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There were a few questions regarding the Prismacolor tutorial that I will answer here!

First is paper. I used Wal-mart cheapy Georgia Pacific for the tutorial. Otherwise, I have used The Angel Company’s Premium white and SU! Whisper White with success. You want a smooth CS. This helps the color “float” to blend a little better.

Second is mineral spirits. I never tried baby oil, so I can’t really compare. I have used rubbing alcohol. This does ok, but it is a little more difficult than the OMS. I bought my mineral spirits it Wal-Mart for (I think) less than $5 for 30 ounces. I love the mineral spirits. It really does make the pencil “move” with NO trouble at all. Your blending stump is also a factor. I thought others were kidding when they said the Taiwan made stumps were better than China. Well, they are correct. The Taiwan stumps are softer, so they blend the pencils a lot easier. I still use China in a pinch, but I love my Taiwan stumps.

Third, the markers. There is always a debate about which is better and the general population of stampers think that Copics are the way to go. I, however, cannot see spending a paychecks worth of money on markers. My hubby got me the Prismacolor markers, set of 24, for my birthday. I will tell you that I love them. You do need to practice. I stamped a bunch of images and just played one evening. This helped me get the feel of the markers and to see how they blended with each other. The key is to work fast and keep the color wet. I will try to get a tutorial up on the markers only in the next few weeks.

The reason I used the pencils with the markers is because I had 6 markers in primary colors and I really wanted to do blending. The colors I had didn’t coordinate well for blending, so I figured, “Use the pencils!”. This works great, especially if you have trouble blending the markers. However, with practice, anyone can do it.

ETA!: Blender pens do not work on the pencils.  You need a solvent to dissolve the pencil lead.
If there are any more questions about the tutorial, I will continue to answer them here.

Thanks!

Leanne