How to Create a Gradient with Coloured Pencils

Hello everyone! Today I want to show you a technique I use all the time when I'm colouring, creating a gradient. The colouring book featured in this post is actually a calendar: Colour Yourself happy 2017-month to view calendar. This was illustrated by Heartfelt Illustrations (whose Facebook page you can see here). I have been enjoying creating gradients on the names of the month that are nestled amongst illustrations of nature. Anyway, I hope that you find this simple tutorial helful either for colouring or creating your own art!

Step 1: Apply your first Colour from the top:

In my case, I used a yellow coloured pencil for this stage. Take into consideration the size of your shape/letter that you're colouring and think where half way down the shape/letter is. This is where you will stop using this colour. Above this mid-point, split the section into 3. The top section is where you'll apply the most pressure with your pencil. The second section down is where you'll apply a middle pressure, not full pressure, but not the lightest pressure. The last section is where you'll apply the least pressure. You can clearly see the difference in tone in each section at this stage, but they'll blend together in later stages.

Step 2: Apply your second colour from the bottom:

Now that you've finished applying your first colour, you should be left with the bottom half of your shape/letter. You should split this into 3 sections as before. However, this time you apply the most pressure at the bottom and the least pressure at the top. It's basically the opposite of what you did before and in a different colour. So the section at the bottom is where you apply the most pressure, the section that is second to the bottom is where you'll apply the middle pressure and the section at the top is where you'll apply the least pressure. Make it so the areas where you've applied the least pressure with both colours are just touching slightly.

Step 3: Apply an 'in-between colour':

An 'in-between colour' is a colour that is a mix of the two colours you've just used. I used peach because it seemed like it would blend pink and yellow together well. This stage is a bit more difficult to explain so stick with me here. Apply the most pressure half way up where you've applied the least pressure with the first colour and half way down where you applied the least pressure with the second colour. Then apply a middle pressure from where you are right now to half way up where you applied the middle pressure with your first colour and half way down where you applied the middle pressure with your second colour. Finally, apply the least pressure from where you are right now half way up where you applied the most pressure with your first colour and half way down where you applied the most pressure with your second colour.

Step 4: Blend :

You might not be able to see much difference between the last photo and this one (apart from the labels) but that's because I've not added any new colours. I've just blended the shape/letter. You can use several things to do this stage: a blending pencil, a blending stump or a white pencil. There's probably a few more methods but those are just the ones I've tried. In this case, I used a white pencil since I can't find my blending pencil and I don't like blending stumps very much hehe. Just evenly use the blending tool/white pencil over the shape/letter, you may want to use circular motions  for this. Also, you may want to add a little more pressure in the middle of the shape/letter but it's up to you.

So that's how I create two colour gradients! I know I technically used 3 colours but it's a gradient from yellow to pink and you're not meant to see the peach as a third colour, it's only there to help you to create a smooth gradient. I hope that you could understand my tutorial and you found it helpful!

PS: If you want to see the blog series I wrote a while ago called 'Colouring Quest' here is the first part, here is the second part and here is the third part. Or you could just click the Colouring label that is listed on the right side of my blog to see all of my colouring themed posts.

Over to you...
Do you have any colouring tips? Share them in the comments. Also, what is your favourite medium ton colour with? Mine is Prismacolor pencils (by the way in this tutorial I used Prismacolor premier: canary yellow PC916, blush pink PC928, light peach PC939 and the white pencil PC938).

Why I'm Doing a Month-Long Colouring Challenge

During October I did a month long art challenge called Inktober which really helped me to improve my inking skills so this December I decided to do something similar. I decided to do a month long colouring challenge where I aim to colour in a whole colouring book before Christmas Day. It's proved to be very difficult but I think that I'm really benefiting from the challenge so I thought I'd share the idea with you in this post.
The reason I thought of this idea was because I saw the colouring book called 'Colour Yourself Advent Christmas Countdown' that was drawn by Heartfelt Illustrations (see the Facebook profile on this link). The book inspired me because it seemed that there was a page for every day of the month so I decided to colour one page every day. Unfortunately December is a very busy month so I haven't done one page per day but have tried my best to get close to that target. I used my Prismacolour pencils and gel pens o colour all of the pages and it's been really useful for me. This page was for the 1st of Decemeber and was a snowman. I learnt a lot from this first page because looking back I can see that I went a little overboard on the snowflake details so on future pages I didn't draw anything onto the backgrounds.

