Learning how to color with acrylic markers | Arrtx autumn illustration (Beginner-friendly) 🍂

It's about time we practice acrylic markers, and of course, because it's fall, we had to do an autumn-themed spread. But don't worry if you're a beginner, I'm going to teach you exactly how to use them like a pro. Today, I'll be using Artex's acrylic markers, so let's set the coloring mood. Now, this set is full of 60 vibrant colors, but why not color with their gorgeous gel pens too? I mean, honestly, they're adorable and they match, so I love it. There are different types of acrylic markers, but one of the most common is direct ink, meaning all you have to do is uncap and draw. You can also do a lot with acrylic markers, from blending to layering, and practically all of these pages are made up using acrylic markers, and this set is a little special because you're actually able to see how much ink is inside of it rather than guessing. This helps you know if you need replacements or just to pause and let the ink fill. But let's go over how to use acrylic markers. To color, simply draw with it. I know, self-explanatory, but the tip is like a paintbrush, so the ink will keep flowing as you color. Because the tip is very flexible, at least with these markers it is, you're able to make lines, squiggles, dots, any type of that. But also, you can color in different ways. You can use large strokes, or you can use the flicking method. The flicking method will cover the space a little thicker, but you'll have a little less streaks. Acrylic markers also dry very fast, maybe 10 seconds or less, depending on the brand, so you can easily cover any uneven spots. When layering, this makes it possible to cover blue with yellow. But if you try to layer right after you color, the inks will mix and you'll get this situation. But don't worry, it's easy to clean the marker just by drying it off or wiping it on your hand. That's what I do. So once the blue is dry, you're able to actually cover it. It might take a couple layers, but you can do it. Now for layering, again, if you use just one layer of blue, you might see a couple streaks. That's why you wait until it dries and you add a second layer. This way it becomes really smooth and it's easy to cover any areas you need. Now you can also cover on top with dark green or light green, even with a yellow. The last major skill is blending. Because of how fast they dry, this has to be done very quickly. So I usually keep both markers uncapped and ready to draw. One option is to color the other marker directly like this. This way the ink spreads and blends as the original marker's ink replenishes it. The second, and the one that I use, is to speedily switch markers and color on top of the same area. Then, use your finger to smooth the blend. Plus with these, you can always add back more of the color you want if you need to fix it. So if we're trying to do this circle, I'll start with blue and then color over top in the middle with the pink. Already, just by drawing, you see it starts to turn purple, but towards the outside, the pink is still a little bit of purple, so you can always add back some of the pink once it's dried a little bit. But if you mess up, you can always color over it again. Just be careful of pilling, meaning areas where the sketchbook will have too much ink in it and start sort of rubbing off. But I wanted to take a moment to show you all of the colors in this set that I got. Now I'm so excited because these are all super vibrant and I absolutely love color, I love color theory, I love working with it, so this set has some gorgeous colors. You also gotta be careful sometimes in different acrylic marker sets, or just in general, the colors that you see aren't necessarily the colors that you get, but through swatching this and through working with these, I can tell that when it dries, it's the same color. So just be wary of other brands in case it's not the same. But now that I know the colors I have to work with, let's get started on the actual coloring. So I went for a fall theme, so let's start with a nice tree. I'm gonna start with the trunk, I'm using three different colors of brown, and I'm gonna blend them together. I'm also gonna have the light come from the left side, meaning the right side of the tree and of the leaves is gonna be a little bit darker. Now, like I said earlier, when you're trying to blend colors, acrylic markers dry very fast. So keep in mind that you might have to go over it a couple of layers, or, you know, you don't have to blend it. I love the look of a smooth gradient, but with acrylic markers, you can also do color blocking, or you can just have different lines. There's a bunch of different ways to color, I just prefer the smooth way. So now I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna block out the trees. So for these leaves, I want it to be red, orange, and some yellow. The yellow will be on the left side, the light side, and then the darker side will be red. So I'm not even gonna worry about the other colors first. I'm starting off with just a base of red, and you can see it's streaky, that's okay. This is the first base layer, I'm gonna have a lot on top. Now over on the left, I'm coloring in with the yellow. As you can see though, where the yellow and the red meet, it's starting to blend into orange. I actually really like this, but it's just because the red is not dried yet. Again, this is the base layer. I'm gonna start going in with the red and the other colors on top, and start actually adding