How to Burnish Coloured Pencils for That Professional Polish

By Carol Leather

Burnishing is the step that pulls layered colour together into a smooth, unified finish. You apply firm pressure with a light pencil or a colourless blender, pressing the pigment down into the paper so the separate strokes disappear and the colour deepens.

I came to it the slow way. For years my drawings were technically sound but never quite resolved. You could see every individual stroke, the colours sat side by side instead of merging, and they lacked the smooth, almost glowing quality I admired in other people's work. Burnishing was the missing step. The harder part was learning to do it without flattening hours of careful layering.

Used well, burnishing is what gives smooth subjects (a polished apple, glass, ceramic) that convincing solid surface. Used carelessly, it lightens your colours, leaves streaks, or brings up a dull waxy film. It's also usually a final step: once an area is burnished you can't easily add more colour over it, so the real skill is knowing when it helps and when it will trap you. This page covers both: how to do it, and when to leave it alone.

What is Burnishing Coloured Pencil?

At its core, burnishing coloured pencil is an advanced blending technique.

It involves applying layers of coloured pencil pigment and then using a specialised tool, a hard-point colourless blender, or even a light-coloured pencil with firm pressure to meld these layers together.

Think of it like polishing a surface. You're essentially grinding and compressing the wax or oil-based pigment from your pencils down into the tooth (the texture) of the paper. This process achieves several key things:

1. Eliminates Paper Texture: The firm pressure fills the valleys of the paper's texture, creating a unified, smooth surface.
2. Intensifies Colour: Compressing the pigment layers makes the colours appear richer, deeper, and more saturated.
3. Creates a Sheen: The compressed wax or oil creates a characteristic polished, slightly glossy or waxy finish.
4. Blends Colours Seamlessly: It merges different colours applied in layers, creating smooth transitions and gradients without visible pencil strokes.

This technique is particularly effective for rendering smooth, non-porous surfaces like glass, polished metal, ripe fruit skins, or ceramics.

It signifies a 'finished' look, sealing the layers and giving the artwork a professional polish.

However, it's important to note that once an area is heavily burnished, it becomes difficult (sometimes impossible) to add more layers of colour on top, as the paper's tooth is filled and the pigment will no longer stick.

Is Burnishing Right for Your Drawing Goals?

Before the technique itself, it helps to know when burnishing earns its place and when it works against you.

Use Burnishing When You Want To

• Create a smooth, professional finish that eliminates visible pencil strokes
• Achieve realistic smooth surfaces like polished apples, glass, metal, or ceramic
• Unify your colours into seamless, luminous blends
• Pull separate strokes together into one smooth, finished surface
• Deepen and unify the colour so it reads as a solid surface
• Eliminate the "coloured pencil look" for subjects that should appear smooth

Perfect for: Realistic still life, reflective objects, anything requiring a polished, unified appearance.

Don't Use Burnishing When You Want

• Visible texture like animal fur, rough bark, fabric weave, or hair strands
• To add more layers later, burnishing seals the surface, preventing additional colour
• On areas you're not satisfied with, burnishing makes corrections nearly impossible
• Quick sketches or studies where the polished finish isn't the goal

Tools for Burnishing Coloured Pencil

The tool you choose for burnishing can subtly alter the final effect. While you don't necessarily need expensive speciality items to start, understanding the options helps you achieve your desired look.

White or Pale-Coloured Wax Pencil

• How it works: Using a white or very light pencil (like cream or pale grey) from your regular set, you apply firm pressure over the coloured layers.
• Pros: Readily available, inexpensive.
• Cons: It will slightly tint and lighten the underlying colours due to the added white/pale pigment. This can be desirable for highlights but may dull richer colours. Requires significant pressure.
• Best for: Achieving subtle blends, creating highlights, artists on a budget.

Speciality Colourless Blender Pencils

• Examples: Prismacolour Colourless Blender, Lyra Rembrandt Splender Blender, Derwent Blender Pencil.
• How it works: These are pencils made primarily of wax binder without pigment. They blend existing colours using firm pressure without adding colour.
• Pros: Don't alter the hue of your underlying colours significantly. Designed specifically for blending and burnishing.
• Cons: Can sometimes create a slightly waxy look depending on the brand and paper. Quality varies between brands (some are harder, some softer).
• Lyra Splender Blender: Known for being softer and offering gentle, smooth transitions.
• Prismacolour Colourless Blender: Matches the soft, waxy core of Prismacolour Premier pencils, good for burnishing those specifically.

