Blending Techniques

Guide to Coloring ~ Dry & Wet Blending

Awhile back I did a post on how to blend colors in the most basic way. Today I'll be sharing some bit more stepped up ways to blend. As I got further into the chapter on blending, it talked about 4-5 more ways to blend your colors on a drawing or piece.

There are many techniques that help utilize your blending and allow it to appear smooth and neat! One type is called dry blending. Dry blending basically means what it says, it is where you do not use any wet or liquid forms to blend your colors instead you would use a tool or item that is different that what you used to color with (Couch 72). There can be many tools that can be used for dry blending, like paper towels or tissues and colorless blending pencils.

For my dry blending I decided to use a paper towel. "This technique is best used with colored pencils...it can produce smooth, even, clean-looking surface in your coloring and can often remove the visible pencil strokes that pencil blending sometimes leaves on..." (Couch 72).  Blunt blending is one of the most simplest techniques in the dry blending category. It turns your drawings into nice finished picture that turn out really clean and beautiful.           

  

First I drew a basic picture, if you
can't tell its the top of an umbrella.
Then you color in the picture staring
with the darker color on the outer side
and work your way down with lighter
colors. It can be messy!

Here is the final result as you can
see by comparing this to the first
picture the colors are much more
blended out and smoothed together.
You can not see many of the
marks from the coloring before!

The blunt blending was done within a minute, all you need to do is get a paper towel and rub all over the colors you want to blend one at a time on your picture. Make sure to apply some pressure for better results. In the end you get a very nice subtle effect.











In addition to dry blending, there is another way to blend called wet blending. Just as the name suggests, wet blending is done with some sort of liquid. Before beginning a good tip is to make sure you have a thick enough paper for wet blending because sometimes the liquid may bleed through (Couch 73). Wet blending tools include water, rubbing alcohol and colorless blending markers. If you are new and do not have many tools i always suggest going with the easiest tool available, like water, which I will be using.

When using water it is called Water blending. "Depending on the color medium you are using, something as simple as water and a stiff paintbrush may work best for wet blending...coloring tools such as crayons or wax-based colored pencils wont work with water" (Couch 73). When doing water blending, waxed colors are not the best ones to use, you should go with watercolor pencils and water-based markers or even pastels at times for best results.

First start by coloring your picture,
again use darker on the outer and
lighter on the inner. Does not have
to be nice coloring. Just start by
placing colors at a certain part.

Next you can use a Q-tip and dip
it into water or rubbing alcohol.
Then gently start blending your
colors by area. Increase pressure
and add more water if needed to
get the effect that you want. Repeat
this process to other areas of colors
you want to blend.

Here is the finished picture! I went
back and blended the center as well.
The colors all blended nicely and
mixed well. You can still see how
 it goes from darker to light but
 in a more toned and mixed way.

As you can see there are many more ways to blend your colors on your drawings. These two methods required some extra tools that can be easily found around your house. Simple blending where you just use two colors is really nice and easy, but these pick it up and show other unique blending styles. Even though they may take a bit more time, the outcome is worth it!

Do you think the two color transition blend is much nicer or do you think the wet and dry blending give a picture more depth?

Do you know any other ways to blend your colors?

Couch, Peg. New Guide to Coloring for Crafts, Adult Coloring Books, and Other Coloristas!: Tips, Tricks, and      Techniques for All Skill Levels! Fox Chapel Pub Co Inc, 2016.

Patterning

Guide to Coloring ~ Patterning

A great thing for beginners to make their drawings more intricate and advanced is simply by adding unique and even basic designs to your drawing. This task can seem daunting but in fact it is really quite simple. Patterning involves the use of different shapes and lines to add some nice details to areas of coloring design, all patterns no matter how complicated are made up of basic lines, dots and shapes (Couch 52). If you can draw a square, circle and curvy/wavy lines, you can pattern! Basically whatever shape you can think of can be turned into a pattern.

A pattern in the most basic form would just be a shape or design repeated over and over. It is how you put the pieces together and all the different variations you incorporate that allow unique simple patterns to become diverse advanced ones, all by using simple shapes and ideas. Some examples of basic patterns are...

Mandala templates are very good when working with patterning. "Mandalas in particular are great for patterning because you can repeat patterns in symmetrical areas easily and create a very cohesive, polished final piece without a ton of planning" (Couch 57).  Basically Mandalas are simple drawings like a bird or plant that have already started out with simple basic outlines of the thing being drawn but with plenty of blank space and this is where you would draw all your patterns to make the basic picture much more intricate. I had many examples of Mandala templates in my book, but of course you can always search some up and copy and sketch those down. For example here is mine...

As you can see the picture on the left, I started off with a flower and worked my way outwards by just adding more flower layers. This is the main base aka the Mandala template because it has so much blank spots left for me to add in more design and patterns.

On the picture on the right is where I added some basic curves, lines dots and some squiggles. As you can see the basic flower has become much more detailed and makes the drawing seem much more advanced.

Here is the final result. I am very satisfied with the outcome! I always lacked patience but patterning did not really take up as much time as I thought it would and the best part is that it is quite simple and anyone can do it! As always you can add color to bring the piece to life, but I wanted to focus more on the patterning part for today.

Have you ever tried any forms of patterning? Do you think basic patterns give a piece more attention or does it make it more sloppy? 

Couch, Peg. New Guide to Coloring for Crafts, Adult Coloring Books, and Other Coloristas!: Tips, Tricks, and      Techniques for All Skill Levels! Fox Chapel Pub Co Inc, 2016.

Shading and Shadowing

Guide to Coloring ~ Shading and Shadowing

I have always enjoyed looking at others drawings and pieces of art. Many have unique and interesting pieces due to all the different techniques and the varieties of their style. I'm not the best creative person when it comes to coloring or drawing. I've always wanted to improve because art is very captivating. So this blog is where I'll share my tips and experiences for being better at drawing and coloring.

The more I read the book New Guide to Coloring by Peg Couch, I found that there are many easy tricks and tips to improve your drawings. One of the first things I am going to focus on is shading. It is something nice and simple. Shading is where you layer colors to darken an area to make an object appear three-dimensional, or in order to show that something is overlapping something else by adding a light source and shadows to your drawing (Couch 60). Shading gives the flat drawing a much more real 3-D perspective and it is a great and easy step to add to your coloring's to make it seem a bit more next level!

When shading you need to decide where to shade, by choosing to shade either inside or outside (known as underneath) your shape or drawing. You can even do a combination of both, which the drawing I have done happens to be. The key thing to remember is perspective. "Just be careful when combining the two that the dimensions make sense to the eye. If the light source is coming from the upper left of the shape, your shading would fall on the lower right of the shape. The same would be said for the shadow underneath or around the shape..." (Couoch 61). So always keep in mind that from whatever side the light is shining down on the object that your shading and shadowing match up, a good way to remember what side to shade is basically remember that the shading would fall on the opposite side of the light as the quote above had referred to.

The shading is a bit hard to see, but if you can tell the balls are both darker on the bottom left side. The ball on the left side shows the correct way of shading. It is the realistic shading- the shadow is cast opposite of the light source.
The ball on the right side is an example I drew of incorrect shading. It is non realistic- the light source does not match up with the shading and shadows.

As you can see the shading does give the flat shape more dimension. I am pleased at how it came out, but also can't wait to see other tips and techniques that will help me prove!

Do you agree that shading makes a drawing more realistic or do you think otherwise? Do you enjoy drawing in any specific way?

Couch, Peg. New Guide to Coloring for Crafts, Adult Coloring Books, and Other Coloristas!: Tips, Tricks, and      Techniques for All Skill Levels! Fox Chapel Pub Co Inc, 2016.