interesting. My favorite is starting with an aqua blue and putting orange on top, or starting with peach and putting a blue on top. I'm a newbie at alcohol marker but got a set today so I'll be giving this a go. Thanks for getting into this and would be interested if you make other discoveries.
Hi Claire. This stuff is awesome. Amy (Vanilla Arts) has been posting a lot of videos here on TH-cam in the last year. Many are pertaining to this subject and very useful. I’ve adopted this method for my colored pencil work and it has been a game changer.
ETA - fun to see you get excited about learning about this. Using the color wheel is essential to getting better at it. There is a scientific explanation for how we perceive color, you dont need to know it to make this work. Just play with the color wheel.
It works because if you moosh all the colours that exist together, you get grey, which is basically desaturation. The opposite colours in a colour wheel mean that all three primary colours are combined together, so it makes grey. But when you curate that, you are shifting the underlying hue of the grey. When you work with paints it makes it all make total sense! Your discovery of this is fun to see :) ETA: I first started learning about this from this video: th-cam.com/video/ixPEbzAVwE0/w-d-xo.html
I have done this pencils some, but not markers. I am not good at marker blending, so I I typically just use them to base whatever project I am working on it.
You mentioned in the video, Claire, that you'd love to know why this technique works - did you mean the science of it? I'd be happy to explain :) but I didn't want to jump in and give a really long, science-y explanation unless that's what you were looking for. Not everyone appreciates my science-nerdiness. ;) :D Let me know if that's what you'd like - I could even make a video about it and put it up on my channel if folks are interested. :D
Very interesting video, thank you Claire. I'm going to try it for myself with my Ohuhus. Thank you for sharing the Vanilla Arts link. I wonder whether the theory will transfer to coloured pencils? Also there are free of charge copic to ohuhu colour equivalent charts. I found mine on the Ohuhu sub Reddit.
Yes, complementary blending works with colored pencils as well. I find it easiest to mix if you sandwich the complementary color between layers of the body color (the color you want the object to be).. so for example orange/blue/orange... and try to match colors that are the same value (light or dark)... so since orange is a medium value color go for a medium blue, not a dark blue like indigo.
What a fascinating video. Your writing is really nice and stop putting yourself down Claire esp about waffling. I love your waffling and everything about your channel.❤️🌹
Please give it a try. In many cases the underpaint (weird) color is actually an easier marker to blend. We use a lot of blue and blue adjacent markers which are always easier to blend with than a stubborn R or RV. And you can always step lighter with the underpaint to make it even easier.
This technique was directly borrowed from Brunaille and Grisaille underpainting techniques in classical oil painting. It works for any transparent medium.
I've been working on underpainting with pencils (learned a bit from Emily Illustrator thought she didn't call it that and does it more like a sandwich with the complimentary color; Monja Gates & Lisa Mitrokhin) & have learned more about color mixing playing with Watercolor to get shadows for such a transparent medium I never realized it translated to alcohol markers. 😱 I just started watching Amy Shulke (Vanilla Arts) on TH-cam in addition to looking at her website. I also discovered Violeta Ink on TH-cam (she works with Vanilla Arts & shows underpainting in action). Lisa Mitrokhin is very big on ignoring a colors name or # & looking at the pigment color and picking pencils that way especially when looking at a reference photo. Many colorists were saying mud was bad when I started coloring in 2020 so I did& I've been realizing more and more that was bad advice at it's the mud/desaturated color that is adding to your coloring and a more realistic result. How were you able to put the pallets/blends together, the few I looked at were not downloadable at Vanilla Arts I had to print 1 by 1.
@@marilynperez-martinez6769 If you download all the things you want, you can do two things. 1) Convert everything to Microsoft Word - copy/paste all the images to one file - press Print - go to settings of printing menu- look for the option (number) on a page- choose how many pages must be printed in one page. 1a) Leave it all in PDF and do the same thing as above, but you probably need a payed version of Acrobat reader for changing things in a PDF. 2) Take screenshots from all your downloaded things and use the screenshot in a Microsoft Word file. You can adjust every screenshot, change settings of the margins and press print :-)
Hi Claire thanks for your vidéo very interesting. Where could i find all the combinations of vanilla arts to make à book like you. Could you send me the link please i don't find it on her website? Thanks a lot. Have a good Day.