Speciality Burnisher Pencils

• Examples: Derwent Burnisher Pencil, Caran d'Ache Full Blender Bright (Wax Stick).
• How it works: These are typically harder points made of clear binder or wax. They are designed less for gentle blending and more for heavy pressure polishing.
• Pros: Create a very smooth, almost glass-like finish. Excellent at compressing layers and intensifying colour. Can create a resist effect if used before colouring.
• Cons: Can make it very difficult to add colour afterwards. Require significant pressure, which might not suit all paper types.
• Derwent Burnisher: A hard pencil point that adds a transparent wax layer, sealing the surface effectively. Great for final polishing.
• Caran d'Ache Full Blender Bright: A solid stick of colourless wax, excellent for covering and blending larger areas smoothly, especially compatible with their Luminance pencils.

Tool Test Insights

In a test comparing the Derwent Burnisher and Lyra Splender on Faber Castell Polychromos (oil-based) and Derwent Artist (wax-based) pencils over Hot Pressed watercolour paper we found:

Resist Effect: Both tools, when applied before colour, created a resist by indenting the paper and applying clear wax, letting underlying marks show through a single colour layer.

Burnishing:

• On Polychromos, the Derwent Burnisher produced a noticeably softer, more thoroughly blended result compared to the Lyra Splender under consistent pressure.
• On Derwent Artist pencils, both performed well, demonstrating their effectiveness on wax-based leads.

White Pencil Comparison: Using a white pencil for burnishing resulted in a distinctly lighter, less intense colour compared to the dedicated colourless tools, confirming its tinting effect.

Which tool is best? It depends on your pencils (wax vs. oil), your paper, the desired effect (subtle blend vs. high gloss), and personal preference. Experimentation is key. Starting with a colourless blender pencil is often a good middle ground.

What UK Artists Need for Successful Burnishing

Let's talk about the practical realities of getting burnishing tools and suitable materials in the UK.

Essential Burnishing Tools Available in the UK

Derwent Burnisher

• Where to buy: Jackson's Art Supplies, Amazon UK, Hobbycraft
• Price range: £3-5 individual pencil
• My experience: Reliable, widely available, works well on most papers
• Best for: UK artists wanting a dedicated burnishing tool without import costs

Lyra Splender (Colourless Blender)

• Where to buy: Jackson's Art Supplies, online art retailer
• Price range: £4-6 individual pencil
• My experience: Slightly softer than Derwent, good for gentle burnishing
• Best for: Artists wanting more control over pressure

Budget Alternative: Light-Coloured Pencils

• What to use: Cream, pale yellow, or white pencils from your existing set
• Cost: No additional expense
• Trade-off: Will slightly lighten the area but still creates smooth finish
• Best for: Learning burnishing before investing in dedicated tools

What Paper Works Best for Burnishing?

Burnishing works best on sturdy paper with a moderate amount of tooth.

Too smooth: Papers like Bristol Board (smooth plate finish) have less tooth to grip the initial layers, making it harder to build up enough pigment before burnishing. Burnishing might just smear the pigment around.

Too Rough: Very textured paper (like rough watercolour paper) requires a lot of pigment and pressure to fill the deep valleys, which can be tiring and lead to a less uniform finish.

Good Choices: Hot-pressed watercolour paper, Stonehenge paper, good quality drawing or cartridge paper (like in the example) often strike a good balance. Experiment to find your favourite.

Now that you understand what makes good burnishing paper, here are the specific options I recommend for UK artists.

Best Papers for Burnishing (UK Available)

Strathmore 400 Series (Hot Press)

• Where to buy: Jackson's Art Supplies, Amazon UK
• Price range: £20-30 for pad
• Why it works: Enough tooth to hold layers, smooth enough for even burnishing

Fabriano Artistico (Hot Press)

• Where to buy: Most UK art suppliers
• Price range: £25-40 for pad
• Why it works: Premium paper, excellent for detailed burnishing work

What About Cheaper Options?

Honestly, burnishing demands good paper.

Cheaper cartridge paper often doesn't have enough tooth to hold the pigment layers needed before burnishing, or it's too rough to achieve a smooth finish.

This is one area where investing in better materials makes a dramatic difference in your results.

How Do You Burnish Coloured Pencils Without Disasters?

Here's the systematic approach that prevents the most common burnishing mistakes:

What Are the Critical Burnishing Guidelines

Let's visualize the process. I used:

• Paper: Cartridge Paper (has a slight texture)
• Pencils: Caran d'Ache Luminance (a high-quality, soft wax-based pencil range, excellent for burnishing)

Initial Light Layers: Starting with your lightest value, light strokes establish the sphere's shape and basic shading. The paper grain is clearly visible. This maps out the form.

Building Colour and Form: More layers are added, to enhance the 3D effect. Still applied relatively lightly, but building pigment. I used light ochres and browns here.

Introducing More Colours: New hues (oranges and yellows in my example) are layered using a blunt pencil, adding complexity and richness while reinforcing existing layers. There's now a solid foundation of wax pigment.

