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.

Sounds funny huh? I never really thought about it until I became a full time illustrator, but art materials a re expensive!! Particularly when you're ordering a new tin of 132 colors every few months. It really forced me to come up with creative ways to get a much as I could out of my materials. ive got a hundred or so little things I do that really really make a difference. #1-ELECTRIC SHARPENER! Drop like $25-30 on a decent pro or office grade sharpener. Mine has been with me for three years now and its probably saved me literally hours and hours each week. It drastically cuts down how often the lead breaks while sharpening and you get a longer, fine point so you arent sharpening nearly as often.

I like to work large and fast so i really eat through my pencils and I found that I was going through a whole lot of them very fast. I began blocking in my larger areas of color with other media. For smaller pieces, I do a sort of 'under painting' with the art markers. It works so well its almost like cheating. Color comes out so vividly and you can easily build deeper values really fast. Depending on the paper you can even put lighter highlights right over dark marker. For larger work I do, I block in the color with gouache or Nupastel (blended with water or alcohol) using the same techq. Marker See: Beetle Study, Sea Dragon. G Paint: Fast Death, WIP, WIP Cthulu...

So, for most of my colored pencil work I blend layers of colored pencil together with alcohol on q-tip or, for small detail, with a stiff brush. It works like magic, doesnt warp the paper and doesnt stink like mineral spirits. It also dries super glossy and so far, whenever I blend this way I havent had any 'wax bloom' that whitish fading that sometimes happens. I usually use 70 - 90% isopropyl Alcohol. Its basically like using the colorless art marker, but without ruining your marker. Those I reserve for my marker drawings and I use them a lot. See: Punx Zombies, Snow Prncs, Startle the witch, reaper, beetle, sea dragon...

There are times when solvents are impractical, or unavailable. Times like this, traveling or when working in very tiny details, i lay down the lightest color in the area in an even, light handed application. Too heavy and the technique wont work. I then blend the area with either my finger or some soft tool so that there is a very light, very smooth base on which I can build value. Slowly I start adding deeper tones and shades, blending each layer the same way. This creates a very smooth, almost watercolor like application. I work small areas of the drawing at a time so Im not tempted to lay down too much pigment. See: Snow Princess, Fairy, WIP, Sea Dragon, Skull...