Yes I’ve watched some of Amy’s videos before but I’ve just put 2 & 2 together that it’s the same person as the website 😂🙈 If I had half a brain I’d be dangerous! 😂 I actually thought it was the lady from Violeta Ink, and now that I look, she does also contribute to VanillaArts so I think I was getting all muddled xx
So.. first off this particular website/YT channel mentioned has some issues. I'd be wary about anything you see on there. It's all aimed to try to sell her products in a very pressured way. She makes a lot of statements that make it seem like her way is the only way, makes very negative and often false comments about other artists and products other than those she is an affiliate for, and is very aggressive with anyone who suggests otherwise. It's a toxic environment. That said, this is complementary blending, not underpainting. Complimentary blending allows for the way complementary colors neutralize each other... eventually creating grey, black, or brown... to create shadow colors that are natural and appropriate to that hue. Understanding how this works is a major key to understanding color theory and will massively improve your art. It not only allows you to use materials more effectively but to chose appropriate color combinations. If you have ever wondered why good portrait sets include blue, green, and purple.. it's because they are the complements to the typical skin tone colors of orange, red, and yellow. Underpainting is using a color to tint or shade an entire painting. This is either in large flat applications, a layer of color over the entire picture, thus making your colors placed on top cohesive as they mix with the color underneath.. simply applying a base color over an entire object to fill the white surface and speed up the coloring/painting process (what we do by basing a coloring page)... or using neutral colors such as grey or sepia to put the shadows into an entire painting and then the actual object color is glazed over the top, coloring over greyscale print is a similar concept.
Ahh okay, so underpainting is a totally different concept then! Interesting. It’s so funny you say that because I’ve been using purple to desaturate reddish skin tones for years! So I have been underpainting or complimentary blending already without realising xx
@@ColourwithClaireUnderpainting is an art term we as colorists wouldn't really know. But yes, you've been doing it somewhat as part of your color correcting on skin tone. I know you took classes with Lisa Mitrokhin & she teaches that shadows are more blue/lilac based than grey. So she adds lilac or a desaturated blue based purple to her skin shadows. Think if you add cream or yellow it blends to a deeper brown.
@@ColourwithClaire Underpainting is simply laying down an initial layer of color to begin rendering shapes and forms. Transparent and translucent layers are added over the underpaint. The key is we're not shifting or blending away the underpaint, we let it sit there and shine through each successive layer. Since we're not blending here in a standard sense, I'd never call this "complementary blending". I guess this person isn't a fan and wants to nit-pick.
@@marilynperez-martinez6769 Totally agree, although I don't know the instructor you're referring to, what you're describing is spot on. Underpainting can be done in a variety of ways and it's not specific to me or alcohol markers. And I wholeheartely agree, lilac and blues make some of the prettiest underpaints.
I love this technique for getting deeper shadows, rather than using grays over top. It comes out more natural and less washed out. Thanks for sharing!
Vanilla is from Amy Shulke. She is amazing with markers and she teaches very well!
I’m doing a course The Point (pencils and markers) from her. Amy has a list with markers for beginners. She also has some videos about explaining the numbers in Copic. This helped me a lot to understand the markers.
When you do a blend, use the lightest marker all over the area and let the paper do the work for you.
I’ve also learned that translucency and opacity in pencils are key for darkening areas. Example: for a leaf use an opaque green as a base layer. Use Prussian blue (prisma) lightly in the area you want to darken. You will notice that the area is getting a muddier colour. It has darkened the area without turning into dark blue.
How cool! Thank you for the info!❤
I’m here for the waffling too!!!❤ keep being you, we love you! 🫶🏻
You're the best!
I am a student at Vanilla Arts with Amy , I love the lessons !
It's a bit late but a bit of history of Underpainting and explaining why it does what it does:
Underpainting was used a lot for oil painting back in the day, though a lot of them usually started with like browns, ornages yellows and reds to give a painting a bit of a warmth. It's why a lot of paintings you sometimes seein musuems seem of a warm glow to them. There are some cases where they did do the oppisite color situation but that's when they wanted to deepend the shadows even more than what black could do in a vibrant way. It's also why you may notice some blues in a shadow that you didn't understand before because they wanted that shadow to feel colder than the flat black.
Now to explain why you would use the oppisite color: When you look on the colorwheel, it's usually a primary with a secondary (Blue- Primary, Orange- Secondary; Red- Primary, Green-Secondary; Yellow- Primary, Purple/Violet- Secondary) The reason why they seem to "pop" or "deepening" Is because you are adding in the color that is missing in the secondary. when you mix all three, it does become a brown, sure. But this push and pull is why color reacts the way it does. When you think of it this way, it makes more sense why it does what it does.
I could also go into more depth such as you can have a cold yellow and a warm yellow for example but that gets into more then what you were showing.
