As you all probably know by now, I love my pastel pencils. I decided to do a little (very little) experiment to see how they would work for adding shading over my Tombow brush markers. First I tangled on an official Zentangle tile (3 1/2 inches square). I added color where I wanted it, using the markers. Now I could have shaded with the markers also, either by adding more layers of the same color, or using a darker color, but I have never had great luck with having those layers blend nicely into each other. So I tried my pastel pencils. Wherever you detect shading, that's the pencils. Unfortunately, as I blended them with my smudger (tortillon), the paper had some shredding and pilling going on. And I did not need to rub hard at all to do the blending. So I wasn't too happy with that, but I actually think it turned out pretty good, and you can't really notice the shredding. Since the Tombows are water based, I did wait a couple of hours before shading....maybe I should have waited even longer.
I decided to try another one, this time on watercolor paper to see if that would work any better. I cut a square, this one 4 inches, from 90 lb. Canson watercolor paper. I should have rounded the corners before taking my photo, but forgot...the squares I cut on my own always look classier with rounded corners. In the same manner as before, I colored my tangled design with Tombows, gave it a while to dry, and added the shading with the pencils. This time there was no pilling or shredding. Maybe I waited longer before shading? But I think it was because this paper is better meant to handle the watercolor.
Would I use my pastel pencils to shade over Tombows again? Definitely! But I will remember to do it on watercolor paper.
Awesome experiment, thanks for sharing. I love using chalks and pastels, too because they blend so nicely.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jodi. They do blend very nicely, that's why I love them.
DeleteThese look great. For the shading, did you choose a pencil that was a couple shades darker than your marker color?? Did you try to see what would happen if you used a lighter pencil color (highlights??)
ReplyDeleteThanks JoLene. I used either a color that was very similar or slightly darker for the shading. Even when the color was pretty much the same, the different texture of the pencils made it look shaded. I did not try highlighting, but that's a great suggestion and I will definitely try that next time.
Deletethese look great. love the colors. i may need to give this a try :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Alice. I'd love to see what you do if you try it.
DeleteCaren, you have probably answered this somewhere, but would you please tell me the brand of pastel pencils you use. I haven't heard of them before - I like pastels but find the thick shape a little difficult to control. Really like the look you have been able to achieve; like you, I find shading with Tombows quite difficult.
ReplyDeleteI have a set of 24 General's pastel pencils. As far as I know that's as many as they make...they come as a set of 12 also. I added a few Stabilo CarbOthello pencils, but I may like the General's better. I haven't used the Stabilos enough yet to know for sure. There are also some other brands of pastel pencils out there that I haven't tried.
DeleteThanks for the information - I am going to try some!
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