Stampin’ Up! Try it Out Thursday: Black Magic Technique using Metallic Art Pencils

For today’s Try it Out Thursday, I decided to take a closer look at Stampin’ Up!’s Metallic Art Pencils.  I’ve had those pencils sitting with the rest of my "stash" for probably almost 2 years now.  I bought them because I thought they looked really neat, but then didn’t really know what to do with them.  As I was web surfing I came across a few different cards using the Black Magic Technique. I’m not really sure who came up with the technique and unfortunately can’t remember the blogs I saw it on as I didn’t book mark them at the time. I thought however it was such a stunning look that I decided to try it with the metallic art pencils. Although you can’t get the full effect from the picture, Stampin’ Up!’s Metallic Art Pencils add a beautiful shimmer to the card which you don’t get with traditional color pencils – almost the look of Pearl Ex.

The basic Black Magic Technique is as follows:

1. Stamp a solid image stamp in White Craft Ink onto black cardstock. Let dry.
2. Color over the white craft ink using color pencils.
3. Use a white gel pen to outline the image.

While playing with this technique, I added a little twist (I love doing that – finding ways to alter and/or improve on existing things – it’s the way new ideas are born!) and decided to share that with you in a little tutorial. 

Step 1: Ink up a solid image stamp in white craft ink (here I used the Fabulous Flowers stamp set) and stamp onto black CS.  Make sure your stamp is inked up really well. Let dry.  If you are in a rush, you can speed up the drying process with a heat tool.

Step 2: Color over the white craft ink using your metallic art pencil.  You’ll notice from the picture that I did not completely cover the white craft ink.  I colored the centers of the petal and left a small white border showing.

Step 3:  Here you can see the whole thing colored using the three colors shown in the picture.  I used the gold and green for the centers of the flowers and layered them (i.e. first I colored with the gold, and then colored over top with the green).

Step 4: Now here’s my little twist.  I put a few drops of the white craft re-inker onto the lid of my white craft ink pad.  I then used the smallest aquapainter brush tip, dampened it (to keep the bristles together), and then picked up some of the white craft ink and "painted" the outline of the petals.  Take a look at the picture in Step 5 for more on how I painted the petals.

Step 5: Unfortunately the picture turned out a bit blurry (as I took it left-handed), but you can see that I only colored along one side of the petals.  What I really liked about using the aquapainter is that because the brush has flexibility, you can get varying line thicknesses, based on how much pressure you apply. Although the white looks really intense while wet, it dries to a softer finish.

Step 6: You can see from the picture below the effect it gives as it starts to dry. I’ll let you in on the reason I added this little twist in the next picture.

Step 7: I then took my signo white gel pen and outlined a thin line on the outer edge of the side of the petal that I painted the white re-inker onto.  So what was the purpose of the white re-inker?  Because it is drying on top of the metallic art pencil, as it dries, it softens up the intensity of the color of the metallic art pencil underneath, giving a third "shade".  This adds a little more depth of color than if you simply did this card in two steps with the metallic art pencil and then the white gel pen. 

Step 8: Here’s the finished card.  Below I have a list of all the supplies I used to create this card (all Stampin’ Up! of course).  If you are an SU demo and you would like to receive this tutorial in pdf format (which is perfect for handing out or emailing to your customers if you teach this technique in a class or club) then be sure that you are subscribed to my Demo to Demo e-newsletter (you can subscribe on the home page of www.demotodemo.com on the left side) as I’ll be including it in my next Demo to Demo newsletter, due to be released this weekend (unless of course I happen to go into labour – *lol*).

Stamps:  Fabulous Flowers, All Holiday’s
Ink:  Whisper White Craft ink, Basic Black Classic ink
Paper: Basic Black, Certainly Celery, Pale Plum CS
Accessories:  Celery 1/4" grosgrain ribbon, Styled Silver hodgepodge (I think that’s what it’s called – it was from the Occasions Mini Catalog), 1/16" handheld punch, ticket corner punch, mini glue dots.