hi, i'm cher kaufmann. i'm internationalartist and author of the artful mandala coloring book and the ancient alchemycoloring book, and today i'm going to give you some tips on blending basicsfor colored pencils. all right everyone, today we have a lotto cover, and so i'm going to go through about 12 different ways to do blendingin a pretty short period of time, so if you need to watch this video overagain, feel free to revisit any of these because i'm going to go through thempretty quickly so that you can get an overview of a lot of different ways thatartists do blending with pencils - but do
know that there are even more ways thanwhat i'm about to show you. so, keep exploring. keep expanding yourknowledge base. so, the first thing i'm going to show youhere is by using a single color, and what i say a single color means that we're justgoing to use just the single pencil - and i've done a base layer for all of myexamples here so that we can have something to get started with. byblending with a single color, you're going to do small circles. it works best if you have a sharp pencil,because the sharper the point, the more that the pigment can go intothe tooth of the paper -
meaning the surface texture of the paper -and the fastest way to create a blending technique is really to create a darkerand a lighter area of your color, and if you do small circles, you're more apt to keep the point pointedlonger than if you were to go in and just go straight down onto the tip. ifyou rotate your pencil, it will keep the tip sharper longer. and then as you moveout, you just lighten your touch, and let it just gently fade into the lighterareas. and that is the easiest way to create a blending technique by simplylayering a single color. okay,
so the second way is to start with abase color, which is the one that we've started out with here, and you move toone that's a little bit darker. you do the same technique where you dosmall circles. move in gentle fashion around the areathat you want to create a shaded or blended effect, and you really want totake your time. if you go too quickly, what happens is that people will have atendency to press hard, and then they will press down and create some damageto the tooth of the paper. and when the tooth of the papers intact, you'll be able tocreate more layers longer, meaning that, say for instance right now,
i wanted to go back and add anotherlayer of my lighter color. i can create a very different effect aslong as the tooth is intact on the paper - i can continue to add more layersbetween these two colors. rotating my pencil, keeping the tip of the pencil point.by rotating, it will keep it pointed longer, and i can use the pencilgetting into the tooth of the paper. so there's an example of just using twocolors. so what happens if i want to use more than two colors? well, i'm going to do the same thing. i'mgoing to create a very light layer, rotating my pencil... and i'm going to showyou this in real time, and really i'm
working a little faster than i might dofor my own work - just because i want to be able to showyou in kind of a quick fashion - but really, when you are connected to yourtools, which your pencils are, you really want to spend some time and allowingthem to lay the pigment down in a non rushed way. i'm going to use thesecond color back again. i just want to create sort of a softening between thesetwo layers by just adding that base color back again. small little circles, rotating my pencil,keeping the tip of it pointed by rotating it. now i'm going to add a thirdcolor.
so this third color is actually quitedifferent. it's kind of a - violet-blue is what it is in the prismacolorpencils - and i'm going to do a very light layer... small circles, rotating my pencil. it's going to create a different kind ofshadow effect. i'm gonna go back with my lighter pencil. i'm just going to be building layers,just gently over time, and as long as i do lighter layers and allow the pencilsto build on one another, it will gently fill in the tooth of the paper as longas my pencil is sharp. if my pencil is dull, it's just going to bethe surface, and it really won't
go into the layers of the tooth of thepaper. so i'm going to keep rotating my pencil... and just rotate which pencil i'm using,and that can create shaded areas, blended areas, shadowed areas. just be patient. don't add them toquickly, and you can see a big difference between the three. so, now there is a way - moving to a whitepencil. now a white pencil can actually help tofill in some of the areas of the tooth of the paper by just moving thepigment around. in other words, the white pencil is madewith the same binding agent as your
pigmented pencil, but i'm not addingreally any additional colors in this. i'm simply kind of smoothing it out. now, you might be able to notice thatthis is going to lighten it just a little bit, but you'll notice that thisis a little different than this area here, which was the single color. this is showing the tooth of the paperis still there - that white of the paper is here. the white of the paper is here as well,but there's something of a muted effect that's taking place. now, out of curiosity,i'm just going to see about adding a little bit more of my green.