little dots for the leaves and little areas where the light changes. So right now, I'm going in, I already have the base done, now I'm adding back the same dark red that I used for the initial base. I'm coming over and I'm adding in different tops. I'm doing a lot more red on the right side, because that's the darker side, than the left side. Now I'm going in with my second darkest red. I'll put this on top of the dark red, but a little farther up. Eventually the lightest area is gonna be sort of the top left, and the darkest will be the bottom right. Again, I'm going in with orange. You can also use your finger to smudge it, to blend it and smooth it if you want, but you don't have to. So I was not expecting to like it this much actually, but I loved it. I think these colors work really, really well. And as you saw, there's a bunch of different colors. Maybe one of the four trays are autumn colors, but because of the mixing and the vibrancy, it looks like you have a billion colors. So it's honestly very great. I'm adding the final details, like I'm adding some branches, I'm adding some grass, and I'm also using the gel pen to add just a little bit more of highlights. Now onto the other tree. I'm gonna use color theory for this. Okay, so no, it is not a green tree. We're making a red tree, and this is also an easier one to follow where you just make circles and then add little dots for the leaves on the outside, and then you just repeat that. So easy tutorial. But anyways, right now I use dark green, which is the complementary color of red, which basically means it's on the opposite side of the color wheel. It can make a darker red when mixed. So now this second layer, it's the exact same red I used for the first one. But the first red is a lot darker because I mixed it with green. Now I'm adding in a lot of the dots around the circle, and that's how it sort of looks like a leaf or like bushes, and you keep doing that. You make the brightest area towards the top left and the darkest the bottom right. Some of the leaves and some of the brightness will extend into the other areas, like you can see I'm putting some of these light leaf dots like on the dark area at the very top. You want it to just look like the leaves are sprouting from everywhere. Now once I add this highlight, I'll finally move on to the trunk. Again, I'm going to blend it a little bit, but it doesn't need to be too detailed. At least for this one, I didn't want it to be. I add a little bit of darkness on the right side and some highlights on the left, blend it together, and done with the second tree. Again, gotta add the grass because I think it is so cute. But now back to color theory. I want to show you what it's like on a pumpkin. So for orange, we're going to see what the difference is just between this dark orange and using blue. Blue is orange's complementary color. So if I layer it first or even second, when I mix orange with it, it creates a darker orange. So the left side is just the dark orange. The right side is when I'm using color theory. Already by coloring on top, you can see it is clearly a different color. It adds a lot more shadow, a lot more contrast, and it creates a lot more dimension than just using dark and light orange. Now, I absolutely love these colors. Already I love the spread, but I'm really enjoying this and seeing how vibrant it becomes. Even if you don't want it to be as dark using blue, you can also add in some maybe dark red if you want. That would be one of orange's analogous colors. Basically on the color wheel, it's the colors next to each other. So using red can also create more vibrancy and a little bit more dimension. But I personally prefer using the blue because I think it adds a lot more darkness and contrast, which I absolutely love. So for this pumpkin, now the stem, it's why am I using purple? Well, because I can. You can layer purple. You can layer a bunch of different colors. Most of these I am having look generally realistic or I'm matching some of the colors. But again, you can add in a bunch of different colors. If I wanted to put highlights on the pumpkin, I could do bright blue. I could do bright green with acrylic markers, especially in the vibrancy and the ability to layer light random colors on top. Like I can put orange on top of blue. I can put yellow on top of dark purple and it can be just as vibrant as if I didn't even have that base layer. That is where whimsical coloring comes into play and a lot of cool styles. Now this second pumpkin, I'm honestly just having fun with it. I'm using dots. I'm using mostly orange. This is a little bit to show the difference between the bottom pumpkin, where I use blue and color theory, and this top one where I'm only really using orange. Both of them are cute, but for me, I like the bottom one better. Now, I thought that this pumpkin was missing a little something. So I decided to go in with highlights and an outline. This is where I'm going to use the gorgeous gel pen. And honestly, this is also Artix's gel pens. They are so smooth. I have never used these before and I'm actually really excited. So you will definitely be seeing these more. So when you add the outline, especially if you don't have the full outline, like I'm leaving some areas not outlined. I love this look. So I'm probably going to do a whole spread separately. But now on to the pumpkin spice latte. Okay, I don't drink pumpkin spice latte. I don't do caffeine. I don't really do special drinks. I don't really do any of that. But I do love coloring them. So