How to color with alcohol markers: smooth fills, soft blends and simple shading

Set up: paper, blotter, printer

Most problems with alcohol markers start before the first stroke. Three things to get right:

Paper

Smooth paper keeps alcohol ink wet for 2 to 3 seconds; rough, absorbent paper dries it in under a second, which is where streaks come from (Coloring Dojo). Pick the smoothest cardstock you can find.

Blotter sheet

Coloring Dojo suggests cardstock, chipboard or 3 to 4 scrap sheets, replaced once they are soaked, because wet ink can wick back up. Caro's Art Studio uses a thick watercolor sheet ("the thicker the better"); a Chloe Rose Art viewer uses flattened Amazon box cardboard. Skip glossy magazine pages and paper towels.

Printer line ink

Laser toner is safe; inkjet ink can smear. A Pictured Purpose recommends a laser printer for alcohol markers because inkjet ink is liquid and can smear. JordynAlisonDesigns' inkjet black transferred onto her yellow, green and light purple nibs. If you only have an inkjet:

• Print in Draft or Grayscale: less ink on the page (Michelle's MBellishments, Paperesse).
• Let the print dry 24 hours before coloring.
• Test one corner with a pale marker first. Sources disagree on which inks are safe, so the corner test is the only reliable rule.

Our free coloring pages are vector PDFs in US Letter and A4 with 1/2 in margins: print at Actual size on cardstock. The printing guide has tray and media settings.

Do alcohol markers bleed?

Yes. They are made to soak into paper, and they keep going. Coloring Dojo's table: 60 to 80 gsm bleeds almost always, 90 to 120 often, 130 to 160 sometimes, 160 to 200 rarely with a blotter, 200 to 250 very rarely. On cardstock you may still see the color from the back (ghosting) without it reaching the next sheet, which is what JordynAlisonDesigns saw.

Ink also spreads sideways as it dries. Bobbie Goods tells colorists to color "just under the line", and A Pictured Purpose leaves a hair of white before the outline. Thick outlines help: Colour with Claire says bold black lines give you a little room for bleed. Our easy pages use 1.7 mm lines for that reason.

Swatch and pick a palette

Markers dry to a different color than the cap suggests, and look different on different paper. A Pictured Purpose swatches every set on the paper she colors on. Then choose a short palette: Little Stardust Press suggests two main colors, one neutral, one darker shade and one small accent, each main color repeated in 2 or 3 places. Its "Christmas Bakery" palette, for example: cranberry, pine, cream, gingerbread and soft gold.

Flat, even fills without streaks

The whole trick is a wet edge. Alcohol ink blends with itself only while it is wet. If a stroke lands next to one that has already dried, you get a line.

1. Use the brush or chisel tip for anything bigger than a fingernail. The fine tip is for eyes and tiny gaps.
2. Start at the line, just inside it, and work toward the middle.
3. Overlap almost the whole previous stroke. Shrimpy says streaks come from strokes spaced too far apart and from going back over areas that have dried.
4. Don't stop. Colour with Claire found that lifting the pen for about five seconds is enough to leave a streak. On a big shape, move back and forth across it so no edge dries.
5. Turn the page so your strokes stay short and comfortable on long shapes (Colour with Claire).
6. Don't scrub. Sarah Renae Clark's point: the ink blends itself while wet, and pressing harder doesn't help.

Circles or strokes? Both work. Michelle's MBellishments colors in small circles, which keeps the edge wet in all directions on small and medium shapes. Long overlapping strokes are faster on big ones. Thaneeya McArdle sums up the pace: color "slowly and quickly", slow enough to saturate the paper, quick enough that the edge stays wet.

A marker that is running dry is the most common cause of streaks that won't go away. If a marker drags or the color looks pale, refill it before the session.

How to blend two tones

Choose two colors close in value. Shrimpy suggests colors within 2 or 3 steps of each other on the color wheel; a very light and a very dark marker won't meet in the middle. A light and a medium brown, a pale pink and a rose.

Method 1: dark into wet light (soft, quick)

1. Fill the whole shape with the light color.
2. While it is still wet, color the shadow side with the darker one.
3. Go back over the join with the light color, pulling it into the dark.

Caro's Art Studio uses a darker tone on a wet base for soft gradients on round things, and the same tone on a dry base when she wants a crisp edge, like a cast shadow.

Method 2: flick from both ends (longer gradients)

Shrimpy's method: flick the dark color from one end toward the middle, then the light from the other end toward the middle, and repeat in about four alternating layers. Each pass softens the meeting point. Flicking means lifting the tip as you finish the stroke, so the color fades out.

Method 3: tip-to-tip with the colorless blender

Artists Network describes loading a color marker with blender by touching the two tips together. The first strokes go down pale and darken as the blender runs out of the nib: a gradient from one marker. It only works on fresh ink.

