Toothed paper
Coloured pencil drawings are characterized by a certain delicacy, softness and clarity, due to the effect of the grain of the paper. Unless you press hard with the pencil, the pigment particles catch only on the raised tooth of the paper, leaving the indents untouched; these tiny flecks of white paper reflect light, and this lends translucency to the colours.
Light hatching
Coloured pencils produce a translucent effect that allows you to layer coloured marks to create subtle tones and hues. Here, the figure’s solidity is achieved through lightly hatched lines. The illumination is suggested by highlights, using the white paper.
Making the paper work
Sarah Donaldson
Seated Nude
Coloured pencil on paper
42 × 30cm (16¾ × 12in)
As with watercolours, the secret is to make the white of the paper work for you. Rather than applying dense layers of colour – which quickly makes the surface greasy and unworkable, preventing any further build-up of colour – deepen the colour by degrees, allowing plenty of white paper to show through the lines.
Building up colour
In many ways, coloured pencils work like watercolours. When they are used on white paper, the marks they make are transparent or semi-transparent, which means you can put down one colour on top of another, building up hues, tones and intensities until you achieve the result you want.
Maintaining the best point
Using the natural backwards-and-forwards motion of the arm, work speedily, fractionally rotating the shaft of the pencil in your fingers from time to time, to find the best shading edge and to make the tip flatter or sharper as required.
SEE ALSO
| WATER-SOLUBLE COLOURED PENCILS | These offer all the advantages of coloured pencils, but include a water-soluble ingredient in the lead, so that it is possible to thin out their colour into a transparent wash. |
Using water-soluble pencils
Colour applied dry
Dissolved with wet watercolour brush
Dissolved with wet sponge
Dissolved with wet finger
Dry point on wet paper
Point dipped in water, on dry paper
Combined with other materials
You can apply the colour dry, as you would with an ordinary coloured pencil, and you can also use a wet watercolour brush, a wet sponge, or even a wet finger, to loosen the pigment particles and create a subtle watercolour effect. When the washes have dried, you can then add further colour and linear detail, using the pencils dry. If you dampen the paper first, the marks made by the pencil will bleed slightly and produce broad, soft lines.
This facility for producing tightly controlled work and loose washes makes water-soluble pencils a flexible medium, and they are very appropriate for rendering natural subjects. They are often used in combination with watercolours, felt-tipped pens, pencil or pen and ink.
Techniques
Apply the colours with light, hatched strokes, then use a soft brush, rinsed regularly in clean water, to gently blend the strokes and produce a smooth texture. This can take a little practice, as too much water will flood the paint surface and make it blotchy, while insufficient water will prevent the colours from blending well; the ideal result resembles a watercolour wash. Heavy pencil strokes will persist and show through the wash.
Textures
Interesting textures can be created by building up the picture with multiple layers of dry pigment and water-dissolved colour. When adding dry colour over a dissolved base, however, the paper must first be completely dry; if it is still damp, it will moisten the pencil point and produce a blurred line, and the paper may even tear.
Coloured and water-soluble pencils
These pencils offer a surprisingly varied range of techniques and effects.
Anna Wood
Tomatoes
Water-soluble pencil on paper
50 × 35cm (20 × 14in)
Anna Wood uses water-soluble crayons – which are thicker and juicier than pencils – which suit her spontaneous way of working. Suggestions of form, texture and space emerge from the accidental marks left as the colour washes spread and dry.
David Suff
The History Garden (Twa Corbies)
Coloured pencil on paper
90 × 90cm (36 × 36in)
The astonishing detail and beautiful texture in David Suff’s drawing below are built up painstakingly with tiny strokes, applied layer on layer.
Michael Stiff
Detail, Greek-Thomson Church, Glasgow
Coloured pencil and pastel on paper
25 × 20cm (10 × 8in)
Michael Stiff’s