When working on a piece with the prisma double end markers I usually want to add shades of the same color, ex: skin tones, cloth shadows, etc. But usually what happens is that it comes out too dark for my original idea. So, I played around with the markers and found a good technique. If you have the clear blender at hand use it as a base before you add the color. For example, put down the clear blender first then add the desired tone all over. Before it dries, add more, of the same color, to darken the areas you want (ex: shadows or dark spots.) Just remember not to add to much because, depending on your paper choice, it might bleed.

The tins in which Prismacolors are packaged aren't practical for daily use. I cut a piece of foamcore 6"x13". Then I went to the hardware store and had them cut me 8 pieces of 2.5" PVC pipe, each 3.25" long. I glued the lengths of pipe to the foamcore. Voila! A pencil holder that's beefy, nothing's going to knock it over. Yellows in one tube, reds in another, etc., tips up.

After a new kitten walked all over a pastel drawing I was working on a couple of years ago and not only ruined it but tracked the chalk everywhere, I knew I'd need to cover my colored pencil drawings in progress even when I step away for just a minute. My drawing table is right next to a window that's a popular bird-viewing spot! But I didn't want to lay paper directly on the drawing surface. The perfect solution turned out to be a 20x30 piece of 1/2" thick foamcore, with 1" squares glued to the corners. It's very light, very stiff (not even the weight of an adult cat can bow it), and the corners keep it up off the surface. When I'm working I keep it in arm's reach.

I liked the tip about about super gluing short pencils, I figured out that some strong tape also does the trick if you don't want to mess with glue.I tape my favorite stubs to my most garish colors (the ones I use rarely and are nice and long), the bright colors help me spot my favorite itty bitty hues that are tacked onto their ends.

I have found that the best program for fixing photos is Capture NX. It is Nikon software... Distortion correction helps with the fish-eye effect that zooming out creates, so you don't have to crop so much out. White control points fix the colors so much better than adjusting the brightness or contrast, and the straighten tool is really useful. Unfortunately, it only opens .NEF files and raw images from Nikons.

thanks for the tip on fixatives. I held the can farther away and am happy to say it turned out ok. Still not sure if I want to go with matte or gloss, I'm planning on displaying my drawings as paintings (that is, not under glass) which is why I went with gloss...but not sold on it yet.

I took this tip from someone else an tried it for the first time this week. When your colored pencils are too short to use or sharpen anymore, carefully super glue them to the un sharpened end of a new pencil. When the glue is completely dry it will hold the two together just fine while sharpening and so far it hasnt been a problem for my electric sharpener. Ill update later if I come across any issues, but so far so good. If anyone is wondering the tip came from Alyona Nickelsen's 'Colored Pencil Painting Bible' there is some really good stuff in there.

I like the look of the gloss fixative, but it severely darkened my last colored pencil drawing, does anyone know if the matte is less likely to do this? Or maybe I'm just holding the spray can too close?

I'm just a beginner but I'm passionate about art. What can I do to make my portraits of people actually look like them, and what acrylics would you recommend?

Here is the most important thing to consider when doing photo realism, Line Weights. Its what makes a line, a line. It is the darkness of a color seperating itself from another color. Imagine a light color on one side of the paper and a dark color on the other. The darkness of the line seperating the two values is determined by the darkness of the two colors. On the left, on a scale of one to ten, ten being the darkest, the color is (for instance) an 8. On the right, the lighter color is (for instance) a 2 on the scale. Take 8 minus 2 which equals a six on the value scale of the line seperating the two colors. Think about it.