Bored of all your coloring books at home and want to try something new? Or maybe you’ve heard the term greyscale coloring and are curious… either way you’re in the right place. Greyscale coloring books are printed using a gradient of grey tones and values. Typically for indicating to the colorist where different tones and values for each applied color are supposed to be on the page.
Traditionally coloring books come strictly in black-and-white, meaning that the page is purely white, and the image is purely black-line, greyscale guides the colorist on where to apply darker shades or lighter shades. Colorists are encouraged to follow the greyscale when coloring as a means of practicing shadow work as well as gradient blending.
Reading The Page
Before picking up the pencils it pays to read and analyze the picture you’re looking to color. The gradient of our colors is naturally guided by the greyscale pattern. Darker color gradients go over darker grey tone areas, and lighter color gradients go over lighter grey tone areas. Color filling in the medium-grade color tones over the medium grey values on the page. This becomes important when applying the three-tone rule we’ll talk about in the next section. The next artist’s indicator we look for is the light source. Where is the light coming from and how does it cast shadows on the object(s) of the picture?
Most pictures use natural lighting which assumes that the light source cast on the object(s) is from the sun, or if the picture is set during nighttime, the moon. These are the two most common sources of lighting in just about every picture, greyscale included. That said, other light sources exist such as candlelight which can both complicate the shadows in the picture as well as add tons of character due to the perceived shadow movement from the wicking motion of the candlelight’s flame. Additionally, some pictures are lit by indoor fluorescent lights or even a flashlight which can drastically change the angle at which the light hits the object(s) and how the shadows form due to differences in luminescence.
That said, no matter the light source or angle at which the light is cast upon the picture, greyscale coloring books still provide a guide on where to color darker values and where to color lighter values. If you’re looking for a good book to get and haven’t picked one up, or if you’re looking for something more than what your current book offers then I can’t recommend enough Beautiful Creatures: A Boundless Coloring Book Adventure by Nicole Stocker.
Choosing Your Colors
We’ve read the page and now the work fun part begins. The exact colors you choose to fill over the greyscale don’t matter too much. Yes, traditionally a picture of a blue jay would be comprised mostly of blue tones, white tones, and black tones. A picture of a banana would most likely consist of yellow tones, brown tones, and green tones, but that doesn’t stop us from creating orange and purple pastel “blue” jays, and silver-tone bananas marked with indentations of aggressively bright pinks or deep textured Burgundy. Instead, it is our responsibility to choose the correct color values to be applied over the grey.
For example, if I am going to color a single tomato lying on the table with the sun overhead, I would expect to color the bottom part of the tomato dark red over the darkest part of the greyscale. The middle of the tomato is red, and the top of the tomato where the white sections of the greyscale are light red. The dark-red, red, and light-red will all blend with the help of the grey-tone values underneath creating a natural gradient on the page simply by following the greyscale.
The use of three different values of similar color is known as the Three Tone Rule made popular in greyscale coloring by the excellent colorist Jones Flores. This rule can be applied to a single-colored pencil as well. If we revisit the tomato, instead of using dark-red, red, and light-red, we can achieve a more subtle monotone gradient by using only a red color pencil and mixing it with black and white pencil over the greyscale.
Again, let the grey be your guide, and add black mixed with the red to the darker sections graduating to a single red color as the grey becomes lighter, and finally to a red mixed with white for the light-grey to white sections of the tomato.
This is the perfect practice for getting the hang of black-and-white colored pencil blending. Especially since the greyscale on the page will not only provide some guidance on how heavy to blend and how to color an effective gradient from light to dark but will also provide an extra boost to the gradient’s effectiveness because of the naturally graded grey values already on the paper.
If you’re familiar with the color wheel and color theory or are just starting, greyscale coloring is an excellent means to practice and apply color theory in action. Not only does greyscale coloring provide a colorist with the opportunity to practice monochrome gradient blending, but artists may also choose to practice complementary or contrast gradient color blending.
However you choose your colors is ultimately up to you, the greyscale is there to provide a guide on the gradient from one color value to another.
Techniques To Consider
Had enough of the basics? Well after feeling comfortable with or bored of the three-tone rule, the next step, and arguably a more experimental step, is to start mixing your mediums. Add pen ink, gel pen, marker, paints, and pastels to your picture. Just because the book is for colored pencils doesn’t mean it’s ONLY for colored pencils. Switch it up with a different medium and try some of these techniques.
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- Outlining can be done with pen ink, gel pen, or even a thin Sharpie. Tracing the outside lines of your image with ink or even black colored pencil provides your image with more contrast giving it that pop from the page look. How heavy of a line, the number of lines, and what parts of the object to outline are completely up to you. Just keep in mind once the ink is down, it’s probably not going to come back up.
- Inlining is less popular but still fun to throw around now and then. Instead of tracing the outside edges of an object, try taking a colored ink or colored pencil tip and tracing a contour line within the object.
For example, say I’ve colored and blended a beautiful array of green with a little bit of yellow over a greyscale Kimberly Queen fern, maybe add forest-green pen over the contour lines in an attempt to provide those leafy green palms with a little bit of spine and depth to their structure.
Mixing Your Mediums
Beyond outlining and inlining, mixing in some acrylic paints can also do wonders for a picture. With a light brush, acrylics can cover large areas that may be tedious for a colored pencil. Colored pencils can then be applied over the acrylic paints to offer contour and depth as well as further color shading by easily following the provided greyscale. Feel free to add white to your acrylics as you paint over lighter sections of the greyscale.
Oil pastels or paints are great to throw in the mix as well, especially if you’re using a wax-bound colored pencil and don’t have access to the fine color vibrancy of oil-bound pigments. Combining oil pastels or paints with colored pencils created rocker layers of color. By following the grey with oil pastels and adding sections of color pencil sections over the oils, the picture gains both contour depth from different weights of tones, as well as color depth from the blended color values.
What’s wonderful about a lot of greyscale color books is that the paper comes thick enough to absorb layers and layers of pigment while keeping its structural integrity. Weaker papers with fewer teeth to them tend to just spread layers of color all over the page like warm tomato soup on an ice rink. It’s worth it as coloring hobbyists to invest in a good paper that won’t shrivel up and can hold on to all the layers of color and texture going into creating your next picture.
Learn more about oil pastels HERE!
Frequently Asked Questions
Where Can I Get A Greyscale Coloring Book?
As I mentioned before, I highly recommend Beautiful Creatures A Boundless Coloring Book Adventure by Nicole Stocker which can be found in most local art stores as well as online retailers such as eBay or Amazon. There are also several custom-made greyscale coloring books available from independent artists on Etsy, many of which have outstanding fantasy pictures if you’re into that. Otherwise, greyscale coloring books can be found at most retail stores such as Walmart or Target often featuring pastoral or nature scenes with plenty of animals.
Is It Cheating To Follow The Greyscale Guide?
No. Plenty of highly paid artists still use greyscale coloring books. Greyscale can be an excellent tool for learning gradient coloring and shadow work, but that doesn’t mean it’s just a training wheel. There are plenty of highly paid and highly trained artists who can turn a page of greyscale into a rippling realistic picture. The greyscale is there for a reason, dive in and relish it!
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