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Cost: $ $ $ $ $

Difficulty: • • • • •

Time: 10 mins

The Encyclopedia of Coloured Pencil Techniques
A mask is anything that protects the surface of your drawing and prevents colour from being applied to a specific area. The simplest form of mask is a piece of paper laid on your drawing paper; the pencil can travel
up to or over the edge of the paper, and when you lift the mask, the colour area has a clean, straight edge.
You can obtain hard edges using cut paper; torn paper makes a softer edge quality. You can also use thin card,
or pre-cut plastic templates such as stencils and French curves.
If it is important to mask off a specific shape or outline, which may be irregular or intricate, you can use
a low-tack transparent masking film which adheres to the paper while you work but lifts cleanly afterwards
without tearing the surface. You lay a sheet of masking film over the whole image area and cut out the required
shape with a fine scalpel blade. Carefully handled, the blade does not mark the paper beneath. Low-tack
masking tapes can also be used to outline shapes; they are available in a range of widths, and the narrower
ones are very flexible for masking curves.

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Alissa B. favorited Masking 01 Dec 03:42
Search Press published her project Masking 30 Nov 09:00

Step 1
Loose masking

Place the paper mask on the drawing paper and hold it down firmly. Begin by shading lightly over the edges of the mask.
Step 2
Build up the shaded colour to the required density, keeping the direction of the pencil marks consistent at each side of the mask.
Step 3
Lift the top corner of the mask to check that you have a clean edge quality and the right intensity of colour. Keep the lower edge of the mask in place, so you can just drop it back if you need to rework the colour area.
Step 4
Using masking tape

Lay down the masking tape evenly but do not rub too firmly, or you may have trouble lifting it without damaging the paper surface.
Step 5
Shade colour over the edges of the tape, as with the paper masks. An advantage of masking tape is that you can work over both sides of the tape at once if required. When complete, peel back the tape carefully.
Step 6
If you are overlaying colours, you can use the same mask or a fresh piece of tape to cover the paper while you lay in the second colour.
Step 7
Using masking film

Trace down the outline of your drawing on paper. Detach the top edge of the masking film from its backing sheet and smooth it down on the paper, covering the image area with a border of film all around. Gradually pull back the rest of the
backing sheet, smoothing the film across the paper as you go.
Step 8
Identify the first shapes you are going to colour and cut round them with a sharp scalpel blade. Lift one corner of the cut film and peel back the shape. Repeat as necessary. Apply the coloured pencil to each shape, filling it with colour up to and
over the masked edges.
Step 9
When you have completed all the areas in one colour, move on to the next. Cut and lift the mask sections in sequence, then shade in the colour.
Step 10
At this stage the colouring is complete, and the uncut masking film is still on the paper, causing the black background to look greyed. The next stage is to remove the remaining masking film completely.
Step 11
Compare the finished effect to step 4. With the mask removed, the edges of the coloured areas stand out sharply against the blacks, making each shape clean and distinct.