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For this drawing I wanted my colors to smoothly flow from yellow to almost red and from light blue to dark blue almost black.
I first tried blending the colors with a piece of toilet paper and got this sketch.
Pillar of community 1st sketch
You can’t see it very well in the scan but there is a light yellow orange haze on top of the pillar. Using a piece of toilet paper works fine when you want to mix a few colors but it didn’t work for this drawing.
The problem is that the paper very quickly gets dirty. I tried first blending the lighter parts and then moving on to the darker parts but I still got toilet paper with to much pigment on it which was transferred to the drawing.
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I did a little research on the Internet and found that there are several blending techniques.
One technique I found myself a few weeks ago. I used it in Blending colors (Art: Sunset 1 sketch). It is possible to use a light colored pencil to blend a darker pigment. A light green or yellow on top of a darker green (or blue) works very nice. While researching I found that this technique is called burnishing. Apparently it works especially nice if you use a colorless blending pencil.
It took me a while before I realized that they meant the white pencil in my pencil box. If you have it, you can also use a blank crayon.
I came across a website where someone talked about using some kind of metal for blending colors. And one website advised using different grains of paper.
I didn’t have any crayons so I had to go to my local art show to buy some. The art shop didn’t have any crayons and advised to go to a toys shop. They did have crayons in lots of colors except blank.
What the art shop did have was something called a “blender”. That’s kind of a brush only where the hairy bit usually goes sits a rubber tip. Apparently it’s specifically made for blending.
For the next test I used medium grain 175 grams paper and soft grain 180 grams paper.
I tried all three techniques at ones.
Starting with the blender which work a little better then toilet paper. Although it did get pigment transferred, you can control it better then with the toilet paper.
Then I tried a metal (spoon). I can’t say that the spoon really did something. I had the feeling that the metal made the drawing a little glassy but I’m not sure.
Pressing hard on the white pencil, starting at the yellow end and working to the darker end did have a very definite result. Not only did it give the drawing a glassy feel but it also gave the colors to flowing feeling I was looking for.
After trying the technique with the yellow orange part I decided that I liked the one on soft grain the best. I don’t know if that had anything to do with the grain or with the way I used the different techniques.
Pillar of community
Hack
When you’re working on more complicate drawings, like this one, you often find that you need to try a color or a new technique. You could take a sheet of drawing paper but usually that would be a waste since you only need a corner.
I’ve solved this by cutting a sheet of (A4) drawing paper in 8 pieces. This way every time I want to try something I can use a little piece of paper.
Being able to experiment is especially useful when you’re doing a drawing with a lot of varying colors like my sketch Cliffside that I will be posting in a few days.
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Jason Chan is trying to marry his western art education with his love for eastern art. On his site he has extensive gallery of his work
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