Coloring book tutorial - Coloring

Now that we've covered the basics in part 1, it's time to put those techniques into practice. To refresh your memory, here is the image that we will be using as an example. A unicorn drawing from Lena Furberg's Måla Magiska Hästar - coloring book:

A unicorn coupled with some flowers, butterflies and a couple of humming birds.

Before putting pencil onto paper it's a good idea to look at the image for a while and think about a color scheme. Day or night? Cool or warm? With highly detailed images like this one it's also worth thinking about what color you want the flowers, the berries, the butterflies, the hummingbirds and the unicorn to be and how those colors relate to one another. If you keep repeating the same colors for different elements, your image will look dull and monochromatic. If you use random colors without any attention to color relations, things will look messy and unorganized. I don't keep a color wheel next to me when coloring but I do try to think about things like complementary colors. Color temperature is another thing to pay attention to. A cool red is a very different color than warm red.

I always find it the easiest to start with a flat color on the background. I consider this the most arduous part of the coloring process so it's good to get that out of the way when we're still full of energy. When starting out with a new image it's easy to feel impatient and wanting to turn it into a masterpiece ASAP. But it doesn't work that way.

Very basic, flat blue background added.

Here I have colored the background light blue. This took around 3-4 slowly and patiently colored layers. In order for a background to look as smooth as this, you need to be very patient when covering the paper. There is no way around it. If you put too much pressure on the pencil to try and make the color darker or you try to color the whole thing with random, hasty strokes you will get an ugly, uneven coverage and you won't be able to blend with cotton swabs.

Use a very light pressure and carefully cover the paper with circular strokes. Sharpen your pencil whenever you need to. The tip doesn't have to be super sharp since it can potentially scratch the paper but if it's too blunt, it might submit the pigment in blotches. Also, try to keep the pencil a bit tilted to cover the paper more quickly. If you keep your pencil in a writing position then you might scratch the paper and you will only be able to cover a very small area at a time.

Once you're done with a layer, blend it lightly with a cotton swab or a pad if you want even softer coverage. Again, don't rush. You need to cover the whole thing. Go over this process as many times as you need.

Powder blending: I use this method a lot for backgrounds like this. You can take an X-Facto knife and carefully and lightly scrape pigment from a pencil-lead onto the paper. Then blend that pigment with either a cotton swab or pad depending on the coverage you want. Here I used a cotton pad because I wanted the coverage to be as even as possible. I first used white pencil powder to even the color work. Then I used light blue powder to finalize the flat coloring and up the saturation a bit.

But OMG I'm butchering my dear pencils when doing this!

In a way, yes. However you can't worry like this when doing art. You bought your pencils to be used. They want to be used. Wasting my supplies is something I used to worry about but I eventually realized that I will not be able to produce good artwork by worrying about stuff like this. Once you're done with scraping the powder, just sharpen your pencil a bit and it will be OK again.

Now the leaves and the flower stalks.

Still working on the background, I moved onto the leaves and flower stalks. I was already throwing ideas about the colors I wanted to use for the different elements so I decided that I want the tree leaves to be a cooler color and the flower stalks to be a warmer color. So I used cool, bluish green on the leaves and a warm yellowish green on the flower stalks.

Again, use light pressure and circular movements to get soft, even coverage. This coverage took around 2-3 slow and patient layers.

Leaves and stalks after shading.

Here I have finalized the shading of the leaves and stalks. I started to darken the elements from where I wanted the shadows to be. I would use a combination of different greens, blues for the shaded areas and yellows for the lighter areas. Here the very first, basic layers are important because they can completely change the end color. I did use same colors for shading both elements to bring them together but even then the leaves resulted in a bluish green and the stalks in a yellowish green because the base layers shine through. Colored pencils are semi transparent. This is why the first layers are so important.

Usually with shading you should choose a light source and color accordingly. However I tend to kind of wing it with coloring book pages as they tend to be rather 2D. So I just go with the flow and try to add shadows where I think they might fit in.

Don't be afraid to go rather dark where you want the darkest areas to be. If you stop shading too early, you will end up with a dull, monochromatic look. Also, do not shade with only a darker shade of the color you're already using. It won't work like that. Try using blue shades for cool shadows and yellow shades for areas that are exposed to light. If you really want to play around and experiment, don't be afraid to use purples or reds or browns. Try to think about complimentary colors. Using a dark red on a blue shadow can really deepen the effect.

I actually use Dark Indigo and Payne's Gray a lot when shading the deepest shadows. But I never use those alone. I always try to shade them further with complimentary colors since by themselves they can look very dull.

