Hey everyone, Katie here from Studio Katie to teach you how I like to use colored pencils in my travel journal! I have a trip to Puerto Rico coming up, and I’ll be bringing along my Irojiten Colored Pencils, and Dual Brush Pens along in my backpack to do some art in my downtime.
Travel Journaling with Irojiten Colored Pencils:
But first, Did you know you can “mix” over 70 colors with the Irojiten Colored Pencil, 12-Pack Set in Vivid?
By layering different colors over each other, you can create new colors. Look at the color chart below, where I mixed each of the colors included in the Vivid set:
How to use Colored Pencils:
There are also SO MANY different ways that you can use colored pencils!
You can layer them lightly to create gradients and mix colors. You can also use the N00 Colorless Blender Dual Brush Pen to blend colors together by going over them lightly with the clear ink. This will burnish the pigments, working them into the paper and blending them slightly.
I demonstrated some of the ways to sketch with pencils below:
Okay, now let’s grab our travel journals and sketch!
Supplies:
- Irojiten Colored Pencil Set, Vivid
- Dual Brush Pen Art Markers, Just Peachy, 6-Pack
- MONO Graph Mechanical Pencil, Pastel, Coral Pink
- MONO Drawing Pen (optional)
- N00 Colorless Blender
I am sketching a scene from Puerto Rico, they have the most fun, colorful buildings!
Step one:
Lightly sketch out your scene with the MONO Graph Mechanical Pencil. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just quickly sketch out the main shapes!
Step two:
Use a MONO Drawing Pen to add in a little more details, or outline the shapes. This is absolutely optional, but I love the look of black outlines because they add a nice contrast to the art.
Step three:
Use Dual Brush Pens to add a base color. this is also optional, you can just jump right into colored pencils if you prefer. I like to add the base color with Dual Brush Pens, because they add a nice pop of color underneath the colored pencils and help to hide the white of the paper!
Step four:
Grab your Irojiten Colors Pencils, and start layering on top of the markers! As I mentioned in the last step, the marker base helps to hide the white paper, but then you can add so much more visual “texture”, and shades with the colored pencils.
The Irojiten Colored Pencils have a strong pigment, which means they have a beautiful deep color that stays crisp and vibrant when blending and layering them.
Step five:
Layer, Layer, Layer! As you saw in my color chart at the top of this post, you can create 70+ different shades and tones with just these 12 pencils by layering them.
If you’re sketching an urban scene in your travel journal like I am, Try scumbling and layering in the shadow areas to add a lot of nice visual texture to the scene.
Thanks for creating along with me today! Want some more fun projects with Colored Pencils? Check out these posts from the Tombow archives:
Three Ways to Use Colored Pencils in Your Art Journal
DIY Galentine’s Day Cards + How to Color Lips
Mixed Media Sketching Using Colored Pencils