more pencil stuff!

I've had a few people ask about pencils that are not such great blenders, such as the Derwent Studio pencils, and apparently some newer Prismacolor Premiers. I threw this little sample together (stamp is by Impression Obsession - cute one, huh?!) to see if my theory worked and it seemed to, so here you go...

With the harder-leaded pencils, it seems to work best to lay down a light layer first and blend with odorless mineral spirits (OMS). Layers of color added after that will blend more willingly because the OMS is already applied.

You can see the difference between the two sample sets to the right - on the first set of 3, which I colored with a Derwent Studio pencil, I colored the full image lightly first, blended across the full image, then began shading. The second picture shows the blended base color plus added shading, and the third picture shows it all blended.

When I colored with the Prismacolor pencil, I was able to start by putting color where I wanted my darkest shading to be and pull it to the center, then go back to add more shading. Again, the first step shows my initial shading, the second step shows what the first step looks like after blending, with some shading added. The final step is lightly blending the shading.

OK! Hope that helps! If still you have questions about pencils or coloring, I'm happy to answer - just leave me a comment or pop me an email.

Cheers!