Using colours
Reading the wheel
The colour under the marker leads. The feathers that stay bright are the colours that go with it, for the way to choose you picked. Opposite feathers are complements.
Each feather runs from light at its tip, a pencil pressed lightly, to deep at its base, the colour built up with its opposite over it.
At the top, Pencil shows the colours with the grain of a pencil on paper, and Flat shows them as clean, flat colour, in the same bands.
Our cards
Under Cards, pick one of our Home-grown cards and the wheel turns to the colours that plant really has, with a tip for each.
Print and keep beside you
Two free guides to keep on the table while you colour. Choosing your colours has a wheel to fill in with your own pencils. The Home-grown colour guide shows each plant as it grows, beside its card, part coloured in true colours.
More free cards to colour, and how to send one: marlowren.com/write
Your own pencils, from a photo
Swatch each pencil on paper, take a photo in daylight, then under My pencils tap From a photo. Tap the white paper first so the wheel can allow for the light, then tap each swatch as it asks.
Four ways to choose
Two ways to use a pair
Pick a colour and find the feather opposite it. Those two are a pair, and there are two ways to use them.
- Side by side. Put them next to each other and each makes the other look brighter. A little of the second colour is enough: a berry among leaves, an eye, the edge of a wing.
- One over the other. For a shadow, leave your black pencil in the tin. Build the colour up where the shadow falls, then lay its opposite over the top. The two settle into a deep, natural shadow that black cannot give you.
Four things worth knowing
- Build colour in light layers, pale to dark. Press hard only at the very end.
- Leave some paper white for the lightest parts. Once paper is coloured, no pencil makes it white again.
- Warm colours tend to come forward and cool colours tend to fall back. Use it for depth.
- Try your colours on a scrap of the same paper first, and keep a clean scrap under your drawing hand. It stops the colour smudging.
Keep it on your phone
On an iPhone, open marlowren.com/wheel in Safari or Chrome, tap Share (the square with an arrow), scroll the list and tap Add to Home Screen. If the sheet shows an Open as Web App switch, leave it on, so Fledge opens in its own window rather than in a browser. If you got here from a link inside another app, that app’s own browser may not offer it: copy the address into Safari first.
On Android, open marlowren.com/wheel in Chrome, open the ⋮ menu and choose Install app, or Add to Home screen.
From then on it opens with no signal, wherever you colour.