 One of the main things that I have improved on during this challenge is blending without blending tools. Normally, I would sue a colourless blender pencil or a blending stump to help me to create a smooth gradient. However, during this challenge I decided not to use any blending tools. This has meant that each page takes about double the time than usual, but now I have really improved my blending skills. I've found lots of ways to blend properly now such as: using a white pencil, using varied pressure on my pencils, building up tone gradually, etc. I struggled on the first few days to go without blending tools but after a while it got easier.

 By the time I coloured page five, I had got very behind on the daily schedule. I had to start catching up with colouring fast. I'm still actually behind by nine pages. I think that doing colouring almost every day has helped me with my working speed. I struggle with time management so I try my best to do organisation and time limits, etc but doing month-long challenges has proved to be the most effective method to help me with time management. I've never produced more art or colouring than during Inktober and the colouring challenge this month,

Another reason that I've done this challenge is not only to improve my colouring, but for fun too. I love Christmas so a Christmas themed colouring book is perfect for me. Colouring in festive art every day is great because it gets me excited for Christmas. There's only 5 days until Christmas now! Can you believe it? Christmas is my favourite time of year so I try my best to make it last. I love chocolate advent calendars but this colouring one is really unique. It's been great counting down the days until Christmas with this because it's something a little different and keeps me busy all the time. I've only shown you photos of some of the pages but half of them have activities on them which inspire me.

 I'm looking forward to next December too because I can display my advent calendar once it's finished. This year I haven't displayed it because I would have had to take it up and down to switch between colouring and displaying it. I think it's great that with this book you can use it as a colouring book and a calendar because I can look back next year and see how my colour application has changed. Maybe I'll even colour another one next year to compare them-who knows? It's nice to look back on old art or colouring or anything because it shows that with practise I can improve my skills and techniques. It keeps me motivated to carry on even if I aren't happy with my current skill. If you're an artist,colourer(I'm not sure what it's called),etc  then I recommend that you look back at old art or colouring to keep you going.

 Overall this challenge has been difficult but worth it. Every time I do a month-long challenge, it's very tiring for me but when reflecting back on it I feel proud of what I've achieved. I know that some people just think colouring is a hobby, but for me colouring helps me to improve colour application for my own art. That's why I feel like doing this challenge is a real achievement because I'll be able to see a difference in my own art next year. Hopefully next time I do a month-long challenge I'll have time to do it every day as planned. Maybe it would be wise not to choose December for my month-long challenge next time! It's a busy time of year so doing this has been a little stressful. I've loved building up the colouring book though and seeing what I can do when I really push myself. I hope that I've inspired you to do a month-long challenge whether you use an official one like Inktober or come up with your own like I have this month!

That's all for this week's post. Sorry that I missed last week but as you can see from this post I've been very busy recently. I've noticed that although I set a schedule of posting every week, I keep missing a post. Therefore, I think that in the new year I might make a few changes to the schedule and my blog so that it's less stressful for me. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed seeing my colouring pages and hearing about this challenge.

Over to you...

Have you ever done a month-long challenge? Tell me about it in the comments. Do you enjoy colouring, any tips? Also, what are you doing for Christmas? I'd love to know.

Colouring Quest Part 3:Coloured Pages

It's time for another installment of 'Colouring Quest'! I've been looking forward to sharing my finished colouring pages for a while now so I'm super excited to share some today! I haven't started to colour in all of my colouring books yet so I may write several blog posts in this series showing you more of my colouring! Let me know what books from the first post you particularly want to see me colour in! Okay let's get started!