for this, I wasn't sure how to initially start off. But I decided just go with a brief light base. Once I have that done, I'm going to start adding in some of the pumpkin spice caramel. I don't really know what's in a pumpkin spice latte, to be honest. But I'm going to add in the orange and more of the color. Now, right now, it looks really weird. It looks like it has lines and that's just not right. But that's where the blending and the smoothing comes into play. So because it's still wet and I just drew with it, I'm going to layer on top that light color. And when you layer, again, if you're using a light color on top of a dark color, it might take a couple of layers. So for it to be fully over on top without it being see-through, it would probably take five, six layers. For this, I want it to be see-through. I want it to blend. I want it to be a gradient. So I'm only layering maybe once or twice. I'm also adding in anytime you want like a gray, a purple, sometimes with cream. I like to use purple as one of the shadows and something to mix with because it's a lot better than black. Typically, artists avoid using black just because it can come off as a little bit too dark and doesn't necessarily mesh well or seem cohesive with the rest of the color palette. It can also be overpowering and sometimes it comes out flat or dull. So this way, if you use other colors, like if you look at color theory using the color wheel and try to mix and create darker shades, it can create a lot more interesting contrast and dimension. So for this, I'm using some of the dark purple, a little bit of brown, dark blue, and I'm using those for some of the darker areas and lines. Now, I'm honestly really liking how this looks, especially the cream. I mentioned before, I love using either like a light blue or light purple as dimension for essentially the whipped cream on top. This was really, really fun. And I also say you don't really have to use white that much. Like for this top cream, I'm not using any white at all. It's just about layering and where you're putting the darkness. And it does look white. It looks like whipped cream, at least to me. I think it looks like cute whipped cream. If it doesn't to you, I'm sorry. I have failed you. But anyways, I really like the look of it. And I think that this spread is really coming together. Now, once I finish with the whipped cream, I'm going to go in with the actual like pumpkin spice topping. For that, I'm going to use a brown and an orange. I'm just going to add a couple of little dots. Honestly, you don't want it to cover the entire whipped cream, but you want it to be noticeable. I think that this really pulls it together and it looks adorable. So I think this is one of my favorite drawings. Now, OK, we're going into apples and I'm just straight up doing color theory. I'm starting with the dark green, coloring over with the red while the green is still wet. And then that's how it makes to create the darker shade. This is just like the tree at the bottom that I did earlier, going in with the different colors and different shades of red and then just forming the apple. For this apple, I'm also having the light come essentially on the top right of it. So the left side and the bottom will be a lot darker. You can also tell that the way I'm coloring is different. I'm not using the side of the marker. I'm not making it smooth. I'm keeping it streaky with the lines and curving as the apple shape curves. This is a fun way to do it, and it's different from the other ways that I did on this spread. But it's not wrong. There's a bunch of ways you can color. Now, I'm also adding back some green. I lost some of the darkness. So again, you can always add back and make it darker or lighter, whichever one you want. Now, once I finish with this apple, I'm going to do the eaten apple. This one, I'm coloring different. I'm not worried about the strokes. I'm just doing a little bit of color patching. So I'm using my dark red, medium red, light red, a little bit of highlight. But honestly, I'm just I'm just putting color to the page, showing you that it doesn't have to be detailed. You can just color it. Draw acrylic markers are really easy and beginner friendly. Now, I'm going to color the inside with a little bit of off white, a little bit of the green, add two of the seeds. This is where I'll use black for the only time on this page for actual acrylic marker, not the gel pen. And there you go. All that's left is the star anise. OK, so this is the center of the sketchbook spread, and I decided to do a really cute spice. So this is a brown spice. It sort of looks similar in color to cinnamon, but honestly, I'm just going to use a bunch of fun colors. So I wanted to mix it up. Instead of just sticking with the brown, orange and red, I decided to add a little bit of blue. And I just want this to be a cute centerpiece. So I'm adding in a lot of the shape. As you can see, the first layer had no shape. Now I'm adding in all the details. I'm adding in the sides. I think the blue also makes it look very distinct and makes it look a little bit more interesting. I'm adding in some pink as well, finishing with the details and the spread is done. I absolutely loved this. I had so much fun. These markers are amazing and vibrant. And I hope that you learned something too, whether you're new to acrylic markers or just wanted to have fun. Thank you so much for watching. And don't forget to check out Prime's discount deals for these markers on October 6th and 7th. See you next time.