How to color with a gray shading guide: grayscale coloring for beginners

A gray shading guide is a light gray print under the line drawing that shows where the light and the shadow fall. Color over it: press harder or use a darker shade where the gray is dark, and keep the color light where the paper shows through. The result looks rounded and real without guesswork.

What is a grayscale coloring book?

A full grayscale coloring book prints a gray photograph-like image and you tint over it. Nibfern books do something lighter: a line drawing with a soft gray shading guide underneath. Under dark colors the gray disappears; under pale colors it reads as gentle shading.

How to color over the gray

1. Choose three shades of each color: a light, a middle and a dark.
2. Lay the light shade over the whole area, including the gray.
3. Add the middle shade wherever the gray guide is visible.
4. Add the dark shade only where the gray is darkest.
5. Leave the white paper for the brightest highlights, like the shine in an eye.

How do you blend colored pencils?

Use light pressure and small circles, building layers rather than pressing hard at once. Go from light to dark. A colorless blender pencil or a white pencil over the top smooths the layers.

Try it on a page

Each drawing has a free color reference with real colors and the pencils to start with, like the red fox and the leafy sea dragon.

In short

Read the gray as a map of light and shadow: darker color where it is dark, lighter where it is light, white paper for the highlights.

Quick answers