Tips for Using Ink or Gel Pens Over Colored Pencils as Details

Coloringpagesfortoddlers.com – After burnishing it is difficult to add more layers of colored pencils. Burnishing is when you apply your pencils hard and push the colors onto the paper. However, with wax-based colored pencils like Prismacolor Premiers (this may also work with oil-based pencils, just haven’t tested that yet!) you can use ink or gel pens to add colors & details on top.

When you apply ink or gel pen on top of colored pencil the ink will not dry that fast unlike when you apply it to fresh paper. Since it doesn’t dry very fast you have the opportunity to smudge it with your finger or blend it with a paintbrush.

Examples of this technique:

• In the tulips above there are lines that gives texture to the petals. This ink pen applied on top of the colored pencil then blended with a paintbrush so that the lines will not stand out too much.
• In the peony below, white ink pen was used to outline the edges and smudged a little on the tip of the leaves to give it a good blend. This compliments the light on the edges of the leaves. A brown gel pen was used on the petals to give a more dramatic effect and to help them pop out more!

Tips come from the talented artist: Jones Flores.