Simple shading on cozy pages

Pick one light source and stick to it. Caro's Art Studio uses a lamp or window in the scene if there is one, and otherwise "just pick a side": she likes the upper left. There is "no light police", as she says.

Sarah Renae Clark names four kinds of shade. On a bold-and-easy page, the first two do most of the work:

1. Cast shadow: a small shadow under each object, on the side away from the light. Kristina Hunter Art says it makes objects sit on the table instead of floating. Bigger objects get bigger shadows; flat things on the ground barely any.
2. Shadow side: the side of each object facing away from the light.
3. Contact shadow: a thin dark line where two things touch, like a mug on a saucer.
4. Light side: leave it as the base color.

Three strengths of shadow

Kristina Hunter Art layers the same way every time:

• Subtle: the same marker again, once the first layer is dry.
• Stronger: the next darker marker in the same family.
• Darkest: a third pass in the deepest corner only.

Shade within the color family, or with a matching gray. Caro shades red with a red gray and green with a green gray, and only on a dry base, since gray over wet color lifts it. A cool gray on a warm red looks "crashing". For round shapes like oranges, she adds three layers, each one smaller than the last. Simply Kewy goes the other way: a gray shadow layer first, then color on top.

Blank: the lamp sits upper left

Colored: a soft palette of cream, beige and sage, pink cheeks

Faces and blush cheeks

Don't shade faces. Kristina Hunter Art skips shading over the cat's face entirely and keeps the eyes and snout clear. A cozy character looks right with a flat face and pink cheeks.

• Marker blush: a pale pink dot or small oval on each cheek, on dry base color, with the brush tip barely touching.
• Softer blush: a pink colored pencil over the dry marker, in small circles. It fades out at the edges more gently than ink.
• Keep it pale. You can go darker with a second dot; you can't go lighter.

Two Cats Sharing Hot Cocoa

79 spaces · Easy

Capybara Holding a Mug of Hot Cocoa

49 spaces · Easy

Bunny Wrapped in a Blanket with Cocoa

44 spaces · Easy

Kitten Sitting in a Teacup

29 spaces · Easy

Highlights

A white gel pen goes on last, on dry ink. Kristina Hunter Art warms the pen between her fingers first, and watches her hand, because fresh gel smears. Where to put them:

• Shiny things: mugs, teapots, glass, fruit, leaves, metal. A curved stroke on the side facing the light.
• Windows: two short parallel lines across the glass.
• Eyes: one dot, on the same side in every eye.
• Not on fur or most wood: Kristina Hunter Art leaves those matte.

Sarah Renae Clark goes further and uses highlights everywhere; it is a matter of taste. Uni-ball Signo UM-153 is the more opaque pen, Gelly Roll the finer one. More in the markers guide.

Backgrounds

The background is the biggest shape on the page, so it is where streaks show. Colorists split on order: some color it first so any bleed happens before the rest, others last so a mistake can't ruin finished work. Options that suit cozy pages:

• Leave it white. On a full scene, the characters stand out more.
• One pale flat color, filled section by section where the drawing already breaks it up (tiles, planks, panes, clouds). Each section is small enough to keep wet.
• A pattern in a lighter color: Colour with Claire adds wallpaper patterns in a shade lighter than the wall.
• A glow: lighter near a lamp, fire or TV and darker away from it. Colour with Claire draws two faint pencil lines from the TV corners and keeps the inside lighter.
• A night scene: dark blues and purples outside a window, with warm color inside.

Fixing mistakes with the colorless blender

The colorless blender is alcohol without color. Michelle's MBellishments lists what it does: lightens color, pushes stray ink back inside a line, fades a color to white, softens hard edges. Every Ohuhu set includes one.

• Ink over the line: run the blender from outside the slip toward the shape, a little at a time. It lightens the slip; it rarely removes it.
• Use it sparingly. Colour with Claire shows how too much blender spreads past the line in a frilly "cauliflower" edge. Thick outlines hide some of it.
• On inkjet prints, heavy blender over a printed line can make the line bleed.
• Bigger mistakes: cover with a darker color, or with an opaque acrylic marker. Turn a stray mark into a pattern with white gel pen dots.
• Or reprint. With a printable page, a ruined page costs one sheet of cardstock.

Troubleshooting

Streaky first pages are normal, and the r/Coloring regulars say so too. A bold-and-easy page takes about 30 minutes in marker by Coco Wyo's own estimate; Chloe Rose Art spent a little over an hour on a cozy scene. Print the same page twice and compare: the second is always smoother.

Color your first page

Start with Hot Cocoa Mug with Marshmallows: a few big round shapes, one light source, a highlight on the mug. Then move to a full scene from the cafe and bakery collection, or browse all bold and easy pages. Still choosing a set? Read the best markers for coloring books.