How To colour Your Cookie & Earring Wooden Goodies 101

While i will not be colouring every MDF keychain as it takes hours, I have finally found the way to colour them and keep the grain/laser details crisp! What to do:

1. Use alcohol based markers.
While i will probably not recommend alcohol based markers to paint any other wood, the sealing on this panels is good enough to limit bleeding to almost nothing.

2. Blending is key!
Remember when doing alcohol based ink, your colours will have the capability to bleeding and blending between them as long as you do it while wet. This also means you should avoid colouring stuff that is too close by to a different colour, while the inks are wet.

3. Light to dark is the technique.
Remember that while colouring with any medium that has the capability to blend or bleed it is best to start with the lighter colurs, as if you overstep a line they can be easily covered. However, This means that the more you progress the less likely to be able to hide mistakes

4. Changing your mind is okey!
Errors are fixable. If you decided you don’t like a colour, you might be able to superimpose another one. However, If the tones are too different, acrylic markers can cover our sins.

5. Start big!
The smaller the canvas the harder it’s going to be for you to get the details right, specially if it’s your first time. I started with the earrings (as an idiot) and hadn’t picked up my markers since College i made a ton of mistakes. The bigger “canvas” from the keychain helped me build my confidence back. Remember Mistakes will happen, try to cut yourself some slack.

6. Shade with greys!
Alcohol based ink (as previously mentioned) can easily blend, it also won’t let lighter colour over impose, so it is hella easy to shade with lighter greys.

7. Bring out the light of your final design (pre highlights) with alcohol
Taking a wet wipe, after letting the wood absorb the ink will bring out the colours of your design!

Wet alcohol wipes will lift acrylic paint if not sealed, so be careful.

8. Highlight with acrylics!
I will never recommend using pure white for highlights. But a very bright cream will do miracles to hide mistakes and make your colour look shiny!

HOWEVER! Beware, as acrylic will literallt paint over everything, even hide the grain and engraved details.

 Colours used: R05 salmon red // R35 coral// R37 carmine // Y15 cadmium yellow// E11 barley beige // B45 smoky blue // BV25 grayish violet // W8 warm grey number 8


EXTRA! You can seal your finished colours by using modpodge if you're afraid of getting them accidentally wet or smth. but they can last without sealing.