 This was the first detailed colouring page I completed! It's the first page in the Day of the Dead colouring book drawn by Thaneeya McArdle. The colouring on this page isn't as complex as ones I have coloured in more recently but I really enjoyed colouring this in. I coloured this before getting my prismacolour pencils or blending pencils. What I did use was sharpies, bic colouring pencils and stabilo felt tips. The sharpies brought a vibrant colour but I can't use them in colouring books that are printed double sided. The Day of the Dead book isn't printed double sided though, it has lineart on one side and a quote on the other side so I can use pens in this book! I really enjoyed working on gradients in this picture. I definitely have developed colour application skills after discovering adult colouring! What I need to work on now is using watercolours, I guess I'll get better at that when I use the 1960s fahsion colouring book!

 This second colouring page is also from the Day of the Dead colouring book by Thaneeya McArdle. I loved using different tones in the hair, I think it created a really great effect. I used the same materials as I did on the last page in this book. I think the metallic bronze coloured sharpie made this page really stand out! My favourite part of the colouring of this page (apart from the hair) is the lips. The delicate red to write gradient looks very effective in my opinion because it looks like the lips are shiny. Although in this book you can use whatever colour you want anyway, I still feel that I am much better at coming up with colour schemes now than I was when colouring in this book. The tips in the front of this book were really helpful. I recommend that you should take a look at one of Thaneeya McArdle's books because there's an introduction section at the front of every book with tips on how to use colour and there's examples of fully coloured pages to inspire you. It's really useful to know your way around the colour wheel if you're interested in art!

 Moving onto another book now, here's some colouring from Lost Ocean by Johanna Basford! This isn't from a colouring page in the book but is a design front the dust cover flap! I only used gel pens for this because the white spaces were very narrow as you can see. Also, the gel pens give a fluorescent effect and really contrast with the black background which I think looks great! I have started to colour some actual pages but haven't finished them yet. The thing about just using gel pens is that they are quick and easy to use for fine details whereas using coloured pencils takes a lot longer, especially for me, because I like to create gradients and smooth blending with them. But once I've finished pictures with prismacolour pencils, they have a great impact! I love the Lost Ocean book but lots of the lineart in this book is extremely detailed so difficult to colour and will obviously take a while. I'll try to finish some of the pictures I started in this book for you guys to see when I next share finished colouring pages!

 Now I'll move onto the Secret Garden colouring book by Johanna Basford. Out of all the books I have, this is probably the one I use the most. When I got this book, I was starting to colour more often and then from that point on I kept getting more colouring books! I love this lineart of a well. It was really nice to colour a little bit each day until it was done! I think it would look better with a background but I haven't learned how to make backgrounds with pastels yet. When I do I'll let you know! If I learn would you like to see a tutorial/tips? I used primacolours for most of the colouring on this page but I also use gel pens for a few small details! This page has lots of colours in, I'm not sure if it would look better with a colour scheme like some other pages I've coloured!


The next page from Secret Garden was this page. It isn't entirely finished (I was meant to colour the watering can in with silver before taking the picture) but it's pretty much done. As you can see, it has a very limited colour scheme of all the shades of blue and some silver details. I chose blue so that the foliage and flowers look like water flowing out of the watering can. I used prismacolour pencils and gel pens for this page! I prefer colouring in pages with more room in them for blending than this but I still enjoyed colouring this page too because it was nice to flow with the twirly lineart! It was a bit of a challenge for me to limit myself to just blue and silver for this page! Before colouring this page in, I was used to using any colour I liked!

