Crayon Tutorial Part 1

Hi!
I've been asked to explain step by step how I use normal kid's crayons to color in a stamped image in a "grown up" way. :-). It's really much the same technique as normal colored pencils. Below you will see the tool box:



Although there are 120 colors in this crayon box I am only using about 10 crayons to color in this image by Lili Of The Valley. I am going to be using "goo gone" as my blending solvent, but you could use baby oil instead with good success. I have cut a few squares of felt and put them in a sealable container with some goo gone to wet the felt. I will use this to dip my paper tortillions in when blending. (It's important to wipe your tortillion each time you switch colors on some scrap paper. Or you can use seperate tortillions for each color. I use one and clean it. )

For paper I am using a smooth grain white paper cardstock 110 lb weight.

*just a note: 'goo gone' is a cleaning product used to get chewing gum and crayons and other stickiness off things. You find it in the cleaning product aisle of a supermarket or drug store.

To begin!

I have used three colors to color in her face: peach, tan and cotton candy. I won't use her face as part of my tutorial as the colors are so light you won't get the full impact. But suffice it to say that I layed down a layer of the lightest color first. Peach. And used the tan for my shadows. I then blended with my 'googone' tortillion and added a bit more color. Have a look and you'll get the idea.

Okay!

So now we'll start on her jacket and shoes. I am doing them in green so it should show up just fine. I will be using three colors: asparagus, olive green and sepia.

Step 1:

Use your lightest color first. But don't color everything. Remeber that when light hits an object it renders it almost colorless. So we're going to leave some areas white to represent sunshine. In this image I am imagining that the sun is coming over her right shoulder. So it will cast it's ray almost diagonally across her clothing. So I am coloring the areas that the sun is not touching fully.

Get the idea? Now I will go in and grab my darker crayon and darken the shadow areas around the crook of her arm and where her jacket is pulling at the buttons. See below:

Now I am going to add a bit of sepia into the shadows over the green. Why sepia? Well this makes the colors more natural and also adds depth .(I do this with my pencil work as well) So hereI am using my blending tortillion with GG to blend all the colors together. I will next go in again with my crayons and added a bit more color where I think it might need it.

Have a look:

It's look ing good isn't it? I am now finished with the jacket and shoes.

In part2 we'll move on to her skirt and hair.