I will subscribe to Waffle with Claire, I'm here for it! I learned this technique from you so long ago with using the Grayed Lavender to help take some of the redness out of skin tones with Prismas. It completely changed the way I made shadows after that.
So happy to see someone talking about this. I've been experimenting with pencils with this and some with w/c marker underpainting in order to desaturate the bright colors, especially on buildings. It just makes it more interesting. My favorite is starting with an aqua blue and putting orange on top, or starting with peach and putting a blue on top. I'm a newbie at alcohol marker but got a set today so I'll be giving this a go. Thanks for getting into this and would be interested if you make other discoveries.
Hi Claire. This stuff is awesome. Amy (Vanilla Arts) has been posting a lot of videos here on TH-cam in the last year. Many are pertaining to this subject and very useful. I’ve adopted this method for my colored pencil work and it has been a game changer.
I love her!
Thanks!
@@PerfectlyImperfectColour Thank you!
Took me a while to start using this, but I use it in watercolor and colored pencil all the time. Have been doing it for years
ETA - fun to see you get excited about learning about this. Using the color wheel is essential to getting better at it. There is a scientific explanation for how we perceive color, you dont need to know it to make this work. Just play with the color wheel.
Very interesting topic, Claire! I have heard the term but never knew what it meant.
It works because if you moosh all the colours that exist together, you get grey, which is basically desaturation. The opposite colours in a colour wheel mean that all three primary colours are combined together, so it makes grey. But when you curate that, you are shifting the underlying hue of the grey. When you work with paints it makes it all make total sense! Your discovery of this is fun to see :)
ETA: I first started learning about this from this video: th-cam.com/video/ixPEbzAVwE0/w-d-xo.html
Very good video topic and presentation. Yes, it is cool. Thanks for showing us.
I have done this pencils some, but not markers. I am not good at marker blending, so I I typically just use them to base whatever project I am working on it.
You mentioned in the video, Claire, that you'd love to know why this technique works - did you mean the science of it? I'd be happy to explain :) but I didn't want to jump in and give a really long, science-y explanation unless that's what you were looking for. Not everyone appreciates my science-nerdiness. ;) :D Let me know if that's what you'd like - I could even make a video about it and put it up on my channel if folks are interested. :D
I would really appreciate the science part!
@@colouringchemist yes please explain!
Go full nerd!!!
@@AmyShulke 😂
Be careful what you ask for! ;) :D Full-on nerd video in the works! :D
Very interesting video, thank you Claire. I'm going to try it for myself with my Ohuhus. Thank you for sharing the Vanilla Arts link. I wonder whether the theory will transfer to coloured pencils? Also there are free of charge copic to ohuhu colour equivalent charts. I found mine on the Ohuhu sub Reddit.
Yes, complementary blending works with colored pencils as well. I find it easiest to mix if you sandwich the complementary color between layers of the body color (the color you want the object to be).. so for example orange/blue/orange... and try to match colors that are the same value (light or dark)... so since orange is a medium value color go for a medium blue, not a dark blue like indigo.
What a fascinating video. Your writing is really nice and stop putting yourself down Claire esp about waffling. I love your waffling and everything about your channel.❤️🌹
Yaazzzzzz LOVE the waffling!!!!!!❤
Amazing Claire...thanks for the video. You make it look so easy. Mine will never look near as good. 😅❤❤❤
Please give it a try. In many cases the underpaint (weird) color is actually an easier marker to blend. We use a lot of blue and blue adjacent markers which are always easier to blend with than a stubborn R or RV. And you can always step lighter with the underpaint to make it even easier.
So nice!
Love this! Thank you. ❤
You weren’t waffling. It was really interesting.
Great Video Thank You.
Your amazing Claire I could listen and to your waffling all day the technique is brilliant do you think this could work with any other medium's x
I’m curious to know too! Xx
This technique was directly borrowed from Brunaille and Grisaille underpainting techniques in classical oil painting. It works for any transparent medium.
@amyshulke thanks for commenting, it’s a really cool technique!
I can't find the swatches on the website.. colour pencil combos for this would be awesome
@@tessobrien8364 Google image search vanilla arts underpainting
I've been working on underpainting with pencils (learned a bit from Emily Illustrator thought she didn't call it that and does it more like a sandwich with the complimentary color; Monja Gates & Lisa Mitrokhin) & have learned more about color mixing playing with Watercolor to get shadows for such a transparent medium I never realized it translated to alcohol markers. 😱 I just started watching Amy Shulke (Vanilla Arts) on TH-cam in addition to looking at her website. I also discovered Violeta Ink on TH-cam (she works with Vanilla Arts & shows underpainting in action). Lisa Mitrokhin is very big on ignoring a colors name or # & looking at the pigment color and picking pencils that way especially when looking at a reference photo. Many colorists were saying mud was bad when I started coloring in 2020 so I did& I've been realizing more and more that was bad advice at it's the mud/desaturated color that is adding to your coloring and a more realistic result. How were you able to put the pallets/blends together, the few I looked at were not downloadable at Vanilla Arts I had to print 1 by 1.
