If you’re new to coloring or even if you’ve been coloring for years, these five tips can help take your coloring pages from good to great!
#1 Learn How to Blend your Colors
Many colorists start out simply choosing a color they like and filling in the spaces on their page. One space, one color.
But after a while they see other artist’s pages on social media and think, “why are their pages so pretty and mine are kind of, ‘meh’”?
Look closely and you will see how they are probably blending colors. Which sounds more complicated than it needs to be.
Look at the sample below. In Step 1, I simply laid down a pretty pink for the front petals and a medium pink for the ones behind. In the second step, I used darker shades of each color to give it dimension. In Step 3, I used an even deeper shade of the same color to really make it stand out. And finally, I did the same with the center of the flower.
Practice this technique on some of your older pictures and watch how your pictures come to life!
#2 Plan Your Palette
No need to use every color in your box on every page. Some of the most striking pictures can be achieved with limiting the number of colors you use.
You can even challenge yourself to try a page using say, all blues or pinks, or only yellow and purple. You can achieve amazing results by limiting your choices.
#3 A Little Art Appreciation Goes a Long Way
Pay attention to the art you like, whether it’s at your local big box store, a fancy museum, or on your own wall.
What colors did the artist choose? How did they handle contrast? Did they use texture or patterns to create marks?
Studying how they did it and thinking about why you are attracted to it will help you employ new techniques to improve your coloring.
#4 Contrast is King!
Using contrast in your pictures is the easiest way to improve their look. Sometimes, you finish a whole picture and although it’s okay, it might seem a little flat and not very exciting.
Well, adding contrast is what brings the party to your pages!
Contrast is the difference between two elements in a picture. The use of contrast adds drama to a picture. It’s dark against light, smooth next to texture, strong colors next to pastel.
Achieving it is easy. Just make sure you have a variety of light, mid-tone, and dark colors in your pictures. If you feel like your picture is “flat”, go back over some of the colors with a deeper tone of the same color to increase the interest and drama in your picture. See the difference in the two pictures below?
You can also flip through this book to see all the wonderful pages to color. Just click here!
#5 When You Can, Improve your Coloring Materials
It’s usually true that quality supplies often bring better results. For most things— although I have yet to tell the difference between store brand and name brand peanut butter!
But with art supplies I have found that to be true. However, if you don’t have the top brand of colored pencils, that does not mean that you cannot create amazing pictures!
Use what you have, enjoy the process and when you can, move to better supplies—but trust me, the generic peanut butter is fine!