Thank you for joining me again for another colourful start to the week! If you’re just joining us you may want to check out the previous Marker Geek Monday posts HERE.

Today’s post will be the last pencil related one for a little while. My markers are starting to sulk! If pencils are your thing though, don’t worry, I will be mixing things up again soon. 😉

As promised last week, today I am exploring a more budget-friendly option for colouring with pencils. Perhaps you’re just starting out (or know someone who is) and want to try out the medium before making a larger investment, or perhaps you want a cheaper option for colouring on the go when travelling etc, or like me you have a problem with collecting colouring mediums. This post is for you!

Like me, many of you probably grew up with the Crayola brand. Coloured pencils, crayons, markers, novelty stamping markers etc. If you have children, they probably have a pack or two in their art supplies. It is easy to dismiss them as “for kids” and as such “limited”. Fact is, you can achieve some great results with cheap art supplies. It is definitely nice to have the expensive professional quality stuff, and there are definite advantages, but for colouring stamped images you can get a lot of mileage out of cheaper brands. Don’t feel that because you can’t or don’t want to afford the high end supplies that you can’t have fun or create beautiful coloured images. You can.

In the first example I limited myself to using colours from the 24 pack of Crayola coloured pencils. You can pick these up for around £3 to £5 here in the UK, and from a quick look on Amazon around $5 in the US. In the second and third examples I used pencils from the 50 pack.

I used Zest-It Pencil Blend as a solvent to blend together with blending stumps. Zest-It is an alternative to odourless mineral spirits like Gamsol.

Petunia and the Cool Chicks look pretty good, right? You can see how they look in Prismacolor and Polychromos pencils in last week’s post. The stamp is called “Nice to See You Petunia” and is available along with more Petunia Pig stamps and other adorable creatures in the Woodsies range at Stamping Bella. The “Cool Chicks” have their own section in the store, although they are becoming known for popping up all over the place to make us laugh.

As much as I love my more expensive art supplies, I think it’s also great to try and work with cheaper and more readily available alternatives (it’s also a fun challenge). The fact is, people receiving your cards aren’t likely to notice the difference, and they won’t care that you spent $5 to $10 on pencils rather than $200. The pencils don’t make the magic, you do!

MWAH!

~Elaineabella

Thank you for joining me again for another colourful start to the week! If you missed my first pencil related post last week, make sure you check it out HERE to see some tips on using your coloured pencils together with alcohol based markers.

Today I’ve got a little 2-for-1: Stamping Bella’s adorable and fun Nice to See You Petunia stamp coloured using two different popular coloured pencil brands. I chose this image so you would get some colour combo ideas for both Petunia Pig and the Cool Chicks (they honestly pop up everywhere, getting into mischief) whether you’re a Prismacolor or Polychromos lover! You can find this stamp in the Woodsies section on the Stamping Bella website, along with more Petunia Pig images and some other A.D.O.R.A.B.L.E animals.

If you’re a devoted Copic user you may want to refer to the following posts for colour combos:

• Copic Marker Combos for Petunia Pig
• Copic Marker Combos for Cool Chicks

Prismacolor Pencils Vs Polychromos Pencils

The main difference between the two brands is that Prismacolor pencils are wax based and Polychromos pencils are oil based. Polychromos pencils will not build up a wax bloom and so can be layered more than the Prismacolors. This is probably more evident if you are colouring larger detailed pieces with lots of layering.

As I mentioned in last week’s post, my first attempts in the wonderful world of colouring were made with Prismacolor pencils. I was gifted a full set around nine years ago, and I still have that same set (ditching them for markers does increase the lifespan of your pencils significantly 😉 ). They are great pencils, and I have loved them, except for one thing: breakage. I often feel like I only have to look at them the wrong way and the leads break. Sharpening them has always been an exercise in anger management, and I gather from reading various forum threads and blog posts in recent years that the problems have increased due to what appears to be poor quality control.

Faber-Castell’s Polychromos pencils do not have similarly brittle leads. They are easily sharpened to a very fine point and they hold the point well (obviously if you are very heavy handed, you will break the point on any pencil). This is one advantage that is great for stampers, as we often work in small detail areas. The glasses on the chicks in today’s image would be a good example. Overall the Polychromos are my personal preference and are the pencils I reach for most often.

To keep the images as similar as possible for comparison purposes I used Zest-It Pencil Blend as a solvent on both images, however my general preference when working with the Polychromos pencils is to colour purely with the pencils, using them to blend rather than solvent and blending stumps. This is also very achievable with the Prismacolor pencils, but because of the points mentioned above, I don’t enjoy the process nearly as much.

Join me next week for a fun look at colouring with pencils on a budget. You may be surprised at the results!

MWAH!

~Elaineabella

So many of you have requested info on working with pencils, that although markers are my personal “go to” medium I’m doing my best to create some pencil related content for you! I do love using coloured pencils, and in fact many moons ago they were my first love for colouring stamps. I’m quite enjoying getting reacquainted, so although I am not ready to hang up my marker bag watch out for some fun coloured pencil posts here and there.

In this first pencil related post I’m showing you one way to mix your pencils and markers to get great results for your coloured images. I have used one of the most popular pencil brands – Prismacolor – which were the pencils I started with years ago (I still have the same set) together with my Copic markers. NOTE: any alcohol based markers will work for this.

As you can see, because the marker base allowed me to concentrate on shading and detail colouring with the pencils I was able to get some deeper, more vibrant colours overall. In the first example, I was reaching the limit in terms of being able to layer with my pencils, because I had to work fairly hard to get a nice base coverage to work from, this resulted in a less vibrant look.

Using markers as a base for pencil work can reduce the time it takes to colour an image like this with larger open areas for colouring.

When working with Prismacolor pencils I tend to use Zest-It Pencil Blend with paper stumps to blend. This is an alternative to odourless mineral spirits such as Gamsol.

My preferred paper for pencil work varies, but when using a solvent to blend I use a fairly smooth paper like the Winsor & Newton Smooth Surface Cartridge pad (100lb/220gsm) or a Bristol Board. Basically, a fairly smooth surface with a little “tooth”. The more “tooth” or the rougher the paper, the more layers of coloured pencil you should be able to add.

When using alcohol markers purely as a base layer, it is better to prioritise your paper choice for pencil work. If you aren’t doing any marker blending, you don’t need a paper that works well for that but you will want one that takes pencil nicely. The papers mentioned above work really well for this. If you intended to use pencils to enhance or tidy up details on an image coloured mainly with markers, you would need to choose a paper that works well for marker blending.

I hope you have enjoyed this first look at incorporating pencils! Next week I will be showing a comparison of some different pencil brands, so watch this space…

MWAH!

~Elaineabella