Purple Pussycats

Before I left for my holidays, I started testing my Distress Inks and Oxides to see how permanent they claim to be. I’ve used them firstly as background with Gelli printing or stenciling then drawing on top of them with another mediums. So far, I’ve tried coloured pencils (wax based), Gelatos (wax-based and water-soluble), acrylic and watercolour paint (water-based) and India Ink (permanent). They’ve all worked well with no smudging or smearing at all. Now I wanted to try alcohol-based mediums like my set of Copic markers. It’s been a while since I’ve used them so a good chance to return to them!

Cat Stencils

This time I decided to stencil in my Distress Oxide and found a very cute stencil sheet featuring cats. I was somewhat in the mood for cats again! Here I used Distress Oxide in Spiced Marmalade and Distress Ink in Scattered Straw.

Cat Outlining

I began sketching my cats. It was an unplanned and spontaneous drawing using my Copic Ciao markers. So far so good, no smudging of either the markers or the Distress Ink. Kitty and her little friend then some kitty heads in the background to fill in the spaces.

Colouring In

All the kitty heads in the background were coloured in with the Copic markers, as were the outfits and the eyes. However I didn’t want to use up the ink for the larger areas like the two heads. I then used some water-soluble mediums for them; the bigger kitty on the left was painted with Caran d’Ache Neocolor II water-soluble pastels and the right one with Faber Castell’s Gelato. Great to discover all worked well! I do like the transparent effect using all three different mediums especially with the Copics.

Adding Some Bling

Although I am happy with the results, I felt more could be added in the painting. How about some little embellishments? I glued on some sequins and added some details on the green flowers with glitter glue. At that point I didn’t want to distract us from the colours anymore so decided not to add too much. And here it is!

I’m pleased to hear that my experiment with the Distress Inks turned out positively. From now, I can freely use them whether as background or layered on top. It’s also been some time since using my Copic markers. Great to have had the chance to draw with them again! And always fun to create another kawaii piece even when experimenting.