I added a hint of brown to the branches on top since those would've looked a bit weird as green.

Once I start feeling happy about the end colors, I burnish things lightly with a white Luminance pencil to smoothen everything. I might have to go over some colors again since the white pencil lightens the colors.

Now it's time for the additional little elements.

Next I moved onto the extra background elements. I visioned the leaves and the berries on top as a cherry tree so I colored the berries cool red. I used purples and a bit of indigo for the shadows on the berries. For the flowers I went with the idea of a boreal vetch so I colored them purple. For the top flowers I used a color scheme from an earlier coloring book image and went with yellow and pinkish tones so they would stand out from the blue background.

With the flowers I was a bit more careful with the shading as flower petals don't really reflect light that much. Super shiny and shaded flowers would just look plain weird. It's always worth it to think about the object you're coloring and how it behaves with light. A shiny, waxy leaf looks completely different than a velvety flower petal.

Next I colored the butterflies. I actually had a bit of trouble with them. The moth on the left was a no-brainer but the other butterflies caused me some head-scratching. At first I colored two butterflies yellow (thinking about a common brimstone butterfly) and two butterflies orange with black accents (thinking about a small tortoiseshell butterfly). The last two butterflies were first colored with purple. But once I stepped back and looked at it, I wasn't impressed at all. It just looked off. So I erased as much color as I possibly could and re-colored them orange.

After this change the colors looked more unified and logical. Also the yellow and orange colors stand out from the blue background.

Again, with the butterflies, I didn't just use one single color. Instead I mixed the orange up with yellows and reds to give the colors some life in them. I used browns for their bodies and dark red for the eyes of the bigger butterflies.

Next I colored the hummingbirds using the male Anna's hummingbirds as a model.

At this point I also colored the unicorn's horn. After some consideration I decided to go with a yellowish brown/gold color. I was thinking about making the unicorn white at this point so I kind of felt like this would be a good idea and the golden tone also stood out well against the blue background. I used a combination of natural yellows (Naples Yellow and Yellow Ochre - range of Polychromos), some Green Gold, yellowish browns and purples for shading.

Golden, natural tones are a bit of a handful to color. If you use the 'real' yellow range, you can easily end up with a blinking neon sign. So I tend to reach out to Ochres and Naples Yellows whenever I color something like this. This is why it's so important to know your pencils and know at least some color theory. It helps to know how different colors behave and layer with each other. The Luminance - line also has some amazing light neutral tones and because the pencils are wax based, they burnish and blend at the same time when you use them.


As a last step I colored the bit of flower hanging from the unicorn's mane. Almost missed that one.

Now we can move on to the unicorn.

During the early stages I had the idea of a white unicorn. But as I kept moving on with the background I realized that a white unicorn with subtle shading would look rather boring. Also, I would've had only two choices with the mane:

Either a gold - toned mane that would fight for attention with the orange butterflies. Or a silver - toned mane that wouldn't have stood out from the light blue background.

So I browsed the internet for a while and I stumbled upon a grey dapple unicorn. I found an image of a unicorn with a golden horn, gray fur and a dark mane and I was sold. And so I was able to move on again.

I used cold greys as the undertones and kept darkening them up, adding some Payne's Grey and Indigo for the darkest shadows and then went over the grey tones with a pale blue (Ultramarine) and bluish Luminance greys (Silver and Steel) to give it a bit more lively tint. The problem with greys is that they are very very dull colors when used on their own. This applies to black as well. One should never use pure black or pure greys for shading because those colors are simply devoid of any life. But tinting them with pure colors like blue or red can make all the difference.

I colored the unicorn's eyes blue and the snout and ears pink because for some reason I do that every single time when coloring light colored horses☺

Moving on to the rest of the body.

Here you can see a perfect example of a fully tinted head compared to the body where I have only used the grey undertones. A huge difference, is it not? Here you can very blatantly see how incredibly dull the grey color is when used on it's own.

Blue tint added.

Here is the same step but with blue tinting added. See how much more lively the body looks now? For grey colors I like to use blues, purples, reds and browns to darken the colors depending on whether I'm working with cold or warm hues. Dark Indigo is great for the darkest cool shadows and a reddish purple or even Crimson Aubergine from the Luminance brand are great for the darkest warm shadows.

For coloring cool greys I tend to use Silver Grey and Steel Grey from the Luminance brand a lot. The pencils are wax based so they burnish at the same time when applying them so it's easier to get smooth gradients of color.

