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Oh hey, finally some more resource stuff from me. And this one's a two-parter!

You should be able to hit the "download" button somewhere up there and receive a .PDF with both parts included OR you can download the .PDF PLUS two separate .PNGs (one for each Part of the Workshop) here if that file type suits your printing situation better.

This is also sort of a companion to my good ol' Colored Pencil Testing Workshop , which might be obvious by the fonts used and some of the layout.

My rules for both parts of the Blending Workshop are:
1. Please DO NOT remove the "Created by MysticSparkleWings" Mark
2. Please DO NOT re-upload or redistribute the empty worksheets without my explicit written permission (If you've say, filled one out for a review/blog post/etc. and want to upload it, that's fine as long as you follow Rule 1)

Anyway. I made this Blending Workshop...oh dear, over a year ago...when I got somewhat back in the teaching game with some friends after a mostly unintentional hiatus. (And ironically enough, it's been long enough since that happened we're now on unintentional hiatus again...) The first lesson on our list was blending, primarily in regards to pencils for a number of reasons. I've actually somewhat struggled to communicate this concept before, particularly waaaay back when I was working on Skies, Galaxies, and Learning (to us as a teaching tool at the time). So my thought was that making a worksheet would force me to break the concept down in a somewhat streamlined way, and it would give my students something to come back to for guidance when I'm not available and they don't feel like asking Google.

Incidentally, I thought others out there might find it useful too.

I hope how to use it should be pretty self-explanatory this time around, since most of what you're supposed to do is written right on it. Including the disclaimer that this is not the definitive authority on how to blend colored pencils, as well as that the supplies you use might affect your results. Both seemed important to me to include since a true beginner legitimately might not know. (Especially on the supplies thing--it can be so discouraging to think you're doing something wrong when in reality it might be the tools that are the problem.)

Also, I thought the section on pressure was really important too, as it seems so simple, but this is one of the main things I struggled to communicate before, and in doing research to put my Workshop together, I was surprised by how it's not really mentioned in other resources that focus on pencil blending. I would argue learning to vary pressure and create smooth transitions that way--with just one color, from light to dark--is one of the most important fundamentals of blending pencils in the first place.

And yet I have to admit I had quite a bit of trouble in deciding how exactly to convey that information. I'm still not sure it's as clear as it could be, but I did my best.

The Rule of Thirds section...isn't necessarily how I normally blend, but it's a concept I see I lot with other pencil blending lessons and I do think it's a good foundation to get started. (Which I specified when I gave the lesson.) I'm also particularly proud of how the little shape for practicing applying the rules to a drawing turned out--It's just vague enough it could be a leaf or fire, or fire-shaped magic, so it's pretty versatile as to what colors you can use on it. And that's exactly what I wanted so that people wouldn't be locked into one specific color scheme.

Which brings me to the practice section. It's actually why this Workshop has two parts. At the end of the day, practice and patience really is the most important thing to learning to blend, once you have the knowledge of what you need to do. And it seemed wrong to me to just stop after two sections and leave it at that. So I wanted to include a small practice section, including some shapes that were slightly more exciting than cubes and spheres, but still not too complicated and that would work pretty okay with the Rule of Thirds. I had a few ideas, but my leftover space was somewhat limited so I couldn't fit them all in and I was a little concerned about how small they would be when the sheet printed out. (As it turns out, not as bad as I thought! The seashell, in particular, is a very comfortable size!)

So my solution to that, and some other minor things I wanted to include but did not want to dedicate whole sections to, was to make a Part 2 of the Workshop, technically optional, that focuses solely on practicing the new skills and experimenting. But I'll talk more about Part 2 in a minute.

I also dropped the two "Tip" boxes on there for similar reasons--they were things/ideas I wanted to mention, but I didn't think they needed whole sections or to give them whole sections would be to start opening other cans of worms that aren't necessarily directly related to pencil blending. Pencil blending was supposed to be the focus, so I wanted to stick as closely to that as possible.

Additional fun fact: Originally, I wanted to have all three sections on Part 1 just straight up and down instead of the bottom two being side-by-side, but I had limited space by the time I decided on everything I wanted to include. So I tried rearranging it this way just to see if it would work, and it did!

Now, Part 2 of the Workshop, as I said, is technically optional since it focuses solely on practicing the new skills and experimenting. But this Workshop has two parts because, at the end of the day, practice and patience really is the most important thing to learning to blend, once you have the knowledge of what you need to do. And I didn't feel right to leave your entire practice section to the three small sample drawings on Part 1 So I wanted to include a whole page of simple shapes/drawings to practice on; From just practicing blending a certain number of colors, to the stereotypical cubes and spheres, to some more fun, but still not too complicated things I thought would work pretty okay with the Rule of Thirds (as talked about in Part 1).

