Coloring Tips

None of this is required — colouring outside every convention is entirely valid. But if you want a finished page to look more deliberate, these are the techniques that pay off fastest.

Work light to dark

It is easy to darken an area and nearly impossible to lighten one. Lay down the lightest tone first across the whole shape, then build depth in layers. Two light passes look better than one heavy one, and they leave you room to change your mind.

Pick a small palette

Three or four colours plus their lighter and darker versions will almost always look more considered than fifteen unrelated ones. If a page feels chaotic, it is usually the number of hues rather than the quality of the colouring.

Decide where the light comes from

Choose one direction and keep it. Shade the far side of every object and leave the near side lighter. This single habit does more to make a flat page look three-dimensional than any blending technique.

Do not colour every space

Leaving some areas white gives the eye somewhere to rest and makes the coloured parts read as deliberate. A page where every millimetre is filled often looks busier, not richer.

Blending, briefly

• Pencils — overlap two colours in the middle and press harder with the lighter one to fuse them.
• Markers — work while the ink is still wet; once it dries the edge is permanent.
• Either — a colourless blender does the job more easily than technique alone, if you have one.

Test first

Print a second copy of any page you care about and use it to test your colour choices. It costs one sheet of paper and removes the anxiety from the real one.