Learn mix watercolor, wax and pastels for beautiful colored pencil work.
Colored pencils aren't just for kids. The Colored Pencil Society of America, for professional artists who work primarily in colored pencil, was founded in 1990 and has a community that extends beyond the U.S. borders. Artists who work with colored pencil as a professional medium know that colored pencil work is a highly involved process of layering and blending pigments. Learning the potential of your pencils is the key to creating amazing pencil art.
Instructions
1. Organize your pencils. Separate wax-based pencils from watercolor and pastels. Watercolor pencils are water soluble. Wax-based pencils are not. Pastel pencils have a chalky mark that allows for smudging.
2. Sharpen your pencils before use. Keeping pencils sharp will make detail work easier.
3. Practice making washes with watercolor pencils on illustration board or watercolor paper. Lay in the watercolor pigment by sketching a large area. Then use water and a round brush to spread the pigment. You can also practice making washes with wax-based pencils. Use a solvent like turpenoid to turn a layer of wax pencil to liquid. Washes can be an effective way to lay down a translucent base for the first layer of blending.
4. Test your pencils for blending. Soft, light-colored wax, like white and peach, can be used to blend together darker, drier pigments. Use scratch paper to test your wax pencils. Determine which pencils make a smooth waxy mark, and separate them from the harder, drier pencils. You can also purchase colorless blending pencils to blend colors, without lightening the pigment dramatically, or work in soft core pencils, which are designed specifically for blending.
5. Experiment with laying down a light sketch in carmine or poppy red. Add a layer of orange or yellow. Then apply a solid white wax layer over the two colors to blend them together. The result is a smooth rose color.
6. Hatching is a method of laying down a series of parallel lines to create shade or texture in a drawing. Crosshatching is when you cross the lines together at an angle. Practice textured pencil drawing by laying down one color and cross hatching another color over it. Add several layers, noting the change in color each time.
7. Clean your drawing with cotton swabs after oxidation. A layer of oxidation occurs in waxed-based pencil drawings hours after the pencil is applied to paper, giving your colors a dull coat. Rub a cotton swab over each area of your drawing to brighten in. Then spray with a layer of fixative to keep the sheen. You can use fixitive to add more layers of pigment to your drawing.
8. Blend pastel pencils over watercolor washes for a soft, radiant effect.
9. Pastels and wax pencils don't always blend well, but you can get a "smoke" effect by layering pastel pencils over a smooth surface. Use a chamois or stump blender to soften the pastel over your drawing; then spray with fixative.
