Few topics in coloured pencil techniques have more mystique associated with them than burnishing. The trouble is, burnishing means different things to different people—or maybe there are just lots of different ways to do it. Coloured pencils have not been around enough for everyone to agree on what some things mean - which is great! I will try to give examples of the ways in which I have seen the term used by different artists, but remember that if you do something different to all of these when you burnish - it does not mean that you are wrong!

First, a dictionary says burnishing means “to make shiny or smooth; to polish”. This straight away shows where it is useful in your work—for shiny or smooth objects, NOT for everything. Often you want to avoid burnishing at all costs - in fur for example.

The easiest way to burnish is by using heavy pressure with the pencil you are using, but this can be hard work on the elbows! Americans—of course—have their own tool, which looks like a pen with a ball bearing on the end. Similar effects can be achieved using the back of a spoon. You need something hard and smooth—not a torchon (cardboard stump), as this will remove pigment. The metal surface smoothes it and rubs it into the paper, a very different effect. It is also possible to burnish with different coloured pencils—any light colour will work, but French Grey and Cream are often used. The French Grey gives a darker tone when the colour is re-applied, the Cream gives a brighter tone. In each case, the initial colour is usually re-layered, leaving intense colour on top. Many artists will also use burnishing as a way of blending colours, where the object is shiny, putting down mixtures of colours then burnishing and re-applying colour on top. The swatch on the right shows all of this.

See how burnishing makes colours much more intense - and more interesting. the final purple colour in 5 is more varied than a single layer of Bright Purple would have been. But what burnishing does do is to obscure completely any texture in the paper. If you are trying for a photorealistic result, you will want this. If your style is looser, it may not be appropriate.

But some artists—Gary Greene especially—use a white pencil for burnishing, and often repeat burnishing, as shown above. This is the way that I most often burnish. The swatch shows Scarlet Lake and White alternating for seven layers, finishing with the colour. I always use Karisma White—the Derwent for instance is a Chinese white which has a yellow tinge. What does this do? When the layer of white is applied, it lightens the tone, it presses the paper and begins to smooth it, and it applies a light reflective layer, which will shine through subsequent layers. See how bright and intense the colour can become with repeated burnishing. This is a different effect to burnishing using heavy pressure—it is slightly lighter in tone, but it also seems to glow, compared to the more matt effect of heavy pressure burnishing. This is because of the white underlayers, which really do shine through. When a lot of layers have been applied like this, there is often enough wax on the paper for a final touch to be applied—actually polishing that wax by lightly rubbing with a cotton bud. I have seen Ann Swan doing this to some berries that you could have eaten there and then! But remember this is what I do, not what everyone does, and possibly not something you want to do.

Finally what is the difference between blending and burnishing? You tell me! I know one artist who defines blending as putting down very fine layers one on top of another. She then burnishes these using the blender pencil as the final layer only. I would call this "heavy blending" - and this shows that Coloured Pencil is such a new medium that we haven't really agreed on what we mean by things yet. If you want my definition, that is best shown by when I would use each technique. Skin is smooth but not often shiny. I would BLEND skin tones. A pepper is smooth and shiny - I would BURNISH a pepper. The white pencil used in this would give the pepper that extra glow that makes the difference.