Mastering Grayscale Coloring: Techniques, Supplies & Tips for Beginners

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Featured image: a page from our 100 Gorgeous Cottage Garden Vol.2 set, partly colored.

What is grayscale coloring?

Grayscale coloring uses shades of gray, from near-white to deep black, to show light, shadow and depth. Artists have worked this way for centuries. Renaissance painters such as Leonardo da Vinci used strong light and dark contrast, known as chiaroscuro, to make figures look solid and real.

An easy way to try it is with grayscale coloring pages. These pages start as a fully shaded black-and-white image. You color over the top, and the gray underneath does the shading for you. That lets beginners get depth and realism without shading from scratch.

Why try grayscale coloring pages?

• The hard part is done. Shading is what separates flat coloring from realistic art. On a grayscale page it's already there, so you can focus on choosing colors.
• They teach you to see value. Value is how light or dark a tone is. Coloring over gray shows you where shadows and highlights fall, a skill you can carry into any art.
• They can be relaxing. Slow, layered coloring can be calming, which makes grayscale pages a good fit for quiet, stress-relieving time.

Choosing your first page

• Start simple. Pick a page with a clear subject and not too much fine detail, such as a single animal or a still life, before moving on to busy landscapes and portraits.
• Pick something you like looking at. You'll spend a few hours with it.
• Try a free one first. Our free adult coloring pages include several grayscale designs, such as the Flower Bird House, so you can try one before buying a full set.

How to color a grayscale coloring page

1. Print on good paper. Use your printer's highest quality setting and a heavier paper such as cardstock, so it holds many layers. Our printing guide covers settings in detail.
2. Start light. Use light pressure and build color in thin layers. Heavy pressure early on fills the paper's tooth, and later layers won't grip as well.
3. Let the gray work for you. Gray makes every color look darker, so choose a slightly lighter shade than you want to end up with. In the darkest areas, a layer of a dark color is often enough.
4. Keep your highlights. Leave the lightest areas almost white, or lift them back out with a precision eraser.
5. Blend. Smooth layers together with a colorless blender pencil, a blending stump, or a small amount of odorless mineral spirits on a cotton swab.
6. Finish with highlights. A few touches of a white gel pen on eyes, water or metal make the picture come alive.

What you'll need

Colored pencils. Colored pencils work well on grayscale pages because they're translucent, so the gray shows through.

• Prismacolor Premier soft core: soft, waxy pencils that layer and blend easily.
• Faber-Castell Polychromos: oil-based pencils that hold a sharp point for fine detail.
• Castle Art Supplies: a good-value set for getting started.

Markers. Markers cover large areas evenly but are harder to control in small spaces. If you use them, choose alcohol-based markers, which blend more smoothly than water-based ones, and print on heavier paper so they don't bleed through.

Blending and highlight tools.

• Colorless blender pencil
• Blending stumps and tortillons
• Odorless mineral spirits, for solvent blending
• Precision eraser
• White gel pen

Paper.

• Cardstock, for finished pieces with many layers.
• Heavyweight printer paper, for practice pages.

Coloring digitally. You can also color grayscale pages on a tablet. Import the page into an app like Procreate, set the coloring layer to Multiply or Overlay, and color with an Apple Pencil.

For a deeper comparison of pencils, markers and gel pens, see our guide to the best coloring tools.

Grayscale techniques worth knowing

Layering. Build color slowly, from light to dark, in several thin layers. Layering gives you control and produces richer, smoother color than one heavy layer.

Blending. Blending softens the edges between tones. Go over layered areas with a blender pencil or stump, or use a solvent for a painted look.

Hatching and cross-hatching. Parallel lines create tone. The closer the lines, the darker the area. A second set of lines at an angle, called cross-hatching, adds depth and texture.

Stippling. Small dots build up shadow and texture. Denser dots read as darker. It's slow, but great for fur, stone and foliage.

Pressure control. Press harder in the darkest areas and lighter in the highlights. Changing pressure gives you a range of tones from a single pencil.

Underlayers. Put a light layer of one color under another. Yellow under green makes leaves glow; blue under brown cools a shadow.

Color temperature. Warm colors (reds, oranges, yellows) seem to come forward, and cool colors (blues, greens, purples) seem to sit back. Use warm colors on the subject and cool colors in the background to add depth.

Seeing light and shadow

Before you start, find the light source in the picture. Areas facing the light get the lightest colors, and areas facing away get the darkest. The cast shadows are already in the gray, so follow them.

Contrast creates drama. The bigger the gap between the lightest and darkest parts of the page, the more the picture stands out. If a finished page looks flat, deepen the darkest areas a little and brighten the highlights.

Fixing common problems

• Too dark or too saturated: go over it lightly with a white pencil, or lift some color with the eraser.
• Patchy shading: blend the area with a stump or blender pencil.
• Muddy colors: wipe your blending stump on scrap paper often, so it doesn't drag one color into another.

Drawing your own grayscale studies

If you want to go further, try drawing grayscale studies of your own. A set of graphite pencils in a range of hardnesses, from hard H to soft B grades, lets you build up a full range of value. A quick grayscale study before starting a color piece can help you work out where the lights and darks will go.

Keep practicing

Start with simpler pages and work up to detailed ones such as portraits and landscapes. Try different pencils and blending methods until you find what you like, and share your finished pages with other colorists. Feedback from others can help you spot what to try next.

Ready for more? The Ultimate Guide to Grayscale Coloring covers advanced techniques such as solvent blending, burnishing, metallic accents and toned paper.

Two of our most popular grayscale sets to start with:

Ready to start? Browse our grayscale coloring pages, over 400 printable designs ready to download. For more ideas, read our guide to adult coloring techniques.

Related: Top 10 Relaxing Flower Coloring Page Designs for Stress Relief