Help!

LexLuthorsVictimNJustAFriend · Has No Life Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Posts: 509

I love to use colored pencils, but I suck at blendingthe colors. I have a friend who constantly tells me that it's a piece of cake, but it's not. Can someone help me? I just need some helpful tips on how to blend.

**I only have Crayola & Roseart colored pencils**

Example of my coloring

Portai · Newb Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 19

My advice is to start out light. Put your lightest color on first, and put less pressure on the pencil where you want to blend. Then start adding layers, and you can go a little bit darker each time. But never stop at a harsh line, always fade out in the place you want the next color to start so that it blends the right way.

Stratadrake · Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2005 7:32 pm Post subject:

I know this one! W00t!

I use Crayolas too.

The first step is to choose two or three shades of the general shade you want to achieve -- a light shade, and a darker shade.

For example, grab a piece of spare paper, along with sky blue, blue, and purple. These are excellent color choices for blue surfaces such as snow or ice.

For now, let's try a ball.

1 - First, draw a simple shape (like a circle) lightly with the sky blue. Then fill in the whole thing lightly (don't press very hard on the paper, go easy!) with the same color. You can go over the area once or multiple times, just don't apply much pressure to the paper.
2 - Now, take the regular blue and shade around the inside edge of the circle (not in the center, but about halfway from the edges to it). Notice how it mixes with the sky blue? Again, light pressure on the paper (or slightly more than you used for step 1), and continue shading around the inside edges.
3 - Lastly, take the purple (which easily works as a "dark blue"), and shade around the insides of the edges, but not so far inwards as lastly. Press it against the paper harder so that the purple will go in deeper. It mixes with the blue tones to make a darker shade of blue-purple.
4 - Finally, grab your sky blue pencil again and go over the entire shape with sky blue, about light pressure in the center, heavier pressure around the edges. This will keep too much color from settling in to the center of the ball, and will help the other shades settle in more around the edges; they'll mix better, and produce a more vibrant overall color tone.
5 - You should end up with a circular shape that has a light color in the center and gets darker towards the edges, making it appear rounded, like a ball. Voil! You've just mixed a range of blues.

Try it again with other colors. Here's a few mixes you can try (I list the colors in order of center/brightest to edges/darkest ):

Yellow mix: Yellow, yellow-orange (optional), and orange.
Red mix: Red-orange and red.
Purple mix: Magenta (a "warm" shade) and purple.
Green mix: Yellow-green, jade green, green.
Orange mix: Golden yellow, orange, red-orange.

White mix: Gray, and any of tan (for a yellowish white), light blue (for a blueish white), pink (for a reddish white), or any other subdued ("pastel") tone.
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LexLuthorsVictimNJustAFriend · Has No Life Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Posts: 509

Thank you so much you guys. Strata I will try technique right away. Thank you!!!

mevv · Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 10:09 am Post subject:

That's about the same thing I do too. I've also found if you want to have color pencils look realy neat a lot of force is needed to get rid of all the white spots. If done correctly the hole thing looks smooth and the colors match better.

This is an example of what I'm talking about.

Colored pencil picture
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CosmicDebris · Member Joined: 14 Mar 2006 Posts: 58

As a side note, if you use Prismacolors, there's a colorless blending pencil that helps in some cases, though you should not rely on it.
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anime-junkie · Posted: Fri May 05, 2006 5:09 am Post subject:

i think you can smudge it with your fingers, or you can buy water colour pencils and blend it like that
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erisa_fullysick · Member Joined: 12 Apr 2006 Posts: 89

Sometimes I use my fingers but I use a white pencil usually.
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