What is No Line Colouring?
No Line Colouring has been a popular technique in the stamping community for a number of years now. While creating art without a black outline isn’t new, the stamping trend started in 2011 when Zoe from Make it Crafty was challenged to colour an image with sheer lace and realised that the black outline was really getting in her way.
The No Line colouring technique is quite simply stamping an image with a light coloured ink, or decreasing the opacity of the lines when printing a digital stamp image. When colouring the lines are much less visible than a black outline.
This technique can be challenging, which is part of the beauty of it! You find yourself really thinking about where to place colour, and how to create form using colour and value rather than relying on black lines.
Below are some examples of the technique that I have created. Most of them link to the original blog posts, so please do click through and take a closer look.
No Line Colouring Supplies
No Line colouring can be done with any medium, and no unusual supplies are required! There are many ink pads on the market, and you likely have something suitable in your stash already. Back in 2011 we were simply using the lighter coloured inks available to us, now however there are some dedicated products available to make the choice a little easier. As with any stamping, be sure to choose an ink pad suited to the medium you are using – again this is now much easier with many hybrid inks on the market, that work with most mediums.
- Ink On 3 Fadeout No Line Colouring Detail Ink – this is a hybrid ink, and is my “go to” for this technique. Available in the UK HERE.
Step by Step Tutorials
I have a few step by step tutorials showing how I approach No Line Colouring. If you are like me, you may find these useful to refer to in addition to my No Line Colouring video.