MOST IMPORTANT TIP FOR BLENDING COLORED PENCIL

lots of people find that blending colored pencil is a real real challenge and it can be difficult to get really smooth results with colored pencil but in this video i want to go through an easy trick to ensure that you guys get really smooth shading with your colored pencils let's go through what this trick is okay so the question is how do you blend smoothly with colored pencils to show you this trick i've gone and added a layer of skin tone values to my paper going with vertical lines with circular motions as well but going vertically now the trick is when you blend out the color pencil and you add your final burnishing layer go in the opposite direction to the direction you initially added your first layers so when you add your final blending layer and you want to blend out the color pencil go in the opposite direction and as you can see you get a really nice smooth look compared to the first layers of color pencil when you want to glaze colors after that so if you blend out the color pencils but you want to add a bit more color to it make sure you're using the side of the pencil so that you don't ruin all of that beautiful smooth blending we already did and so i like to glaze pinks for blusher and stuff like that so why blend in the opposite direction does it really matter well as you can see i've added some streaky lines again my base layer and i'm firstly blending it in the opposite direction and then i'm going to go and blend it out vertically so in the same direction i applied the initial layer and as you will see the top layer where i go in the same direction really doesn't blend out that streaky initial lines that we created as much as the opposite direction does so when you blend in the opposite direction it really does soften everything out here is another example of when i did the same thing on the left i have blended using the opposite direction and on the right i have gone in the same direction as my initial layers of coloured pencil and the one where i go in the opposite direction is so much smoother so here's some tips for shading when you add your initial layers obviously i did mine very streaky then so you can see a lot of the difference between them but when i apply my initial layers of coloured pencil to the paper i don't actually apply that much pressure and i'm not that streaky with it you want to be very light-handed with your pencil you want to go in light layers and build it up don't go and just do it in one layer keep your pencils really really sharp that is so important what you don't want to do is vary the pressure so that you have some really dark lines as you can see here you want to keep everything very constant and consistent and i'm going to be going through more tips on that later also you don't want to hold your pencil right near the front because it's hard to then maintain a constant pressure you're more likely to get those streaky lines what you do want to do is hold your pencil a lot further back so that it helps you have less pressure on the pencil now this technique works really well with smooth paper i love the bristol strathmore 300 series paper it's so smooth and it allows you to get really nice blending without having to deal with all that white grainy look that you can get with some of the more textured colored pencils but all of the materials that i'm going to be using now are linked in the description all the colored pencils and all of that sort of stuff now that we've gone through the basics of this technique i want to go in a lot more depth on my techniques for blending out color pencils for my portraits because i do my blending for portraits a lot differently than i do blending for say animal portraits so these blending techniques that i'm talking about are great for portraits and anything that you want to get really smoothly if you do love creating portraits and colored pencils then i have got a whole course dedicated to helping you guys become really realistic and create photo realistic coloured pencil portraits you can use the code say 15 to get 15 off the course at checkout and i basically show all of my techniques that you need to know to create super realistic color pencil portraits i go through studies on how to draw an eye nose facial hair freckles skin i'd show you how to choose colors for skin how to draw hair i really take you through the process on how to tackle something like this and get realistic results so the link to that course will be in the description and remember use code save 15 for 15 off at checkout and you will be drawing realistically in no time now let's move on to an example of actually me using my techniques in an actual drawing so here i am doing an eye study of baby's eyes and as you can see on the left hand side the skin for the baby's eye around the baby's eye is really really smooth and i use this technique that i'm going to be talking about for this study the technique we're using is basically burnishing and burnishing is a technique that a lot of people know about a lot of people use it's a very common color pencil technique the important trick that i'm talking about here is blending in the opposite direction because a lot of people burnish and if you guys that aren't sure burnishing basically means you apply a lot of pressure to your pencil and applying the pressure to the pencil will help to blend and get really nice smooth colors but also it gets rid of all of the white grain of the paper and the main issue with it sometimes that people can find very difficult is that when you're applying a lot of pressure to the paper you're flattening out the two for the paper so that texture and that makes it very difficult to apply layers of color pencil on top once you've blended your final layer of color pencil because you've got rid of all of the two for the paper so there's nothing that the paper can grip onto for the new layers of pencil you want to add and this means that if you make mistakes it's very hard to go and maybe darken up an area and anything like that so you really need to think about the colors that you want to apply first and this brings me on to my first tip which is to build up the layers slowly and also start off with your initial layers having hardly any pressure on the pencil and then as you build up more and more layers you can apply more and more pressure as you're sure that you're getting to your final layers so don't go in on your first layer and burnish and apply maximum pressure to the actual paper unless you're sure that you want to get a block color for example when i did the pupil of the eye i went in with just black and i burnished that out straight away because i knew i didn't need to apply loads and loads of colors to that area but for example with the skin you know that you've got lots of different shades you've got your pink tones more orangey tones golden brown tones so you've got a lot of different colors that you need to get in there so it's important to build up those layers slowly and very lightly to start with until you're happy with the colors and then you can add that final layer over the top to blend it all together and the main reason that i want to do this video is to talk about going in the opposite direction because that is something that i think is a big makes a big difference to your final result lots of people can use the burnishing technique where you add a lot of pressure but you can get completely different results if you go in the same direction as you did with your initial layers then you're going to get more of a streaky look whereas if you go in the opposite direction then if you think about it you've got lines and streaky lines that you want to try and smooth out if you're going with that direction then you're not really going to blend and get rid of them you're just going in the same direction as them so they're still going to be visible whereas if you blend in the opposite direction you're smudging them out you're smudging those lines as you go in the opposite direction and so they're going to get less and less visible and also when you're burnishing even though you are blending in the opposite direction still go in circular motions with your pencil that will really help get a smooth look this baby eye study as well as two of the eye studies are available on my patreon as part of june's tutorial series so you can go and follow along with me in real time and learn all of my techniques as well as access over 200 real-time tutorials so link to that is also in the description anyway guys i hope you found that little trick useful let me know in the comments section did you find it helpful if you liked the video please give it a thumbs up and if you are new around here why not hit that subscribe button for future tip and tutorial videos but that is it from me and i'll see you in the next one bye everybody

Channel: Kirsty Partridge Art

Views: 3,240,345

Keywords: coloured pencil, blending coloured pencil, how to blend coloured pencils, how to blend colored pencil, how to colour, how to color with pencils, how to blend with coloured pencils, blending pencil, burnishing colored pencil, colored pencil, blending with prismacolor, blending, blending colored pencil, blending colored pencil for beginners, blend coloured pencil, coloured pencil blending techniques, coloured pencil tips, coloured pencil portrait, realistic portrait

Id: 5ucIphuuioA

Length: 8min 11sec (491 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 06 2018