Colored Pencils and Dot Grid Journals

Every so often I like to use color pencils in my dot grid journal. A few years back I was anti-color pencils because I didn’t like the results.

Come to find out, I didn’t like the results because I wasn’t using them correctly. Believe it or not, there is a right and wrong way – or should I say better way to use color pencils.

Although coloring with pencils isn’t my favorite, these tips definitely make the process easier.

Whenever I write or color with pencils, I hold my pen or pencil with a death grip. So tight in fact that I have a callous and a funky indention on my middle finger where the pen sits. This type of grip doesn’t work well when I color with pencils. The colors end up extremely bold and make layering impossible due to all the pencil wax build-up from my heavy coloring technique.

In an art class I learned there are several ways to hold a pencil to achieve different results.

For light pressure, hold the pencil at the top- furthest from the lead tip.

For medium pressure, hold the pencil in the middle,

For dark heavy colors, hold the pencil closest to the lead.

Something so basic changed my coloring style entirely and coloring with a light and medium pressure made the layering process that much easier.

Another tip that is useful when coloring with color pencils is to place a piece of paper behind the page that is being colored. The reason- when coloring or writing with heavy pressure, the image can sometimes transfer to the other pages (ghost marks), so protect those others pages with a scratch piece of paper. Here’s a colorful piece I use in my coloring book, adult coloring book that is.

Also, sometimes when I color, there’s these lines that show up and it drives me crazy. Avoid those lines just by coloring in small tiny sections. This is one reason why colored pencils aren’t my go to coloring instrument, projects take forever. Coloring this leaf in small sections will take me at least 20 mins (totally exaggerating)!

I learned this last tip the hard way. In the past when I used to color, I’d remove colored pencil dust by blowing it away or swiping it with my hand (like I do with eraser shavings). I will never use either of those techniques again. Swiping it away with my hand caused streaks and blowing it away proved problematic because if any spit plops out (gross I know) and lands on a place that I used water based markers or pens, it becomes discolored or bleeds. Instead I use an old paint brush or computer duster (I don’t have any currently) to remove the pencil dust.

I guess it’s no surprise, but I used colored pencils for this weeks layout. There wasn’t too much coloring involved, but I did use all of the techniques mentioned above. Check it out.

Supplies

Step One

At the bottom of the notebook I stamped a bunch of cactus and succulent stamps. The cactus stamp on the wooden block is a few years old and from the dollar section at Michael’s. I also used stamps from Momenta and Altenew. I attached the unmounted stamps to an acrylic block and inked some of them with Ranger Archival Ink (black). For some of the stamps, instead of using black stamp ink, I colored in the stamps using various green Tombow water-based brush pens.

Step Two

After the stamping was complete, I outlined and colored some of the cactus and succulents with color pencils. Take a look at the aloe plant on the right (my hand is covering it a bit), I colored the plant in with a light green pencil and then layered it with a darker green colored pencil.

Step Three

Next, I divided the remaining portion of the notebook with a ruler and a Tombow Mono Black Drawing Pen.

Step Four

Last, with a multi-design stencil I created 6 boxes for each day of the week (combined the weekend into one box) and put the first inital in each box.