now that mywhite is on there, it smoothed it out just a little bit. so when i go back, it's going to cover onthe surface a little bit differently. white can also be used to what they callburnish. burnish is when you're using a lot more pressure, and you're pushing thepigment down into the tooth of the paper, and it could - it's going to create a shine. that'sgoing to be your last thing that you do. you will not be able to build on yourtooth of your paper once you have done burnishing, so will be very mindful of the pressurethat you're using if you decide to use a
light color, like white, to just softenand smooth out areas. now over here, another option is that you can use anylight colored pencil that you have if you don't have a white, or if you want toadd something a little bit different, so here i'm going to use a pale sage color.and you'll notice it begins to fill in the tooth of the paper because it'smoving the pigment of that original base color as well as coloring it in justslightly, and it's going to create a smoothed out effect... and we're using thisjust to blend the areas without creating a dramatic color change like these twodid.
now just to show you, i'm going to comeover here and use this light one on one side here - just to show you how it cansmooth and soften an area - and i'm only going to do one side of this leaf here... and i'm doing small circles... and you may be able to notice that thisis showing the white of the paper just a little bit more - it's a littlerougher looking - this is beginning to smooth out. moving on: using a blender pencil. usingthe blender pencils going to look very
similar to the pencil that we have usedit has pigment. the difference between a blender pencil and a regular pencil isthat this has the binding agents that my pencil does but lacks the pigment, so ablender pencil can help to move the pigment around without adding any colorwhatsoever. this can be very helpful if you do notplan on adding any additional colors. it does the same effect as the whitepencil and a light colored pencil without adding any color... just sort ofsoftens and smoothes out. now, this blender pencil i'm going to move to thisone here, so that you can see what it looks like on half of the leaf.
i do the same thing as i do with mypencils where i do small circles because this is, in effect, a pencil, and i want to point to remain sharp enough to move the pigment into thetooth of the paper... and i rotate my pencil... move in small areas, littlecircles. okay, the next technique i'm going to showyou is using a blending stump. now blending stumps and tortillon are oftenfound in a package that looks like this. blending stumps are compressed paper, andtortilla ones are rolled paper. now, the blending stumps can be used bythemselves where they push the wax around because it's just a paper product,and it's just moving the wax around, and
you can work very similarly to ablending pencil. this is the one caution i have with theblending stumps: you might find that you are pressinghard enough to go into a burnishing effect, and damaging the tooth of thepaper, and not being able to add more layers because force or pressure mightbe something that you are unconsciously using to move to move the pigment around.so just keep that in mind that blending stumps are absolutely a - they're an option - and they create a softened effect. just be aware of the amount ofpressure that you're using
when you use a blending stump, and youcan go back over if the tooth is intact. you can continue to use, you know, morelayers, and go back, and use a blending stump to soften. i mean, it's certainly an option - let'sjust show you with a different layer here of a different color, what that looks like when it moves in. you can use it to soften the edges. now, one thing with a blending stump isthat you'll notice that it picked up the pigment here.
so, one of the things you'll need toconsider is: a piece of sandpaper. this is just a paper product, and soyou're just going to sharpen, basically, the blending step into it apoint once again, but it's the way of erasing the pigment on the blending stump,so that you can use it for any other color, because you don't want to addgreen to, say, a yellow, and it will sharpen it to another point again. okay: blending markers. i'm going to showyou two different kinds of blending markers. both of these have two different kindsof points.
this one here has a point that is moreof a nib, and this one is more of a brush tip end. this one has a small - it lookslike this. these are very similar - a small tip, and then this one here - thisone actually has a chisel tip this way, and this is great for large areas. so,this one is it is finesse, and i'm going to use it on this side here. what it does is that it melts the wax andallows things to be moved around, and softens and fills in the white spaces. sothis side here, we'll use the finesse. now here's the thing with this is thatyou're going to want to get a another piece of paper and just kind of rub andmake sure that any pigment that you
picked up on the end of your blendingmarker is off of it, and it will just run clear, and then you know it's cleaned out.it may get stained, but don't worry about that. if it's running clear on anotherpiece of paper, then it's good to go for the next blending. this one here is aprismacolor, and i'll just show you - you can see it's stained on the edge alittle bit - but it's clear, it's clean. so this is what it looks like on thisside, and you'll notice the effect is the same - just kind of melts the wax a littlebit and blends it together, and then i'll just come here make sure that i don't have anypigment left on my pen. there you go! see, all clear and it blends.