My Little Pony.

Next I start working on the mane. I knew I wanted it to be darker than the body but at the same time I didn't want to paint it all black because then the line work wouldn't have shown through and I would've made a mess. I also didn't want the mane to be blue - tinted because then everything would've been blue blue blue.

So I went with a purple undertone and decided to leave the lightest parts white. I don't have any professional tips for coloring hair. I just try to think about how hair layers and how my own hair reacts to sunlight. If I look at my own brown hair then the parts that are in shadow (closer to my neck and head or the parting of hair on the top) are very deep brown, maybe even closer to black in dim lighting but the parts of my hair that are in direct sunlight can look almost golden. Hair is generally a shiny material.

Moving on with the mane bit by bit.

So here I decided to leave the lightest parts white to put emphasis on shine and the mid tones are silvery purple. The purple tone does have a bit of a My Little Pony - effect but I didn't want to repeat the same colors over and over again. If you find that some colors are too saturated then you can easily tone them down by burnishing with white and adding more neutral colors on top. I also sometimes use Silver Grey from Luminance to tone things down as it has a grayish tone. I might also use Titanium Buff Luminance which has a very light yellowish tone. It largely depends on the end result that I want.

I kept working on the mane one part at a time. This way I could bring the strands of hair together a bit better. I used Dark Indigo, Payne's Grey and a wax based Caran D'Ache Pablo Slate Grey on the darkest parts to really push those shadowed areas. The difficult thing about colored pencils is that once you have a lot of layers down, it's very hard to darken the colors as the pigment simply won't stick.

This is why it's important to mix different colors and to be aware of the qualities of different pencils. Waxy pencils work far better for burnished layering and this is why I use them a lot in combination with my Polychromos. There's also the Caran D'Ache Full Blender Bright  - colorless blender stick that can be used to burnish and wax up colors but the stick is rather hard so it takes a lot of grinding which can hurt your wrist in the long run.

All done :)

Here I've finished the rest of the mane. I also finished the ears (almost forgot, heh). I did a bit of extra work on the horn as I found it too light and garish. Some work was done on the snout and insides of the ears as well as they were too light as well.

I also darkened the edges of the blue background to give it a vignette effect.This helps to direct the viewers eye more towards the center and the unicorn. I use this method rather often with pictures that have no particular background items. I've used it in my own art a lot as well. It's particularly effective with portraits like this as it puts more focus on things in the center of the painting.

You can really see the big impact of the vignette if you open up the picture menu and switch between the two last steps.

I always add a bit of fixative spray as a cherry on top. I've asked about this before and it seems that not that many people actually do it. But I find that the fixative I use deepens the colors so I've made it a habit of spraying my works with it.

So that's my process when working with coloring books. It's difficult to give a highly detailed tutorial on it without writing a book about it. The techniques are also hard to explain as it varies according to what the end result should be. With experience you learn when to use gentle cotton swab blending and when you should start to burnish and how much.

Here's a little checklist:

- Learn about your pencils as much as possible. Their colors and characteristics. Are they oil based or wax based? What colors layer well and which ones not so well?

- Don't limit yourself to one set of pencils. It's always worth it to get complimentary pencils. I chose the Luminance range and a few Pablo pencils from Caran D'Ache as they are wax based. I love my 120 set of Polychromos but they simply don't work as well for burnishing as the wax based pencils do. The white Luminance pencil in particular has allowed me to really push my layering work thanks to it's ability to blend colors.

- Learn about pencil pressure and strokes. They make all the difference. Start very lightly and patiently and start to increase pressure as you move on. Also consider the different materials you are coloring. A fruit might have a glossy surface but tree bark does not. Soft cotton swab layering works far better for tree bark but a glossy fruit is practically screaming for bright burnishing! Powder blending works well for backgrounds.

- Don't shade with just one color. Using a darker shade of a color to try and depict shadows will result in a very dull and artificial look. Colors are not made out of one single pigment.

- Learn about color theory and try to think about things like complementary colors or analogous colors. Play around with them when deciding on a color theme.

- Try to think about a light source. Depicting your elements with light tones, mid tones and dark tones will make all the difference and make the image come to life.


As an ending note I do have to say that coloring books are mainly about relaxation. You color them the way you feel most comfortable with. If you want to color all the colors of a rainbow without even giving a thought to realism then do so! I'm a perfectionist and I compete against myself (and sadly, often against others as well) all the time. I get pleasure out of success and truth be told, I might not always enjoy the process. It's hard work. So it's important to remember to just have fun with it and play!