Once you master the art of blending, you can choose more interesting color combinations to make your designs more unique and attractive.
Here are some tips to help you achieve smooth blending:
-
Use soft pencils. The pigment in these pencils flows more easily onto the paper, which means you don’t have to press as hard to apply the color to the page. Soft pencils are generally of higher quality than dollar store items. Our favorites are Prismacolor Premiers and Fabercastell Polychromos.
-
Use a light hand. Use light pressure and build up layers to achieve a smooth transition between colors. Then increase the pressure if you want to once you start creating layers. Remember, it’s always easier to apply color than to remove it!
-
be patient. To achieve the best combination, you will have to apply layers of color to gradually increase the intensity, which will take time and patience.
-
Try using the color wheel to help you choose colors that complement each other when mixed together. Different shades of the same color (such as light green and dark green) and adjacent colors on the color wheel create excellent color gradations.
polishing
Anti-aliasing is a blending technique that applies intense pressure to a page so that the colors intensify and cover the entire page. This technique creates rich, vibrant colors and can add an extra “cool” factor to your design. The goal of sanding is to apply so much pressure to the page that color pigments are pushed into all the corners and crevices of the paper with no white left on the page.
Sanding is usually done after several layers of color have been applied to the page and as a final step in coloring. This is because when you press hard, the paper flattens and becomes softer, making it more difficult for you to precipitate additional color pigments.
To polish, select your polish color and tap the page as much as you can, working in up and down strokes to push the color into all the cracks on the page. You will notice that the paper underneath becomes softer as the polishing continues.