Colored Pencils or Markers: Which Works Better for Detailed Coloring Pages?
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Colored pencils win in tiny spaces, and markers win when you want bold color fast. Most detailed pages have both small and open spaces. Here is where each tool tends to work well.
Control in small spaces
Colored pencils win here. A sharp pencil point slips into a gap a few millimeters wide and stops right at the line. If you slip past it, a light touch barely shows.
Markers lay down ink wherever the tip touches, and the ink spreads a little into the paper. In a tiny space a fine tip helps, but even a fine tip is wider than a sharp pencil point, and you can't take a mistake back.
Layering and blending
Pencils let you build color in layers. Lay down a light first layer, add a second color on top, and deepen the shadows, and a teacup starts to look round or a sky fades from gold to violet. Our article on coloring small details explains an order to try, and Fine Art Tutorials has a step-by-step guide to blending colored pencils if you want to go further.
Markers give flat, even color in one pass. Water-based markers (most kids' and many adult sets) don't blend well; go over an area twice and the paper tends to pill or streak. Alcohol markers blend well while the ink is wet, but they take practice and soak through most paper.
Drying time
Pencils have no drying time. Rest your hand anywhere.
Markers dry in seconds on the surface, but drag your hand across fresh ink and it smears, and alcohol ink keeps spreading into the paper for a moment after the tip lifts. Work from one side of the page to the other so your hand isn't resting on wet color.
Show-through
Here's where the two differ most.
Pencils don't show through. Heavy pressure can leave an indent on the back of the page, but no color.
Markers often do. Water-based markers can show a faint shadow on the back of thin paper. Alcohol markers usually soak straight through ordinary paper and can mark the page underneath. We print our books on one side of the page, with nothing on the back, but a sheet behind the page still saves you trouble. Keeping marker color from reaching the next page explains the difference between show-through and transfer and how to set up for markers.
Which one to choose
Choose colored pencils if you like detailed pages, want to shade and blend, color in bed or on the couch, or don't want to worry about the back of the page.
Choose markers if you like bold, bright color, pages with bigger open shapes, and finishing a page faster.
Use both if you want bright flat color in big areas and pencil for the details and shading on top. Pencil sits well on top of dry water-based marker.
What to look for when buying
- Pencils: a soft core lays color down easily; a firm core holds a sharp point for detail. Soft-core pick: Kird Barken 80-color soft-core colored pencils. Firm-core pick: Faber-Castell Polychromos, tin of 12.
- Markers: dual tips (one brush or broad, one fine) are the most useful for coloring pages. Water-based pick: Artecho 72-color dual-tip markers. Alcohol pick: AnyMark 80-color dual-tip alcohol markers.
Try both on the same page
Print one of our free pages twice and color one in each. The three free pages from The Art of Doing Nothing have porches, a sleeping cat, and a garden gate, with enough detail to show the difference. Get the 3 free pages
For a book with more fine detail, Cozy Cats, Through the Seasons has cats in gardens, on window seats, and by the fire.