The last piece of colouring I have to share with you today is also from Secret Garden. It is possibly my favourite picture from this blog post! It is a sunflower that I really enjoyed colouring in! The reason I love this one so much is because I used such warm, bright colours for the petals! I used red, orange and yellow in different shades to blend together. I think that I blended it really smoothly in this picture. I also like the leaves, to start off with I just used different shades of green to colour them in but then I added some yellow in the centre which I think really brought out the colour on the leaves and brought life to the picture! We get a bunch of flowers in my house every year on my birthday because when I was born my Dad brought my Mum a bunch of sunflowers. So I thought about that whilst colouring this! Again, I think that this would look better with a background. I might add backgrounds to some of the pictures I've already coloured in the future once I've learned how.


So I hope you've enjoyed seeing some of my coloured pages today and hearing a bit more about how I colour! Sorry that some of the photos are a little blurry, it was hard to focus because there was so much detail on some of these pages! I'd like to hear your opinion of my colouring so I can improve! To see all of the previous posts in the 'Colouring Quest' series click here to find the colouring label!

Let me know what you think in the comments and tell me what book you want me to start colouring next that I haven't featured in this post (A Whimsical Woodland, Vogue, 1960s fashion, Enchanted Forest)! I love reading all of your comments!

Colouring Quest Part 2: My Pencils, Pens & More

I have a confession to make...I am addicted to stationery! Whenever I go shopping I love to spend AGES in stationery shops such as Paperchase looking for cute bits and bobs for my desk or pencil case! Luckily for me (or not so luckily depending on how you see it) it's back to school season so I can find a whole new range of stationery! Since I like stationery, I have tons of pens and pencils so today I thought I would share the equipment I use for colouring and tell you a bit about how/why I use them. Let's get started!

The first thing I have to show you are the gel pens I use for details. Gel pens are fun to use every now and then because they bring a pop of vibrant colour (and maybe a bit of sparkle) to a picture that colouring pencils can't create. They're handy to use in the narrow spaces of lineart because sometimes no matter how sharp the pencil is, it still goes over the lines!  These gel pens are from 'The Works' but they're just generic gel ones that you could probably find in most shops.

 The next thing I have to show you are my Prismacolour pencils, these are probably what I use the most because they are great for blending and creating a variety of shades! Prismacolours are quite pricey but I believe that they are worth the extra money. They are shatter resistant, have a soft lead and the colours really stand out! This particular set (Prismacolor premier-48 pack) has a wide variety of colours and shades to use from. I have several coloured pencil sets and these are by far my favourites. You don't have to have expensive art supplies to colour really well though.

 Thirdly I want to show you my Stabilo coloured fineliners. I probably use these the least for colouring out of all the supplies because I tend to use the gel pens for details rather than these, but sometimes I like to add little finishing touches with these. There's a wide range of colours to use and are kept in a handy container. Although I don't use them as much for colouring, I do use them a lot for other things such as writing happy mail or making colourful doodles!

Last but not least, here are my blending tools! Here I have a Derwent blender pencil and some Royal & Langnickel blending stumps in varying sizes. These are SO useful because before i had blending tools, it took me absolutely ages to create a stunning gradient. But now, with these tools, although it still takes a little while it is so much faster to blend colours! In my opinion, the blender pencil is more effective than the blending stumps and slightly easier to control. However, you may think differently so if you're thinking of buying blending tools, I recommend that you try both. I've also heard that you can use baby oil to blend but I haven't tried it out yet.

So that's it for part 2 of 'Colouring Quest'! If you enjoyed it, make sure that you come back for the next part and follow my blog to keep up to date with new posts! If you're waiting to see my finished colouring pages don't fret! I'm still busy colouring! I'll be uploading some soon but whilst you wait, if you want to see sneak peaks of the colouring, follow this link!

Let me know in the comments what your favourite set of pencils/pens you have and what supplies you recommend for people who love to colour! 

Colouring Quest Part 1:My collection

Have you started colouring yet? It's been proved that colouring brings logic and creativity together to help develop our motor skills. It also helps with stress so is a great activity after a long day at school or work! I love colourng for many reasons, so I decided to start writing a new blog series called 'Colouring Quest'! In this brand new post I'll show you some of the colouring books from my collection! I have a wide variety of books ranging from nature books to fashion books. I hope you will enjoy exploring my collection in this colouring quest!