okay, now, the next two is when we start tomove into something a little bit different that people can get a littleintimidated by, but it's something that you can certainly play with. i'm going toshow you a technique using vaseline. now, if you use vaseline, you can useit with any pencil. it does not have to be a fancy pencil - it can be an inexpensive pencil - but this is how you use with vaseline is: you'll justtake your pencil, and you're going to dip in just a tiny little bit on the edge -and i put a base coat here on one side just so that you can see the differenceof what happens when i use vaseline - and this is the exact same pencil that iused on that base side.
you'll notice that it's immediately darker. what i have found is that thevaseline goes up higher onto the pigmented part of the pencil, and so whati have found is that if i really want to use more of that, i lay my pencil alittle bit flatter, and i'll use that whole area. it's real important that you continue toturn your pencil because what happens is that it is softening the wax of yourpencil, and you wanted to maintain sharpness, so you want to rotate it. you definitely can see a big difference here. now, when i'm done with this, i'mgoing to take a paper towel, and i'm going to get off all of the extravaseline.
otherwise, it's going to continue tosoften the wax on my pencil. so now just to show you a secondarycolor - i'll dip a little bit, and i got a littlebit of a vaseline here, and i'm going to put it in just right here on the edge,and you can see how it begins to blend and move together. i'm going to move my pencil aroundbecause it's already starting to create a divot just in that little tiny bit. i'm gonna take off the extra on my paper towel - just going to take off,clean off the pencil.
now, i'm going to go back in with thisfirst layer - but i'm not going to add any vaseline because really there is alittle bit left on the paper right there - and i just want to kind of fill in, andsmooth out, and move any of that pigment around. so you can see a big differencefrom that base color, and i can see already that just that little bit thatwas left on my paper has already started to soften this pencil a littlebit here. now, if you have concerns - if you'recoloring in a coloring book - if you have any concerns about thevaseline being left on there, you can always take - i'll show you here. i'm goingto use a clean edge. you can dab it - and
i'll show you - barely any came off, but ifyou have concerns, you can take a little bit of a paper towel and see if there'sany that the lifts up off that. there you go! and then what, really, whatyou're left with is really quite dry, and there's nothing that comes off here onmy fingers, anyway. so that's vaseline. the next one is using a solvent that ido not recommend if you're pregnant or nursing because it is a solvent. and thisis gamsol. and gamsol is an odorless, mineral spirits, and it's designed toclean brushes; it's designed to break things down in with the wax and thepigments. what's nice is that you can use it toyour advantage to move pigments around,
so i'm going to use a blending stump - just like we did earlier - and i havetaken a little bit of gamsol, and i put it in a glass jar - and this is just somecotton balls, just so that i have a little bit ofsomething in there that if it's spilled, it's not going to be spilling out allover the place. and i can just take... take the blending stump, and you'll noticethat it absorbed the gamsol right into it. i'm just going to cover that. with theblending stump, i'm just going to do small circles. i'mhelping to break down the pigment by doing small circles, and then i'm gentlymove it out towards the center. every
time i do a circle back into my pigment,i'm bringing a little bit more of that pigment out towards the center, and it'sgoing to create a a real soft vignette. in other words, it's going to go from darkerto lighter, and it's a wonderful way to create a very soft effect using only alittle bit of your pigment and have a highlight naturally show up. now, i can go back over if i wanted to with another color. it's helpful if youwait until the gamsol dries or else it's going to begin to break it down a littlebit. it dries very, very quickly. again, i'mjust using small little circles,
beginning to pull this out. if you're using different colors - nowthis is all in the green family, so i'm using the same blending stump - but sayi were to change to pink or something in the reds: i would use the other end ofthe blending stump, or get a different blending stump, and then if i needed touse this blending stump, i would go to the sandpaper, and i wouldremove the green, and then be able to have a clean edge, a clean sharp point, and beable to use it that way. so, there's a way to use gamsol. allright, moving on to our next technique is by using a gel pen.
