Pixiq

Hand coloring gives the photographer a poetic license—the freedom to control the image and create the mood by adding a dimension of color and texture. It can give the photographer an opportunity to change what the camera actually captured into the vision seen by the mind’s eye. It allows the photographer to put emotions and feelings onto paper. Hand coloring is a means to tap into the subconsciousness of artistic expression.

“I have been hand coloring my photographs for years.”

Now, with digital photography, I can print my images with archival inks onto artist watercolor papers and archival ink jet coated papers for hand coloring. According to what best suits the image, I will print in black and white, toned black and white, or color. In some cases, I hand color the entire print; other times I enhance it only slightly, wherever the color needs to be intensified or corrected. In still other cases, I print out a light version of the image to be used as a sketch from which to make an oil painting or a pastel rendering. For these types of prints, I am not concerned with resolution and print color, as it will be completely covered with paint or pastels.

Pastel pencils are just pastels wrapped in wood, which allows them to have a smaller point than the traditional chalk-like form. (For the large areas in a print, I frequently use the traditional chalk-like pastels, as they cover faster and easier.) Pastel pencils work on semi-matte and matte photographic papers, artist watercolor papers, and ink jet coated papers. I prefer to hand color my photographs and ink jet prints with Conté Pastel Pencils because they are not too hard or too soft. In addition, I often use Marshall Oil Pencils for detail work because they are smaller and you can achieve a sharper point than you can with the larger pastel pencils.

Blending and mixing colors can be done with your finger, a tissue (wrapped around your finger), or a cotton swab (figure 1). The color can be reduced or removed with a kneaded eraser (figure 2), leaving no telltale smudges behind on the surface. If you don’t like the color you have applied, remove it try another one. Nothing could be easier or more fun!

Kneaded erasers can be found at your local arts and crafts store. They are made soft and pliable by kneading or working them in your hand. When soft, they actually pick the color right off the surface without disturbing the paper fibers or ink jet coatings. You clean these erasers by stretching them out and kneading them up again. You can mold them into small points or flat edges, whatever shape is needed to pick out the color in a selected area. When the eraser is full of pigments, it will begin to look grungy and you won’t be able to get a clean surface when you try to stretch and re-knead it. Just throw it away at this point. Kneaded erasers are very inexpensive.

The main difference in working with pastels as compared to other mediums is that, with other mediums, you blend (or mix) the colors on a palette before applying them to the paper or canvas. With pastels, you blend the colors directly on the paper or canvas surface.

Figure 1. 

Figure 2. 

Caution: In pastel coloring, the resulting dust will sometimes cover over areas where you do not wish it, especially in the darker areas of the print that help to maintain contrast. When this happens, the print will look flat. I constantly check for unwanted coverage after blending and remove stray pigment with a kneaded eraser as needed, thus preserving the contrast and snap of the print. When doing portraits, a likely place for this to happen is in the whites of the eyes. After coloring the skin tones and the eye color, take the kneaded eraser, form a point, and remove unwanted color from the whites of the eyes. You must constantly “clean up” after pastels!

Figure 3. 

With pastels, you should apply color from dark to light. In other words, when beginning to apply pastel to the print, I put down my dark colors first in the darker areas of the print. For example, here in the trees (figure 3), I applied a dark green in the shadow areas. Then I used a cotton swab to spread the color. Next, I went back into that area and applied a moss green on top of the dark green and, finally, a lighter green around the edges with a bit of soft yellow. Had this been a print with fall foliage, I might’ve used reds and rusty oranges on top of the dark green base. The application of a variety of colors will give your print a dimension and depth that would be missing if you limited yourself to, say, only one shade of green . When only one shade of a color is applied, the area becomes flat. I call this the “coloring book syndrome.” To avoid this, use the color layering technique of applying dark colors first, then mid tones, and finally highlighting with a light color. This method works well with everything from landscapes to nudes.

If you have never really worked with coloring before and wish to learn, take the time to study color. You might elect to take a color course at a local university, or even just go out and study the colors of nature. Look at a leaf—really look at it—and observe the many shades of green that come together to form that particular shade. Study a field and note the myriad colors that emerge in various seasons. Watch the clouds and see how they change color as they fill with water, and how they reflect the sunlight. Take notice of shadows and highlights. Pay attention to the colors in both the sky and the clouds during sunrise or sunset. Look at someone’s clothing and watch, as the person moves, how the light creates dark and light values in the cloth. A blue blouse isn’t just blue; where a shadow is created, the blue is darker, perhaps even a little violet. Where the sun strikes the cloth, it is a lighter shade of blue. Notice people’s hair; see how the hair reflects light, and how the light hits the hair and creates highlights. Sometimes colors can even be tinted by other nearby colored surfaces from which the light is reflected.

Teach yourself to really see! When you turn to your hand coloring work, keep these observations in mind. If you go to hand color a print of that blue blouse and you use only one shade of blue, it will look flat. Add shadows and highlights! Remember the multiplicity of tonal values that exist in the colors of the world around you.

Hand Coloring with Pastels

Step One. Begin your coloring at the top of the image and work your way down to avoid smearing.

Step Two. When applying color with pastel pencils, lay the pencil slightly on its side. This will help to avoid pencil indentation marks on the image, and it will also help to avoid scratching soft surfaces, like those of some ink jet coated papers.

Step Three. Use colors sparingly. Pastels will spread when blended, filling in the area.

Step Four. If your print will not take more coloring, use a light spray of workable fixative. Wait until it is dry, then apply more color.

Step Five. To sharpen pastel pencils, use a knife or a small hand held manual pencil sharpener. Electric pencil sharpeners crack the pencil and break the medium all the way through the pencil shaft.

Figure 4. 

Street in St. Remy

This shot was taken early one morning in Provence, France and the light was very flat. I transformed the image into a black-and-white using nik Color Efex Pro, and toned it a warm brown (figure 4). Then, I printed it out on Flaxen Weave ink jet coated paper.

Using pastel pencils to hand color the image, I was able to capture the feeling of an early morning in Provence even though the light in the original photograph was low and the alleyways were dark. I brightened it up by giving the sky a nice midday blue. The pastels were perfect for this scene, and the D-Max (see glossary) of the paper helped to give the image a bit more snap and contrast (figure 5).

Figure 5.