Basic Coloring Technqiue Troubleshooting

Practice will make the most difference in your coloring results.

Use this tutorial as a guide for your coloring.

My coloring is uneven- this is the most common problem and the

easiest solved. You're not saturating the paper enough.

S L O W D O W N. Color in circles and really saturate the paper. Flip the paper over- does it look even on the backside? If it looks uneven then color over the same area with the same

marker. Really soak the paper smooth.

I've got streaks! - You got streaks because you let an area dry

before you finished coloring. This is a problem on larger areas more than small areas. In this case, Speed Up, but make sure the paper is saturated and stays "wet" along the edges. See how the streak is darker, especially on the back? You can layer the same color over an already colored spot and it will make it darker. This is a quick way to

add simple shading.

I was coloring along just fine, I shifted my paper and it smeared- This one's easy. ALWAYS color over scratch paper. You most likely were coloring a piece of

cardstock on top of a smooth surface like plastic or your cutting mat. When you really soak the paper it soaks right through to your table and you moved your paper while it was still

wet, ruining all your hard work. Scratch paper, or something absorbent solves this problem.

I was coloring along just fine and suddenly a new color appeared in my pretty picture- This goes with the above problem. Always color over CLEAN scratch paper. In this case my pretty blue picked up a nice purple that was left on the paper from something I colored earlier. OOPS! Just keep a few sheets of clean newsprint or copier

paper under your artwork. If you get ink on a tabletop you can clean it up with hand sanitizer, but try to avoid messing up tables in the first place :)

I've had the markers for a while and they just have a hard time soaking the paper. Time to refill. You'll find the more you use your markers, you'll end up

using more pale colors and especially your favorite background colors will go dry first. Ciao markers will need refilling sooner than others.

So what does a well colored area REALLY look like?

Like this- front and back are pretty smooth. Even in my example you can

see where I have room for improvement in smoothing my coloring (note: on some cardstock it is harder to tell from the backside that it was smoothly colored because it is so thick. Practice on thinner, high-quality paper until you get used to how much the paper

needs to be saturated). I highly suggest that you do NOT color on watercolor paper. This will suck your marker dry before you can smoothly color an area.

(Taken by Marianne Walker Regional Copic Instructor)