What is a Colored Pencil Layer?

 

Caran d'Ache Luminance pencil on Stonehenge White paper

A reader contacted me recently with an interesting question. In the colored pencil world, we hear and talk about “layers” all the time as the basic method of applying pencil pigment to the paper’s surface. But what, exactly, constitutes a “layer”? How do you know when you’ve applied enough of the first layer to move on to the second?

It's a good question because I had wondered about that myself for quite a while. In books I’ve read and even in classes I’ve taken, the term “layer” is usually not defined; it seems to be assumed that we all get it. What I told the reader, and what I’m going to describe as follows, is my own interpretation of what layering means, but the meaning might be up for grabs by other colored pencil users. In any case, I thought it would be worth answering the question here on the blog.

In the bar above, made with a traditional (dry) Caran d’Ache Luminance pencil, each patch shows how many layers I applied (I’m left-handed, so I started from the right). It took eight layers of this soft pencil to almost completely cover the paper’s tooth (the paper is Stonehenge White with a light tooth). I could probably apply a few more to completely cover it.

In the bar below, I used a water-soluble Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelle pencil (same Stonehenge White paper). With watercolor pencils, the layers are less straightforward because a dry layer can be activated with water before more dry pigment is applied, or it can be left dry.

Caran d'Ache Museum Aquarelle pencil on Stonehenge White paper

Starting from the right, “Dry” is one layer of dry pencil. “Wet 1” is water applied to a single dry layer. “Dry 2” shows another layer of dry pencil applied over Wet 1 and remaining dry. “Wet 2” is the same as Dry 2 but activated with water, and so on. There’s not much apparent difference between layers 2 and 3 even after water is applied, but typically the layers would be made with different colors, which would make the layers more obvious.

With watercolor pencils, it wouldn’t be possible to continue adding as many as eight dry/wet/dry/wet layers as you could with traditional dry pencils because at some point the paper will start to break down, even strong watercolor paper (which is essential for this type of work). In addition, you must wait until the paper is completely dry before applying more layers. However, you also don’t need as many layers to cover the paper’s surface because the water-solubility does a lot of that work for you.