Creating Colored Pencil Textures
Tips for Adding Texture in Your Drawings
You don't have to just draw when using colored pencils. By learning some simple techniques you can create a variety of textures in your colored pencil drawings.
Besides being inexpensive and portable, colored pencils are unique because they can render not only a drawn look, but also a painted appearance. This is done by experimenting with various techniques used to create texture in your drawings.
Methods to Create Texture
- Paper surface – Your paper’s texture is a key factor in creating texture in your colored pencil drawings. The toothier your paper, the rougher the surface. For a smooth texture, choose hot pressed paper. Scratchboard and drafting film also render a soft appearance. On the other hand, if you want a graded look, choose cold pressed paper as it’s rough texture affords “hills and valleys” leaving tiny flickers of white space.
- Cross hatching – Using lines and marks, crossing and cross-hatching build texture. First, do a layer of hatching marks and then go over them with cross-hatching. Hatch at right angles, using both fine hatching and coarse strokes. Work with similar colors as well as complementary ones, overlaying multiple layers for greater depth.
- Surface distressing – Surface distressing is manipulating your paper surface to create impressed lines. For example, let’s say you want to depict a thin vine. To accomplish this you make an impressed line, (an indentation on your paper that prevents color from falling into it). Take tracing paper and a sharp pencil (or light colored pencil). Then draw the line. Lifting the tracing paper, shade over the impressed line with a colored pencil and you have your vine. You don’t have to leave your impressed lines blank as you can easily color the them with a light color.
- Layering – Layering is done by drawing layers of color on top of one another, using light pressure and small circular strokes.
- Spot layering – Spot layering is using bits of color for an enhanced transformation of a colored area. By using spot layering, you can cut down on your drawing time, as you don’t do have to do continuous layering
- Juxtaposed colors – Using juxtaposed colors is positioning blocks of color side by side instead of overlaying them. You can layer colors, after using this technique. However, the spot layering technique that doesn’t require much layering. The “magic” happens when you arrange similar colors next to one another, creating texture. Well-known colored pencil artist Pat Borgeson is a master of this technique, which she explains in her book, “Colored Pencil Fast Techniques.”
- Burnishing - Burnishing is excellent for rending a shiny effect, as in depicting metal. The technique known as burnishing is simply layering and blending colored pencils on top of one another, covering every part of the surface. To burnish begin with your lighter colors. This is so you won’t drag darker colors from adjacent areas. Then layer lighter colors on darker ones, repeating the procedure until the surface is about two-thirds covered with pigment (with only a small bit of the paper surface visible.) Next, using a white or light colored pencil, apply heavy pressure to burnish (or blend) the layers of colors together. Repeat the process until your paper is completely saturated with pigment.
Study Colored Pencil Artists
Study the methods and works of prominent colored pencil artists. For example, Gary Greene in his book, “Creating Textures in Colored Pencil” demonstrates how to create just about any possible texture. His book is filled with examples on how to render drawings in everything from flowers, shiny metals, orange rinds, and weathered wood, to a child’s soft shin.
Practice the different techniques that create texture. Who knows. You just may invent a new texturing technique yourself that gives your colored pencil drawings a realistic rendering.
The copyright of the article Creating Colored Pencil Textures in Drawing is owned by Venice Kichura. Permission to republish Creating Colored Pencil Textures must be granted by the author in writing.
