The colourless blender:

 

 Used for

• Adding Highlights (see Basic Colouring Stage 4)

• Lightening/Blending to white

• Special effects (more on special effects in a moment!)

• Fixing mistakes

The name colourless blender is actually quite misleading, as we don’t use it for blending! What the blender really does is re-wets the ink on your project – allowing you to move it around or change the appearance using a variety of techniques. The blender ‘pushes’ colour around your page so it can be manipulated.

 

See how the blender has ‘pushed’ the green ink away from the area where the blender pen’s chisel nib was placed?

I most often use the blender pen as a sort of eraser. Of course it is not really erasing the ink, but just pushing it away – so when you go out of the lines, you can use the chisel nib end of your blender pen to shove the colour back to where it belongs. See below – the green is being pushed back inside the lines of the circle.

‘Colour’ using the colourless blender from the outside, pushing the miscoloured section back into the stamped image. You may notice in the circle above how the dye is built up in front if the marker. This creates a small ridge of darker colour, and for the best results when fixing mistakes, try to hide this section under the stamped line. Do this by ‘colouring’ up to the line but not over it. If you go too far, the ridge will form inside your stamped image and you will then have another, dfferent mistake to fix.

 If colour still remains outside the lines, let it dry and have another go. It may take a few times, particularly with some colours. But any lightening of the mistake will be a great improvement. Hopefully you can hide any remaining colour with your background design

The colourless blender is also great for a variety of fun techniques!

 • A few weeks ago we used the blender pen to remove some colour in selected areas in order to create highlights.

 • If you go over a whole coloured area with the blender, you will lighten the tone at the same time as adding texture – giving a weathered appearance.

 • The blender pen can be used to lighten colours to almost white to create the appearance of transparency. Perfect for balloons!

 • Use the blender to remove colour in patterns for interest, like polka dots or stripes.

 • Create realistic effects on animal skins or for mermaid tails, dragon/fish scales etc by removing colour to create texture.

 • Pre soak your paper with blender pen first and then colour over – your colour will be  lighter and the coverage will be smoother.

CREATING PATTERN AND TEXTURE

One of the most useful techniques with the blender pen is to remove colour in selected areas to create texture and pattern.

Make a cute brick wall using the chisel end of the pen to create bricks.

 

Give Rosalie a patterned dress by adding polka dots or stripes using your blender pen.

On a dry dress, press the tip of the brush end straight down and hold for perfect polka dots. The longer you hold in one place, the more colour is pushed out of the way. For a smaller dot, apply less pressure.

 If you try this technique on wet ink, the shape will not be as distinct, with softer edges.

Have a play with your colourless blender! And then enter your creation in our competition to win a set of Copic Ciaos!  Just colour one of your Lime Tart stamps with Copics and email it to design@limetart.com before 31 July to go in the running!!!