Tutorial: Pop-Art Colouring

I want to share a simple colouring technique with you today that will give your image a wonderful pop-art look. You can use whatever colouring medium you like, but you'll also need a black, fine line pen and a good, white gel pen.

Start by colouring the image as desired. We're only using a single colour for each section... no highlights, no shadows, just flat colour. I chose to use all the primary and secondary colours, making sure the tones were about the same, which means I didn't mix pastels with neons or muted colours with brights.

Now, try to think of each element in the image as having four sides - top, bottom, left and right. With the black fine line pen, outline all the different elements in the image on the left and bottom sides. Don't add an outline on the right hand side or on the top.

Take a good look at the image below. You can see that I've added black outlines here and there around the image, but if you look closely you'll notice that the lines are actually on the bottom and left side of each area. Look at the green icing at the very bottom of the cake. You can see black lines on each swirl but only on the bottom and left hand side. That's the look you're going for.

Now we're going to do the same process with the white pen, except we'll be focusing on the top and right hand side of each of the elements. The only difference this time is that we're not going to add the line around the edge of each element. Instead, we're going to come inside just a little bit. Again, look at that green icing at the bottom of the cake. You can see that the white lines are at the top, right hand side, but they are a couple of millimetres in from the actual edge of the icing.

What we've basically done with the black and white pens - even though I said we wouldn't - is add a shadow and highlight, but in an extremely stylised way. The effect is still basically the same, but without the longer process.

I hope you'll give this tutorial a go, and if you do, don't forget to share a link with me.

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