Updated April 25, 2023.
Once After painting the background, I needed to color the focal points of the design, so they would be easier to stitch. You can do this using either markers made for fabric, like FabricMates, or other dye-based markers, such as Copic. These markers are all translucent, so you can blend and build up color.
The first stage of the rose, pictured above, used red, pink, peach, and yellow. Notice how the colors don’t blend at all. In the second stage of coloring, orange was used everywhere except in the peach area, with a little yellow added for blending, picture at top of the article.
The rose was completed with two coats of pink. This mutes the orange, making it more coral, and brightens the peach center. Please remember that I’m not an expert at this; if you work with these pens a lot, you can get MUCH more subtle effects. I also only used four pens to do this.
The leaves are going to be more problematical because I don’t have any blue-greens. So I’m making my own. The first layer used blue, the second a light bluish-green. The result is above. The next coat used a light green aqua, which changed the blue more, but it is still blue as you can see.
The final coat used the yellow-green I had. But because of the blue layers, it is a truer green. This will work with the background
Color the rest of the leaves, wait at least a day, and start to stitch
About Janet M Perry
Janet Perry is the Internet's leading authority on needlepoint. She designs, teaches and writes, getting raves from her fans for her innovative techniques, extensive knowledge and generous teaching style. A leading writer of stitch guides, she blogs here and lives on an island in the northeast corner of the SF Bay with her family
I will start on this tomorrow. I do have some fabric dye pens but more crayola markers than anything else. I am not sure how they would would on the canvas and really not sure if they would effect the stitch thread.
Thanks so much I feel like I am in a class room with you as the teacher.
I bought some Copics this summer with the intention of testing them out – this is a good push to do so. 🙂
I had never thought to use the Copic markers! Thanks for the tip…more new tools to get!