GREY-SCALE COLOURING by Guest Blogger Xenia E. Zilli

GREY-SCALE COLOURING 

Some points to keep in mind:

When coloring over grey-scale the grey serves as your guide. Darkness or lightness of the grey tells you how dark or light a colour to use and where to apply it. Simply put light colours over light greys, dark colours over dark greys, and medium colours in between to seamlessly blend light and dark.

1. Shades and highlights of a grey-scale image should show through your colours – so use light to medium pressure ONLY !
2. Apply your dark colours lightly to begin with. It’s easy to keep making them darker but it’s not very easy to lighten them.
3. Even if a part of your uncoloured picture seems extremely dark you can and should still go over it with a dark colour. It will make it pop and really help bring your image to life.
4. When colouring an object – you can use lighter shade of the same colour group on the light areas, and darker shade of the same colour group on the dark areas. You can use more than 2 shades of the same colour group and then blend them at the end.
5. You can start by doing your lights and then your darks, or darks first, then lights. Either way is fine and you’ll likely switch back and forth a lot as you find spots you want to touch up along the way.
6. When you apply your medium colours don’t be afraid to colour right over your already applied lights and darks (e.g. if you are coloring fur or leaves) so that you manage to nicely blend everything. You will find that the lights and darks show through your medium colours. It’s not to say that you should cover everything with your medium colour but instead that it’s ok if there is overlap where needed as it will help with the blending and the detail will not be lost.
7. Markers are not suitable for grey-scale. You can use gel pens only for some tiny accents here and there. Your main tool should be soft core coloured pencils and any blending tool such as gamsol, vaseline and/or blender pencil.

It doesn’t have to be perfect. You will be amazed by how helpful the grey-scale is not only in guiding you but also in enhancing your final picture.

Happy Colouring !

Xenia Z.

You can find Xenia’s coloring books on the following links : 

Amazon Author Page –https://www.amazon.com/Xenia-E.-Zilli/e/B01LYEFUI2

web site: http://xenia-zilli.wixsite.com/colouring-pages

FB artist page: https://www.facebook.com/xenia.elizabeth.zilli.ART/

Coloring Group on FB: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ImaginativeColouring.XeniaZilli

*photo pictured