Pressure

Pressure is the amount of force applied to a colored pencil by your hand as it moves across the paper. Artists deliberately vary their hand pressure to control color intensity, coverage, and the amount of pigment deposited onto the paper.

Light pressure generally allows more layers to be added while heavy pressure deposits more material and can burnish or flatten the paper's texture, limiting subsequent layering.

Learn more: How Pencil Pressure Affects Color, Blending, and Layering (coming soon)

Neutral / Neutralize

In color theory, neutralization is the process of reducing a color's saturation, making it less vivid or intense. A neutralized color is less clean, bright hue, containing hints of white, gray, brown, or another muted appearance.

We often refer to neutralized color as “muddy” but remember, muddy colors can be quite pretty.

Colors can be neutralized by mixing them with complementary or opposing hues or by adding white, gray, black, or brown.

Some colored pencils are already partially neutralized by the pigment mixture created at the factory. Many skin-tone colors come pre-neutralized.

In Lab testing: When we describe a pencil as neutralized, we're identifying a color that appears slightly muted compared to a cleaner version of the same hue. Neutralization isn't a flaw but it is a characteristic you should be aware of before using the pencil.

On the plus side, muted colors can be particularly useful for shading and creating realistic shadows.

Unfortunately, we can’t un-neutralize a colored pencil. Using a muted color called “Peach” to color an actual slice of peach will always result in a muddy-colored peach. This is why I strongly objected to the political renaming of skin-toned art supplies. “Flesh” indicated the color was neutralized for skin purposes. “Peach” became a hidden landmine for botanical artists.