You could also just as easily do your practicing and experimenting inside of a coloring book or with any other drawings, really. You don't need a dedicated piece of paper for it, but I know sometimes just having that one place where you're supposed to do a thing can make it seem less daunting and more open to potential mistakes. Often, I find having resources like that for myself helps me learn more efficiently.

It was also important to me to include the "Blending Aids" section because some of you may notice a few of the boxes have very similar ideas/instructions to the bottom section of the Colored Pencil Testing Workshop . I'm not the only one who uses methods like that to help blend & test colored pencils and in my browsing of existing blending resources to see what would be worth including, I found that quite a few do mention these sorts of additions/methods to aid in blending.

That section is even more optional than the rest of the worksheet, and they're certainly not the only five things you can try (Gamsol/odorless minerals spirits are a big one, as are some pens made specifically for pencil blending), but I opted for things you might already have in the house, that are typically not dangerous (odorless mineral spirits come with some safety concerns), and/or you might already have around your art supplies specifically. I figure if you do have the supplies on hand and you're just starting to learn/experiment, it's probably worth having a dedicated spot to try things out.

And yet I still didn't have room to include absolutely everything that I wanted up there. But, on one hand, that might be a good thing since I tend to be long-winded and I'd rather over-explain than under-explain 9/10 times. If you're just getting started, you probably don't need a 5-page report on the History of Blending for All Eternity before you can even begin.

Still I'm happy to report that between this Workshop and my actual teaching, I do think I managed to get through at least some of the concepts to my two students. They both showed me their progress as we went, and I could definitely see improvement between the first couple of exercises we did and the last few. They're not suddenly expert blenders or anything (I wouldn't even give myself such classification) but improvement is improvement, regardless. It's also very reassuring to me as a teacher to see evidence that I'm doing something at least a little bit right.

With all that in mind, hopefully, this will be helpful to others out there even without the benefit of more one-on-one guidance to walk you through it. If nothing else, maybe you'll get some use out of the practice page even if my instructions just don't teach very well to the way that you learn, yeah?

Just remember though: I know it doesn't seem like it at first, but you can get the hang of this. You have that potential within you, even if it doesn't seem like it, and I fully believe you can see that potential through if you just give yourself a chance and some time.

Worksheet Designs © me, MysticSparkleWings

Where to find me & my artwork:
My Website | My Book | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

Description
My Website | My Book | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi (Now with Membership Tiers for as little as $1 a Month!) | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

Oh hey, finally some more resource stuff from me. And this one's a two-parter!

You should be able to hit the "download" button somewhere up there and receive a .PDF with both parts included OR you can download the .PDF PLUS two separate .PNGs (one for each Part of the Workshop) here if that file type suits your printing situation better.

This is also sort of a companion to my good ol' Colored Pencil Testing Workshop , which might be obvious by the fonts used and some of the layout.

My rules for both parts of the Blending Workshop are:
1. Please DO NOT remove the "Created by MysticSparkleWings" Mark
2. Please DO NOT re-upload or redistribute the empty worksheets without my explicit written permission (If you've say, filled one out for a review/blog post/etc. and want to upload it, that's fine as long as you follow Rule 1)

Anyway. I made this Blending Workshop...oh dear, over a year ago...when I got somewhat back in the teaching game with some friends after a mostly unintentional hiatus. (And ironically enough, it's been long enough since that happened we're now on unintentional hiatus again...) The first lesson on our list was blending, primarily in regards to pencils for a number of reasons. I've actually somewhat struggled to communicate this concept before, particularly waaaay back when I was working on Skies, Galaxies, and Learning (to us as a teaching tool at the time). So my thought was that making a worksheet would force me to break the concept down in a somewhat streamlined way, and it would give my students something to come back to for guidance when I'm not available and they don't feel like asking Google.

Incidentally, I thought others out there might find it useful too.

I hope how to use it should be pretty self-explanatory this time around, since most of what you're supposed to do is written right on it. Including the disclaimer that this is not the definitive authority on how to blend colored pencils, as well as that the supplies you use might affect your results. Both seemed important to me to include since a true beginner legitimately might not know. (Especially on the supplies thing--it can be so discouraging to think you're doing something wrong when in reality it might be the tools that are the problem.)

Also, I thought the section on pressure was really important too, as it seems so simple, but this is one of the main things I struggled to communicate before, and in doing research to put my Workshop together, I was surprised by how it's not really mentioned in other resources that focus on pencil blending. I would argue learning to vary pressure and create smooth transitions that way--with just one color, from light to dark--is one of the most important fundamentals of blending pencils in the first place.

And yet I have to admit I had quite a bit of trouble in deciding how exactly to convey that information. I'm still not sure it's as clear as it could be, but I did my best.