Firstly here's my 'Colour Yourself A Whimsical Woodland' illustrated by Heartfelt Illustrations. I find this colouring book interesting because once I have coloured all of the pages, I can display them all together  in a massive picture! This would be great to decorate my room with because it will show my colouring techniques! The paper is of very high quality so is lovely to colour on. Check out Heartfelt Illustrations facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/heartfeltillustrations/ !

Here's my 'Day of the Dead' colouring book. It is created by the artist Thaneeya McArdle. I became fascinated with Thaneeya McArdle's work when I studied her in school a while ago. The bright colours and busy patterns drew me in straight away! I love this book because it is full of culture. The Day of the Dead is a festival celebrated in Mexico where people remember loved ones that they have lost. It is often thought of as another version of Halloween but it is quite different. The festival is not meant to be scary like Halloween but instead a joyous occasion. This book is great for beginners because it has a small guide of how to colour in the first few pages showing how to use colour and even has fully coloured examples to inspire you. This colouring book is different from the rest of my books because I can choose whatever colour I want and it will still look fabulous! You can see Thaneeya McArdle's websire here: http://www.thaneeya.com/ .

The next book in my collection is the 'vogue' colouring book by Iain R Webb. I am excited about this book because I read vogue every month for inspiration for my fashion designs. Each picture in the book is based on a page from Vogue in the 50s. I love the 50s aspect of it because I love the feminine and elegant fashions of that era. There is a little nugget of information about each illustration which is interesting to read since it gives a better understanding of the picture. With this book, you even get to colour in your own front cover (differently to the original). I was pleased to see an introduction from the artist before exploring the pages because it is motivating to see someone successful talk about fashion.There's space on several of the illustrations to draw your own patterns onto the fabrics as well as adding colour so you can personalise the pictures. You can read more about thsi colouring book at: http://www.vogue.co.uk/news/2015/10/02/vogue-colouring-book-illustrations-release !

Next I'll be showing you another fashion themed colouring book called '1960s Fashion' created by the company PEPIN. I'm looking forward to experimenting with different medians for this book because it is created so that you can even use watercolours on it! Most colouring books aren't designed so that you can use paint but these illustrations are one-sided! I like how both of my fashion themed colouring books are from a particular era. It is useful for people interested in fashion design to have fashion colouring books because you can practice shading clothes to show the folds in the fabric! I like how there is a lot of space on each page because I can create backgrounds for the designs if I want or I could add to the illustrtion. There's endless possibilities with this colouring book (and the others) to be unique.

The last group of colouring books are called 'Secret Garden', 'Enchanted Forest' and 'Lost Ocean'. They're all by the Scottish illustrator Johanna Basford. If you know anything about adult colouring books, chances are you know Johanna Basford. She calls herself an ink evangelist because she draws everything by hand with fineliners. I hear that she draws her pictures much bigger than the final size so that it is easier for her to draw the immensely detailed pictures. What I love about her books is that they are a good mix of very detailed and slightly less detailed pictures. The reason I love this variety is because you can try out different techniques for each picture. For example in less detailed ones you can create stunning gradients whereas in the more detailed ones you can use fineliners and a good colour scheme to create an equally brilliant yet different effect. The paper n her books is of good quality but I reccommend still using coloured pencils for the original editions to avoid bleeding through pages. I love the little extras such as the pattern on the dust cover and front cover as well as the fold out pages that are sometimes included!

Well that's it for the first post in my new blogging series Colouring Quest! I hope you've enjoyed having a peek at my colouring book collection. Hopefully if you're looking for a new colouring book I have inspired you to choose one of my recommendations or have a good rummage online and in stationery shops for the perfect fit! In future posts I'll be sharing more colouring content such as my completed pages and my tips.

Tell me in the comments what you's like to see me write about colouring! What books do you have in your collection?