After that, I faced a problem. The logical next step seemed to be the horizontal beams that lined the ceiling area, but I had no idea what color or tone to make this trim. Would a lighter trim work better, or a darker one? It's an important question because the wrong trim would fight with the walls instead of working with them. I did have a good idea of how I wanted the walls on the left, though: off-white upper half with a worn but patterned dark red fabric below. So the trim was skipped for now and in went the walls (along with the pictures hanging on them). Once the walls were done, It was obvious the trim needed to be dark and not too saturated. A dull, dark red to accent the red of the walls seemed like a good direction and is the one I ended up going with (as seen in the picture to the right). The trim may ultimately be too saturated and will probably be grayed more by the end.

One impression that struck me after this area was finished was how uncluttered the new area felt. As the area had moved from a flat pencil sketch to a fully rendered coloring, the perceived space became better defined. Objects which had been piled together before are separated by "empty space" that you can now sense. There's still a lot of detail, but it seems more open and visually manageable.

The Tools Involved: The Pencil-Dust Problem

• Prismacolor pencils
• blank typing paper
• a big, soft brush
• frisket film

I keep the blank piece of paper under my right (pencil-holding) hand while coloring. This helps to prevent smearing, especially of the pencil-dust flecks that accumulate. The brush is used to dust those flecks off every few minutes. The brush needs to be very soft, or the bristles end up just rubbing the flecks onto the paper and causing permanent dots. A big brush simply makes the dusting faster. To be exact, the brush I use is a Loew-Cornell 275, 3/4 inch (see picture below for scale) because it's one I had handy; it works great. The frisket film is a new method I found recently for lightening an area or fixing a mistake. One side of the film is slightly tacky. When placed tacky-side down on the colored pencil, it can pick up a small amount of the color. This is done by applying pressure on top of the film with a blunt tip (I often use my Prismacolors). There is a small risk of damaging the paper underneath by repeated pressure, but overall it's a much less damaging and more precise way of lifting color than by using erasers.

As you can see, two of the four listed items are used specifically to minimize the effects of pencil dust. If you don't take steps to reduce these flecks, they will cause two problems: a general darkening of the paper around the colored areas and lots of small dots all over the surface of your piece. The dots are nearly impossible to remove, and will smear when you color over them later.

Dark colors and heavy pressure create the worst amount of dust, but it will accumulate over time even with light colors and little pressure. A heavy toothed paper makes the problem worse. The most practical solution I've found so far is constant use of the big, soft brush.

The typing paper keeps the colored pencil (and initial sketch) from smearing under my hand. It also keeps the oils of my skin off the surface of the piece. After a few hours, the bottom of the paper picks up a lot of the pencil dust. Simply turn it over, then throw the entire sheet away when the second side becomes dirty. Since this piece of paper is only used to keep the artwork (and my hand) clean, I use the cheapest typing paper I can find.

A Final Note: Scale

The scan of the pencil and brush, above, is a perfect chance to show the scale of the detail in the piece. Here is a closer view of the same scan. The Prismacolor is the same size as an average pencil. The piece of artwork is 19" x 11".