Marker Rendering Basics

Product Design Sketching

Marker Rendering

Marker is a medium with great transparency

Marker inks are dye-based, bright and vivid in colour

Marker renderings should be sharp and crisp

Similar Colours

Marker strokes fuse together on normal paper and get lighter when dried

Marker stroke will not fuse on tracing paper and the same colour appears lighter than on normal paper

On paper On tracing

Complimentary Colours

Unlike colour pencil, mixing complimentary colours may result in rather awkward result

On paper On tracing

Grey Overlay

Overlaying grey tones on colour strokes can produce good shades

Applying light tones over a dark tone on tracing produce a ‘water-wash’ result

On paper On tracing

Shading with Markers

Basic Skills:

Marker Solo1. Pick 3 marker pens of similar hues

but different tones.2. With the lightest tone, use diagonal

strokes to render the top surface with the highlight zone left blank

3. With vertical strokes, render the 2 vertical surfaces

4. With the middle tone colour, overlay a second layer to one of the vertical surfaces using vertical strokes and half of the other surface with diagonal strokes

5. Add a final layer of vertical strokes using the darker tone

6. Overlay another layer of diagonal strokes on half of the vertical layer

7. Add background colour8. Use a cooler colour for shadow

Step 1Step 2Step 3Step 4Step 5Step 6Step 7Step 8

Mixed Media:

Background Brush1. Apply a quick sweep of strokes on

the paper to give the sketch a colour background

2. Fill the shaded face with bluish shadow tone

3. Fill the side face with medium grey tone and water-wash the shaded face with the same tone

4. Overlay a layer of light tone to blend the colours

5. Add the blue shadow6. High-light the top face and edges

with colour pencil

Mixed Media:

Marker + Colour Pencil

1. Render the background with a dark color of marker pen

2. Depict light, shade and shadow of the cube with marker pens

3. Enhance the rendering with colour pencils

Mixed Media:

Pastel Rubbing1. Rub a layer of powdered pastel

colour against the paper to cover the entire cube

2. Use a middle tone marker pen to render the vertical surface in shade

3. With a marker pen of lighter tone, render a triangular area on the 2 vertical surfaces

4. Use a darker tone marker to render the shadow

5. Rub out pastel pigment along the horizontal edges with an eraser

6. Give final touch to the drawing with a colour pencil highlighting the edges for a more crispy and definitive outline

Activity - Geometrical Forms

Apply the marker rendering techniques to draw geometrical form compositions

Use your assignment from lesson 6 as reference

Complete 1 rendering in 10 minutes

2 – 3 drawing per A4 page