Student Open Forum

Increasing brightness and saturation of colored pencils

Increasing brightness and saturation of colored pencils

by Caroline Rushforth -
Number of replies: 3

Does anyone have suggestions for increasing the brightness and saturation of colored pencil illustrations? I noted in one of the demo videos we had they were using some kind of neutral colored pencil that seemed to magnify the intensity/saturation of the colors -does anyone know what that is or have you used it? I scanned the Rosa spp drawing I had done and it looks so pale, so as an experiment I took a photo on my phone, and increased the brightness and was able to get more of what I was hoping for, but it would be good to be able to produce this with my colored pencils!

Any thoughts/suggestions/ideas?

Thanks,

CarolineRosa spp. Colored Pencil

In reply to Caroline Rushforth

Increasing brightness and saturation of colored pencils

by Becky Congdon -

So are you using a colored paper? I think the brown/tan is draining the color. You could try an underlay of light white or bright blue for the bloom or maybe a light yellow for the leaves/stems before coloring them in. I have used colored papers for pencil drawings and it is interesting how it changes the pencil colors. Also, I would do a color swatch on scrap paper to test your colors.

Beautiful Rose!!

P.S. I use Stabilo’s Aquarellable 8052 white pencil. It is a nice true white.

 

In reply to Caroline Rushforth

Re: Increasing brightness and saturation of colored pencils

by Theresa Rideout -
It sounds like you are describing a burnishing pencil (the neutral pencil that intensifies colors).

I just learned about it during this class, it is a colorless wax pencil that you use to blend the layers of color. It crushes the tooth of the paper to remove the white specks, and smooshes the wax together, which blends and intensifies the colors (as best as I understand it!)

This is before burnishing:  

Colored pencil drawing of barrenwort

And this is after burnishing:
Blended colored pencil drawing of barrenwort
In reply to Theresa Rideout

Re: Increasing brightness and saturation of colored pencils

by Caroline Rushforth -
Thanks Theresa- I love both your leaves! And just before you wrote, I had gone back over one of the videos that showed the artist using one of those colorless wax pencils, so I have ordered one too, and am looking forward to trying it out. Thanks for sharing your art!