Walking in Wonderland - Colored Pencils Drawing Tips

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Materials: Chalk-pastel coloring pencils, Charcoal Black Medium, Charcoal Black Medium Dark
Strathmore Bristol 300, Charcoal Primo, uni-ball Signo

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Blending colored pencils

• Blending with layers should be the first method of blending you learn because it's the foundation for all other methods of blending, to get the best results with this kind of blending you want to control the amount of pressure on your pencil using no more pressure than what you could use to sign your name or take notes in class. alternate between your colors gradually. Creating a transition by layering each color over the other press too hard and you'll get harsh lines in your paper that will show up through the final drawing not press hard enough and your colors will look faded and dull blending by layering is great for beginners.

• The second blending method I will be showing you is burnishing. It is a term that refers to adding so many layers in addition to pencil pressure that it causes a smooth glossy texture of color over the paper, it is simply the next evolution to layer it just like layering getting the best results requires control over your pencil pressure, the exception here is as you lay more and more of your color, you gradually apply more pressure with each subsequent layer the pencil will require more pressure to stick to the paper so only press as hard as you need to to get the color to show up. Burnishing will make your colored pencil work look more polished and professional, it requires more time than just layering, so stay patient, it makes smoother subjects look really nice so it's ideal for still life and portraits.

• The third is saturation burnishing this method of blending directly follows from standard burnishing with one specific difference. Instead of being using colors to burnish you choose a neutral color like gray or white to do the burnishing so once you warrant your colors together in the same way you've done for standard burnishing, you choose a neutral color to desaturate and smooth, you could choose white to lighten the overall blend or you could choose a variety of Gray's to pull out the color while maintaining a certain value level the shade you choose of course depends on the subject and color, you need to create this is simply a more advanced form of burnishing, not every color is available in pencils so you must learn how to control the saturation of your colors you have. This method of blending is perhaps the most crucial if you want to create a realistic color pencil work.

• The Fourth blending method is called tonal burnishing, it is virtually identical to saturation burnishing, the only difference with tonal burnishing is you choose a color as opposed to a neutral gray or white, after you've burnished your base colors together you take your toning color and use it to smooth everything together, generally you'll be choosing a lighter color and something that resembles your base colors however, you aren't limited to just doing that I recommend experimenting with different color combinations to see what kind of effects you can get. It's ideal for landscapes and sceneries.

• The final blending method I will be showing you is to use brush and pencils powder blender this method of blending will most likely be there too many of you it also requires a few extra supplies, in particular, the brush and pencil powder blender and ACP textured fixative. Unlike the other methods, you have to work on very specific paper textures using oil-based pencils. Apply a small amount of powder blender then gently layer your pencils and to blend use a sponge brush once you've done that in order to continue building layers you have to spray and work with the ACP textured fixative once it's dry you repeat this process over and over until you've reached your desired level of coverage in color. The the best part about this technique allows you to blend very large areas extremely fast. The final outcome will look more like an oil painting.

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