@@marilynperez-martinez6769 I google image search for VanillaArts underpainting and saved as many as I could, then printed out several on a page xx
@@marilynperez-martinez6769 If you download all the things you want, you can do two things. 1) Convert everything to Microsoft Word - copy/paste all the images to one file - press Print - go to settings of printing menu- look for the option (number) on a page- choose how many pages must be printed in one page.
1a) Leave it all in PDF and do the same thing as above, but you probably need a payed version of Acrobat reader for changing things in a PDF.
2) Take screenshots from all your downloaded things and use the screenshot in a Microsoft Word file. You can adjust every screenshot, change settings of the margins and press print :-)
Hi Claire thanks for your vidéo very interesting. Where could i find all the combinations of vanilla arts to make à book like you. Could you send me the link please i don't find it on her website? Thanks a lot. Have a good Day.
Google image vanilla arts underpainting combos xx
@@ColourwithClaire thanks a lot have a good day
Did you know there is a Vanilla Arts channel on TH-cam?
Yes I’ve watched some of Amy’s videos before but I’ve just put 2 & 2 together that it’s the same person as the website 😂🙈 If I had half a brain I’d be dangerous! 😂
I actually thought it was the lady from Violeta Ink, and now that I look, she does also contribute to VanillaArts so I think I was getting all muddled xx
I'm here: youtube.com/@AmyShulke
@@ColourwithClaire I used to be an affiliate for Violeta and she had ad space on my site for years. We did a few projects together during that time.
Love Amy Shulke @VanillaArts
Thank you!
I think this is also a technique used in drawing with Coloured pencils ...
Yep, it's used with a lot of art mediums. The more transparent, the better.
It's just like blending pencils....
So.. first off this particular website/YT channel mentioned has some issues. I'd be wary about anything you see on there. It's all aimed to try to sell her products in a very pressured way. She makes a lot of statements that make it seem like her way is the only way, makes very negative and often false comments about other artists and products other than those she is an affiliate for, and is very aggressive with anyone who suggests otherwise. It's a toxic environment.
That said, this is complementary blending, not underpainting. Complimentary blending allows for the way complementary colors neutralize each other... eventually creating grey, black, or brown... to create shadow colors that are natural and appropriate to that hue. Understanding how this works is a major key to understanding color theory and will massively improve your art. It not only allows you to use materials more effectively but to chose appropriate color combinations. If you have ever wondered why good portrait sets include blue, green, and purple.. it's because they are the complements to the typical skin tone colors of orange, red, and yellow.
Underpainting is using a color to tint or shade an entire painting. This is either in large flat applications, a layer of color over the entire picture, thus making your colors placed on top cohesive as they mix with the color underneath.. simply applying a base color over an entire object to fill the white surface and speed up the coloring/painting process (what we do by basing a coloring page)... or using neutral colors such as grey or sepia to put the shadows into an entire painting and then the actual object color is glazed over the top, coloring over greyscale print is a similar concept.
Ahh okay, so underpainting is a totally different concept then! Interesting. It’s so funny you say that because I’ve been using purple to desaturate reddish skin tones for years! So I have been underpainting or complimentary blending already without realising xx
@@ColourwithClaireUnderpainting is an art term we as colorists wouldn't really know. But yes, you've been doing it somewhat as part of your color correcting on skin tone. I know you took classes with Lisa Mitrokhin & she teaches that shadows are more blue/lilac based than grey. So she adds lilac or a desaturated blue based purple to her skin shadows. Think if you add cream or yellow it blends to a deeper brown.
@waymire01 What are you on about??? Sheesh.
@@ColourwithClaire Underpainting is simply laying down an initial layer of color to begin rendering shapes and forms. Transparent and translucent layers are added over the underpaint. The key is we're not shifting or blending away the underpaint, we let it sit there and shine through each successive layer. Since we're not blending here in a standard sense, I'd never call this "complementary blending". I guess this person isn't a fan and wants to nit-pick.
@@marilynperez-martinez6769 Totally agree, although I don't know the instructor you're referring to, what you're describing is spot on. Underpainting can be done in a variety of ways and it's not specific to me or alcohol markers. And I wholeheartely agree, lilac and blues make some of the prettiest underpaints.