In our opinion, colorists can never have too many tricks up their sleeve. To help you improve your artistic arsenal, we’ve got some more GelWriter Color Combos for spicing up your doodles and adult coloring book pages! If you missed our last three color combos, be sure to check them out here.

Before we dive into the combos, here are some quick tips for blending with GelWriter gel pens. If you’re already a blending pro, feel free to skip ahead!

1. Gelwriter ink comes out wet and dries quickly. For best results, use blending techniques within 60 seconds of applying your base ink. It’s a good idea to have the pens you want to blend out and ready.
2. Blending works best when there is more than enough ink on a surface. To get more ink flowing, press the tip of your GelWriters firmly into a piece of scratch paper several times. Once it’s flowing, use short, even strokes to dispense more ink onto the page.
3. Start with your dark colors and work gradually toward light. Light colors are great to put over the top of dark wet ink—you can manipulate both inks with a pen tip and mix the two to various effects. Dark ink tends to overwhelm light ink when applied last.
4. Don’t forget hatching! Use close parallel lines to create different values of a color. A good technique for blending two colors is to create a solid block of each with a bit of white space in between. Fill the blank space with parallel lines of both colors to create a blended gradient.

Sunset

Nature knows how to do color right. You’ve probably seen a few sunsets that have blown you away with their vibrancy and intensity. With a pleasant mixture of orange, pink and purple Gelwriters, you can capture that impact in your own artwork! Start with the classic purple and work your way down the color spectrum for the best effect. Done right, the colors should fade into one another, leaving you with an blaze of spectacular color! You can split the colors into complementary groups to create a mosaic of clouds or other shapes that fit together without being too similar.

Colors used: Standard Purple, Pastel Purple, Pastel Light Pink, Pastel Orange, Pastel Light Orange

Burnished Gold

There’s something mesmerizing about this coppery-gold gradient. Whether you’re using it for metallic objects, hair, autumn leaves or a more abstract pattern, this mix of metallic yellows and oranges adds a layer of polish to any coloring. For an advanced option, use the lighter golds for highlights on a shiny metallic surface instead of using a static gradient!

Colors used: Metallic Copper, Glitter Dark Orange, Glitter Gold, Glitter Yellow

Mithril

Whether or not you appreciate its Tolkienian origin, this silver-blue combo is perfect for steely eyes, shimmering steel, silvery bodies of water and whatever else you can imagine. While we’ve only listed 3 colors, you can use any range of blues to complement the silver to various effects. For example, working in a Pastel Blue as the final color can lighten the whole palette or create some vivid highlights.

Colors used: Metallic Blue, Glitter Light Blue, Metallic Silver