This page was tricky to complete! I finished colouring the illustration but had no plans for the background. I ended up using both pencils and soft pastels – I was not sure if they would blend well and work together. Sometimes it’s good to try something new 😀 I think I can still improve this technique, but I’m happy with the results.

The book is Ivy and the Inky Butterfly by Johanna Basford. On this page, I used Prismacolor Premier pencils, Derwent Coloursoft, Mungyo Gallery Soft Pastels and Posca Pens. As I used soft pastels, I had to apply a fixative to keep the pigment in place. It takes some patience, because I need to cover the parts coloured with pencils to avoid any change in the colours. When using fixative, always test in a separate page before applying it to your artwork.