Adding Light Colored Pencil Over Dark

You may not know that I used to be a dedicated oil painter. I spent 40-plus years painting oil portraits of horses. So when I have the opportunity to share colored pencil help for an oil painter, I speak from experience.

A few weeks ago, I received a question about transitioning from oils to colored pencils from a reader who is now making that same transition. The reader’s main questions were about pencils and paper, which I addressed here. But he also asked a technical questions, which I’ll answer today. Here’s the question:

How can you add light colored pencil over dark? Is it even possible?

Adding Light Colored Pencil Over Dark

The simple answer is “no, except for….”

No….

All colored pencils are translucent, so it’s impossible to totally cover darker colors with lighter colors with the same impact that you can with oil paint. You can make the darker colors lighter, but you can’t conceal them.

So it’s important to preserve the areas you want white or bright. Mark them on your drawing, then work around them with the other colors.

Except For….

There are two main “except fors” to consider in layering light colored pencil over dark colored pencils. They are paper and special tools.

Paper

Pastelmat, UArt Premium Sanded Pastel Paper or any similar textured paper have so much surface texture that you can add light colors over darker colors. You can even add enough light colors to make an impact. It’s not exactly like oil painting, but it is much closer.

Here’s a drawing I did a couple of years ago on Charcoal Grey Pastelmat. The paper is a dark gray, so from the start, I was adding light colors over dark. In this case, however, the dark was the color of the paper.

I drew the sunny field with all light colors to make it stand out. I used progressively lighter colors, though, and finished with the lightest colors.

In the foreground grasses, I did add light colored pencil over darker colored pencil. I used very sharp pencils and increased the pressure enough to make marks.

Then I went back and darkened shadows to enhance the look of late afternoon sun slanting across the foreground.

Despite the number of layers on this drawing, there is still enough tooth to add more colors. In fact, I made adjustments to this piece more than once over the following years, usually adding brighter highlights and accents.

Special Tools

The primary special tool to consider is a product made by Brush and Pencil. Two products, actually.

Colored Pencil Titanium White is the first product. Titanium White is straight pigment in powdered form.

Colored Pencil Touch-Up Texture is the second product. Touch-Up Texture is a liquid. When mixed with Titanium White, it makes a fluid colored pencil mix that can be painted onto a drawing. It dries opaque, which means it covers whatever it’s painted over. Once it’s dry, you can color over it again to tint the white area. It’s also great for drawing whiskers on animals and other details that can be better drawn with a brush.

But Touch-Up Texture can also be painted directly onto a drawing without mixing it with pigment. When you do this, you seal the color layers under the Touch-Up Texture, and restore the surface texture. So you can draw over this clear film with additional color.

It’s not as opaque as Titanium White mixture, but it does allow you to add more emphatic highlights and accents than just using pencils with heavier pressure.

Adding Light Colored Pencil Over Dark

Despite the tips I’ve just shared, you still get the best results by working around the brightest highlights, even on textured papers.

But you can add accents with light colors after you’ve layered darker colors using these tips.

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