The Burnishing Magic: A strong yellow/orange layer is applied over the entire shape with heavy pressure using a blunt pencil tip. This acts as both a colour layer and the burnishing agent. Notice how:

• Paper grain largely disappears.
• Colours intensify significantly.
• The surface looks smooth and unified.
• The underlying shading still shows through the transparent orange layer.

Final touches are added to define the deepest shadows and perhaps subtle highlights.

Refinement: Resist the temptation to overwork it, a common challenge once you start burnishing.

Why This Sphere Example Matters for Your Art

Look at the transformation in my sphere example above. This demonstrates exactly what burnishing does for your realistic subjects:

Before Burnishing (Early Stages)

• Visible paper texture: You can see individual paper grain through the colour
• Separate colour layers: Each pencil stroke exists independently
• Matte appearance: Looks flat, lacks luminosity
• Obviously coloured pencil: the marks read as separate strokes

After Burnishing (Final Stage)

• Smooth, unified surface: Paper grain disappears
• Integrated colours: Layers blend into cohesive hues
• Luminous depth: Colours appear to glow from within
• A smooth, finished surface that no longer reads as separate strokes

That's the difference burnishing makes: separate layers become one smooth, resolved surface.

Why Does My Burnishing Always Go Wrong?

Successful burnishing involves navigating a few potential challenges:

How Do I Avoid These Problems?

"I'm afraid to try burnishing on my good drawings"

• Practise on identical paper with similar colours first
• Start with small, less critical areas
• Remember: confidence comes from practice, not perfection

"I don't know when my drawing is ready for burnishing"

• You should have rich, saturated colour built up
• The drawing should look nearly finished without burnishing
• Think of burnishing as polish, not a way to fix weak colour

"My burnishing never looks as good as examples online"

• Those examples likely have many more colour layers than you think
• Professional artists often photograph under ideal lighting
• Your work may be better than you realise, self-criticism is harsh

Choosing the Right Pencils

While you can burnish with most coloured pencils, softer wax-based pencils generally burnish more easily and effectively due to their higher wax content and binder softness.

Excellent Choices: Prismacolour Premier, Derwent Coloursoft, Caran d'Ache Luminance.

Oil-Based Pencils (e.g., Faber-Castell Polychromos, Lyra Rembrandt Polycolour): Can still be burnished, but may require more layers and pressure. The finish might be slightly less glossy and more satin. A harder burnisher tool often works well with these.

When NOT to Burnish

Don't burnish if you want to retain a textured look (like animal fur, rough wood, fabric weaves) or if you anticipate adding many more layers or details later. Burnishing is often one of the final steps.

How Do You Know When You're Ready to Burnish?

Burnishing isn't for beginners, but you don't need to be an expert either. Here are the skills you should have first:

Master These First

• Solid layering technique
• Pressure control, burnishing requires firm, consistent pressure
• Colour planning, know your final colours before you start burnishing
• Basic colour theory, understand which colours work together

Signs You're Ready

• Your layered work already looks good, burnishing will make it great
• You're comfortable with pressure control and don't accidentally gouge paper
• You can plan a drawing from start to finish
• You're not constantly surprised by how your colours turn out

Start With These Subjects

• Simple fruits, apples, oranges (smooth, forgiving surfaces)
• Basic geometric forms, spheres, cubes (practise control)
• Single objects, don't attempt complex compositions initially

Avoid These Until You're Confident

• Portraits (too important to risk ruining)
• Complex multi-object compositions
• Subjects requiring mixed textures (some burnished, some not)
• Anything you can't bear to potentially mess up

Common Questions about Burnishing Coloured Pencil (FAQ)

Let's address some frequent queries:

What Should You Practise This Week?

Choose a simple subject that would benefit from a smooth, polished finish, maybe a red apple or orange. Work through your normal layering process, building up rich, saturated colour. Then, on a small area first, try burnishing with whatever tool you have available (even a white pencil to start).

Don't aim for perfection, aim for understanding how the technique feels and what it does to your colours. This small experiment will teach you more than reading could ever do.

What Comes After Mastering Burnishing?

• Learn when NOT to burnish, understanding texture contrast makes your smooth areas more impressive
• Master other blending methods. Burnishing is one finishing option among several.
• Study light and reflection, burnished surfaces show light differently than matte ones

Still Feeling Intimidated by Burnishing?

You're not alone, this technique feels high-stakes because it's often irreversible.

But here's the truth: every impressive coloured pencil drawing you've ever admired likely used burnishing strategically. The artists who created them felt the same nervousness you're feeling now.

The smooth finish you admire in other people's work isn't magic. It's this technique, used thoughtfully, with a bit of practice behind it. Start small, and let it become familiar.

What's holding you back from trying burnishing? Is it fear of ruining work, uncertainty about tools, or something else? I'd love to hear about your specific concerns, I read every email and often turn common questions into helpful tutorials.

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