Ink...paper....Copics

I wanted to try different cardstocks and inks with my Copics so you could see the differences As you can see above, I used Brilliance, Memento, Versafine and Archival inks. For my cardstocks, I used Nennah Classic Crest, Papertrey, Georgia Pacific 110 lb, Gina K Luxury 80 lb. and Gina K Luxury 120 lb. I did not have any SU! white cardstock. Once I get my hands on some of that, I will try it and bristol board. I marked each quarter sheet of paper with the cardstock type and the ink used for the image. The ducky stamp is from Serendipity Stamps.

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You can see right off that some of the inks did NOT work. They grayed the coloring so the brilliant Copics became dark. Below, notice the difference in the use of Memento ink and Archival ink. It surprised me what a difference the ink made. The choice of ink was much more important than the choice of cardstock. I do watercolors and love Versafine and Archival for stamping something to be painted. Perhaps if you heat set the ink, it might not bleed as badly, but these images had several hours to dry. Memento is a quick drying ink that was introduced at CHA Winter 2008 and of the ones I tried, it was definitely the best....actually the only one I will use from now on. I don't want to heat set...I want to be able to stamp and go! Another option would be to apply clear detail embossing powder to the Versafine and thermally emboss it. I love that look, but not sure how well the raised lines would hold up to the markers.

Of the cardstocks, I think I liked the Neenah Classic Crest the best. I can pick it up at Xpedex (one of my favorite hangouts...I am a bottom feeder there...they know me as the "Clearance Lady"!) by the ream. I would use any of the cardstocks as there was not that much difference. If you are doing a card and want to have the colored image on the actual card as opposed to layered on the card, the only one that did not bleed through was the Gina K Luxury 120 lb. I do not care for the surface look of her 80 lb. cardstock...it almost has a look of poster board or bristol board. My favorite cardstocks as far as surface goes is Neenah and Papertrey. I think the Neenah is a brighter white. I do like Papertrey for embossing in my Wizard.

I hope this little science experiment was helpful to you. I will try to make a finished card of my favorite combination and also show you the steps I took in coloring this little guy. I wanted an image that was fairly simple, but showed blending a single color (duck), blending colors together (tulip) and showed some shading.
Have a great day....and if you don't have any, get some Momento ink! I know Hobby Lobby carries it or it is available online. It also comes in a gray and brown, but I don't like those actual colors as well as the gray and brown in Versafine. Same company, but the colors are much different.
Let me know if you have other suggestions of cardstock or inks to try. Thanks!