now, i do have an entire video that doestalk about, and shows more in-depth, examples of using gel pen with pencil,and you're more than welcome to visit that, and i'll include a link so that youcan access that very quickly - but i do want to show - there's a lot of interestin gel pens. what i have found in my experiences thatgel pens work best if there's a little bit of pencil already on the paper. the reason is that the pencil that's onthe paper creates a wax base and allows the gel pen to move. so there is a way to create a blendingeffect - and i'll just put a little bit of
gel pen here - and this is what i call adry brush method where i just take a dry brush, and i just begin to move thosecolors by pushing the gel pen into the tooth of the paper, and itbegins to fill in all the white spaces. now what's really cool about this isthat this particular pen happens to be a glitter gel pen, which means that i amalso taking the glitter sparkle of the gel pen and moving it around withouthaving to fill the whole thing in. so if i were to take this page, and iwere to tilt it a little bit into the light, you'd be able to see more sparklesin the entire leaf. now for a wet gel pen technique, i'm going to clean mybrush here - just to show you. i have a
very thin, shallow container of waterhere, and i'm just making sure that i have a very clean brush for you. now, this is the way that i apply for awet technique. i'm going to do the same thing with the gel pen and just applyjust a little bit. i'm going to take this brush, dip it barely into the water, andit's really just the tip of the brush into the water. i'm not having it go swim. it's justreally on the very tip of it, and i'm going to blot out both sides of my brush. i want to damp brush, not a wet brush, andthat is the key.
if you have a wet brush, you're going tosaturate your paper way too quickly. it's going to create a mess. so the idea is that it's just barelydamp - you just want to be able to move the gel pen. now, this is going to create a little bitof a wetness. once it dries, you can go back over andadd more layers, but if you are using something that has a sparkle or gel ormetallic type look, you want this to be one of your last layers because if youare desiring that glitter effect, you want that to be the last layer that youhave on there. if you decide to go back
over, it's going to begin to, you know,cover that up a little bit, so you want to just be mindful of how you're usingthat. okay, i'm going to show a couple of realquick examples of how to use this on actual application when using a coloringpage. so the first is gamsol. and i'vealready dipped the blending stump into the solution, and you can see that it isabsorbed in - let me move this, cover that - and here i'm just going to do small circles. bring it towards the center. i'mgoing to do all of my oranges first because the pigment of the coloredpencil is going to absorb into my
blending stump, and since i have thepencil already down, i'm just going to go quickly using... the gamsol with the orange. small circles,moving it towards the center in light strokes. and since i'm going to do anapplication where these are going to blend a little bit closer together, i'mjust going to go straight into using my red, and when i move towards the center,i'm just going to lighten my pressure just a little bit. okay, so there's an application of thegamsol. now remember: if you want to use this over again, you can go to thesandpaper and scrub that off, and you can
have a brand-new stump ready to use. okay, the next is: we're going to use acolorless blender pen, and i'm going to use the small end since this is a fairlysmall area. i'm going to leave this one as justpencil, and i'm going to use the pen here on the pedal next to it, so you can seehow the softens and smoothes out color with the pen. remember that when youhave the blender pen, you want to go to a scratch piece of paper and just run itthrough until it's clear and it may be stained, but don't worry about that; if it runs clear,it's good to go for the next time around. next we're going to use a blendingpencil.
so this was the pen, and now we're goingto use a blending pencil here. i'm going to use small little circles, small littlecircles, all the way around, pushing the pigment into the tooth of the paper justto soften and smooth out those color variations from orange to yellow. thenext one we're going to do a dry application of the gel pen, so i'm going to put alittle bit of gel pen right here, and i'm gonna take a brush and immediately beginto move the gel. and i actually - i think i'm going to do alittle bit of wet application here, so i've just dipped my brush tip into some water.i'm going to dab out both sides, and i'm going to begin to pull a little bit ofthat gel pen.
okay. and the last we're going to do vaseline.now, you'll notice i don't have a space with the pencil already down because thevaseline works really well with the pencil itself, so we're going to do justa quick application of vaseline on the pencil itself. actually got quite a bitof vaseline on - more than i would normally apply. but i think i'm going to use that to ouradvantage. i want to put some of that extra vaselineright on the paper, i think, and then i'm going to use my yellow straight intothat vaseline. i'm going to wipe off the vaseline fromthe yellow and the orange, so that they
are clean again, and i'm going to get alittle bit of red down here. i'm using the vaseline that's alreadyexisting on the paper and not dipping back in because i actually grabbed quite abit when i dipped my first orange pencil in. examples from today were from theancient alchemy coloring book: celtic knots, mandalas, and sacred symbols,and if you enjoy looking at different kinds of symbols and coloring books, iinvite you to check out my first book the artful mandala coloring book:creative designs for fun and meditation. thanks for joining me! i'm cher kaufmann.until next time from the drawing desk, may you find more color in your day.
Coloring Book For Me And Mandala Apk