The Rule of Thirds section...isn't necessarily how I normally blend, but it's a concept I see I lot with other pencil blending lessons and I do think it's a good foundation to get started. (Which I specified when I gave the lesson.) I'm also particularly proud of how the little shape for practicing applying the rules to a drawing turned out--It's just vague enough it could be a leaf or fire, or fire-shaped magic, so it's pretty versatile as to what colors you can use on it. And that's exactly what I wanted so that people wouldn't be locked into one specific color scheme.

Which brings me to the practice section. It's actually why this Workshop has two parts. At the end of the day, practice and patience really is the most important thing to learning to blend, once you have the knowledge of what you need to do. And it seemed wrong to me to just stop after two sections and leave it at that. So I wanted to include a small practice section, including some shapes that were slightly more exciting than cubes and spheres, but still not too complicated and that would work pretty okay with the Rule of Thirds. I had a few ideas, but my leftover space was somewhat limited so I couldn't fit them all in and I was a little concerned about how small they would be when the sheet printed out. (As it turns out, not as bad as I thought! The seashell, in particular, is a very comfortable size!)

So my solution to that, and some other minor things I wanted to include but did not want to dedicate whole sections to, was to make a Part 2 of the Workshop, technically optional, that focuses solely on practicing the new skills and experimenting. But I'll talk more about Part 2 in a minute.

I also dropped the two "Tip" boxes on there for similar reasons--they were things/ideas I wanted to mention, but I didn't think they needed whole sections or to give them whole sections would be to start opening other cans of worms that aren't necessarily directly related to pencil blending. Pencil blending was supposed to be the focus, so I wanted to stick as closely to that as possible.

Additional fun fact: Originally, I wanted to have all three sections on Part 1 just straight up and down instead of the bottom two being side-by-side, but I had limited space by the time I decided on everything I wanted to include. So I tried rearranging it this way just to see if it would work, and it did!

Now, Part 2 of the Workshop, as I said, is technically optional since it focuses solely on practicing the new skills and experimenting. But this Workshop has two parts because, at the end of the day, practice and patience really is the most important thing to learning to blend, once you have the knowledge of what you need to do. And I didn't feel right to leave your entire practice section to the three small sample drawings on Part 1 So I wanted to include a whole page of simple shapes/drawings to practice on; From just practicing blending a certain number of colors, to the stereotypical cubes and spheres, to some more fun, but still not too complicated things I thought would work pretty okay with the Rule of Thirds (as talked about in Part 1).

You could also just as easily do your practicing and experimenting inside of a coloring book or with any other drawings, really. You don't need a dedicated piece of paper for it, but I know sometimes just having that one place where you're supposed to do a thing can make it seem less daunting and more open to potential mistakes. Often, I find having resources like that for myself helps me learn more efficiently.

It was also important to me to include the "Blending Aids" section because some of you may notice a few of the boxes have very similar ideas/instructions to the bottom section of the Colored Pencil Testing Workshop . I'm not the only one who uses methods like that to help blend & test colored pencils and in my browsing of existing blending resources to see what would be worth including, I found that quite a few do mention these sorts of additions/methods to aid in blending.

That section is even more optional than the rest of the worksheet, and they're certainly not the only five things you can try (Gamsol/odorless minerals spirits are a big one, as are some pens made specifically for pencil blending), but I opted for things you might already have in the house, that are typically not dangerous (odorless mineral spirits come with some safety concerns), and/or you might already have around your art supplies specifically. I figure if you do have the supplies on hand and you're just starting to learn/experiment, it's probably worth having a dedicated spot to try things out.

And yet I still didn't have room to include absolutely everything that I wanted up there. But, on one hand, that might be a good thing since I tend to be long-winded and I'd rather over-explain than under-explain 9/10 times. If you're just getting started, you probably don't need a 5-page report on the History of Blending for All Eternity before you can even begin.

Still I'm happy to report that between this Workshop and my actual teaching, I do think I managed to get through at least some of the concepts to my two students. They both showed me their progress as we went, and I could definitely see improvement between the first couple of exercises we did and the last few. They're not suddenly expert blenders or anything (I wouldn't even give myself such classification) but improvement is improvement, regardless. It's also very reassuring to me as a teacher to see evidence that I'm doing something at least a little bit right.

With all that in mind, hopefully, this will be helpful to others out there even without the benefit of more one-on-one guidance to walk you through it. If nothing else, maybe you'll get some use out of the practice page even if my instructions just don't teach very well to the way that you learn, yeah?

Just remember though: I know it doesn't seem like it at first, but you can get the hang of this. You have that potential within you, even if it doesn't seem like it, and I fully believe you can see that potential through if you just give yourself a chance and some time.

Worksheet Designs © me, MysticSparkleWings

Where to find me & my artwork:
My Website | My Book | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram