Coloring with Prismacolor Pencils

Hello stampers.. and welcome to my first tutorial. Because so many of you have so kindly asked and left me so many wonderful comments, I’ll be showing you how I use Prisma and Lyra pencils to color my images.

For this tutorial, I’m using an image from Mo’s Digital Pencil. This type of sketch is ideal for coloring, blending, and shading.

I printed this image onto Neenah Classic Crest Solar White, 80# weight paper. Sometimes I use the same manufacturer’s white linen cardstock which gives a textured look to the coloring, but it’s entirely up to you.

To get the most out of this tutorial, why don’t you grab this image and follow along… that will give you a really good feel for what I do when I’m coloring.



Supplies you will need:





An image for coloring



Gamsol (or odorless mineral spirits, aka OMS)



Tortillons and/or blending stumps (see this link for more information http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortillon)



Sanford’s Prismacolor Pencils (these are wax-based pencils.. watercolor pencils will not work with this technique) or Lyra Polycolor pencils.



Lyra Skin Tones Polycolor pencils.





oh… and a glass of wine (makes the blending go smoothly!!)





It’s important to determine the direction of your light source when coloring an image. In this image, I’ve decided that my light source is coming from the lower right-hand side… just about where the small pumpkin is on the right.



Begin by lightly coloring pumpkins using various shades of orange. Notice that I made the pumpkins on the left a bit darker by simply loading more of the color I used on that one. I did that because it’s farthest away from the light source. Then, take a sip of wine.



For the pumpkins, I’ve used the following Prisma pencils:


Orange PC918


Vermillion Clair PC921


Orange Mineral PC1033


Pumpkin Orange PC1032


Crimson Red PC924


Spanish Orange PC1003





and now I’ve blended them using a tortillion dipped in Gamsol. This may look ‘yellow’, but it’s just the quality of the photo.. the pumpkins are really done in different shades of orange as indicated above.







Here I’ve added color to his sweater, jeans, shoes, face and the pumpkin he’s holding.. I used Electric Blue PC1040 for his jeans, Limepeel, PC1005 for the sweater, Beige Sienna PC1080 for his sneakers and Lyra 93432 from their Skin Tone collection.





and then blended everything.





If you were to stop at this point you’d have a lovely picture.. but no depth.. Now the fun begins. I’ve now added another layer of color around the areas that will be darker and some Magenta to the tops of the stripes on his sweater.







and then blended them to remove any indication of pencil lines… then a sip of wine.









Now I’ve added a darker green (Moss Green PC1097) to some areas of the sweater on the left side, added deeper shades of orange and Carmine Red PC926 to areas of the pumpkins, and Denim Blue PC1101 to edges of the jeans.







I’ve added some blush to his cheeks and blended everything.






Did some more blending on his face after loading a bit more Peach PC939 on his cheeks.. and blended again.







This is just a lighter version of the photo above and also shows where I very lightly added some Chartreuse PC989 around the boy and pumpkins…







and then blended it moving away from the image.



The final image (better photo)

…here I’ve cropped the photo.





I have found that coloring with pencils can give me some of the best shading and highlighting. Even though I own about 300 Copic markers, I still elect to use this coloring technique for most of my coloring.





Some hints:

• Reserve a tortillon or blending stump for every color that you use.. one for light greens, one for dark greens, one for light skin tones, one for darker skin tones. It prevents bleeding of previous colors that might still be left on the stump. They are inexpensive and well worth having many on hand.

• Hold the blending tortillons on an angle – about 15 degrees or so when blending so you are using the side of the stump, not the point.

• Don’t over-sharpen pencils.. I prefer not to have a sharp point to lay color. The pencils have very soft lead and will tend to break if you over-sharpen.

• Don’t forget that ‘white’ is a color… and leaving some areas white or VERY light help to create depth in your work.

• Remember that there are many shades of a color that you can create…for example.. pumpkins range from medium/dark yellow shades to dark orange-red shades.. so use colors to lighten and darken your work. For example.. use some dark yellows in the pumpkin in the lighter areas… and lay bits of red for the darkest areas. Don’t forget to blend out the pencil lines.

I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial. For me, coloring is a fantastic stress reducer, a great focal point for your card-making projects and very satisfying when it comes out right!!

Once you try this method of coloring I would love to hear about the comments you get on your work, so please drop me a line. If you need more information just let me know.

Enjoy your day…. make sure to have a few laughs along the way, and be safe in all you do.