Working in black and white 🖤🤍

You’re a colour pencil artist, why would you need to work in black and white?

That’s the funny thing with working in ‘black and white’, it’s not really black and white at all! I’m working on a commission at the moment which is in black and white, so I thought it was a great time to make this post.

Current commission - done on Pastelmat with a heat mat, and various pencils. I’m using heat to help create a smooth texture for the child’s face.

The issue with creating a monochromatic piece, is showing contrast can become tricky. Too much contrast will make your piece look too graphic. Too little and it’ll look washed out and boring. It’s important to use as many colours as you can - don’t feel limited! There are an abundance of greys, blues and greens that you can use in your piece.

Some of the pencils used so far.

As you can see, for a black and white piece, I haven’t actually used black or white yet, which is an odd concept. For the skin tone areas, I’ve been using warm greys. That keeps the illusion of warmth and life, whilst keeping to the monochromatic theme. For the clothing and hair, I’ve used blues to cool it right down, and show it’s not a living thing, but an object. This little change also really boosts the contrast in the piece, making it look less flat.

I plan on using deep greens, as well as deep blues to make those dark areas dark. To keep the light areas light, I’ve kept them completely pencil free for now. Without having colour to show the difference between dark and light, it’s really tricky to show contrast, so I leave the lightest areas completely blank, until the end of the drawing.

That’s it for now, don’t forget, black and white doesn’t limit you to using just two pencils. You can use a whole bundle of pencils to give the illusion of colour.