3 Hacks For Drawing With Coloured Pencils

Posted by Instapainting on August 30th, 2018

There is so much more to coloured pencils than just doing simple photo to painting. In this article we share with you some interesting techniques while using coloured pencils. It won’t take you a lot of time to master them but yes, lots of practise - definitely! You will learn how to add the right kind of textures, light and effects on your drawings.

• Layering

Layering helps to not just give good shades to a drawing but also helps to create bright colours. For example, imagine you have used only one colour on one side of the sketch, say, green, adding some more bright colours to it such as purple or blue will give a realistic touch to it. Otherwise the space could look lifeless and dull. Layering colours prevents the drawing from looking flat.

• Pressure On The Pencil

The kind of pressure you apply on the pencil, whether it is heavy or light, can create a huge impact on the overall drawing. If you are using light pressure on the drawing the colours will look subtle and light, while if the pressure is heavy the colours will look bolder and dark. The hues that will be created through heavier pressure on the pencil will also be saturated.

A lot of artists who use coloured pencil prefer to use lighter pressure on the pencil to create a good base in order to make layerings of the colours. In case you want to use heavy pressure, it becomes difficult to add more layers of colours on an already dark shade. To add to that, lighter shades makes it easier to correct any kind of error.

• Create Marks

The kind of marks you create on the drawing has a direct effect on the end results of the drawing. There are as such three common marking methods for drawing: 

1. Smooth Filling

Imagine you have a big space and you want to quickly fill it up with smooth colours, this technique helps. You can make thin strokes of lines by not scribbling on the space but creating carefully made light coloured lines.

2. Smooth Scrumbling

If you are looking to create textures with lines on a space, this technique helps. This technique uses small motions in circles that moves randomly on a certain pattern.

3. Strokes

Strokes help to add details to the drawing. Make sure that the strokes you make are delicate ones, which move from thick to thin.