Colored Pencil Tutorial “Limitless World”
This week, I have a step-by-step colored pencil tutorial for you. It’s called Limitless World. We color without outlines and end up with something that is partly realistic and yet more creative and limitless than any traditional drawing.
Supplies
This tutorial uses regular colored pencils, but feel free to try it with watercolor pencils, watercolors, or any media that can be layered. Choose the paper that goes with your supplies and is durable. I used Fabriano Accademia Drawing Paper (200 gsm/94 lbs). You can create the drawing in any size, but my piece is A4.
Introduction to The Colored Pencil Tutorial
You might be familiar with the work of Hilma af Klint. She is a wonderful example of how our inner world and intuition can guide the hand. Her art has been the main inspiration for my course Mystical Minis. In this project, however, we reach from the inner to the outer world—making the outer look limitless, too.
Before you start reading the step-by-step tutorial, watch a 5-minute introduction where I tell more about the project.
I hope you enjoy this colored pencil tutorial. Let’s start!
Step 1 – White Shapes
Pick any color. Create abstract white shapes by coloring the background.
Press fairly lightly. We will add more layers over the background.
Make sure you have a wide variety of abstract shapes in different sizes.
Tip: You can turn the paper in different directions during the process and decide on the final orientation later.
Step 2 – Colorful Shapes
Pick any colors. Color abstract shapes so that they form a new layer on top of the background.
Make sure that the colorful shapes extend over the white shapes and don’t follow their outlines.
Also, add new shapes on top of other colorful shapes. Press fairly lightly so that you can add more layers later.
Keep the expression abstract. Don’t guess what the drawing is about. Just color a variety of shapes in different sizes and enjoy the freedom.
When the paper feels full, but you can still easily see the background and the colorful layer, move to the next step.
Step 3 – Connecting Colors
Pick colors that are close to what you have used before. Use one color more than others. My main color is green, but I also use other colors.
Color over the previous layers so that the two layers are no longer separate. Focus on the edges and color a small area at a time. Leave only a few areas blank, mostly near the center.
In this step, you can adjust old shapes and color new shapes, too. Think about attaching two pieces: you can either glue (spread the color over) or tape (add a new shape on top).
Tip: Now you can decide on the orientation and get ideas for the drawing’s topic.
Step 4 – Discovery
Find people, animals, plants, trees, furniture, water, and any realistic objects in the abstract drawing. For example, I have someone in the corner who is like an observer of everything happening in the drawing.
Adjust the shapes so that the viewer will also realize what they represent.
Tip: Remember that we are drawing a limitless world, so odd things can appear! The drawing can make sense emotionally, even if it isn’t rational.
You can also use an eraser to adjust the objects.
Having an eraser pen is handy, and it’s very useful for the course Mystical Minis, too!
Step 5 – Advanced Level
When your drawing feels finished, you can either stop or take it to the advanced level.
Basic level: The drawing feels finished, and you feel quite drawn to it. For a viewer, it may look a bit chaotic, busy, and difficult to comprehend.
Advanced level: The drawing has an engaging atmosphere, and the viewer is gently guided around the drawing.
To achieve this:
- Increase contrast in the middle and reduce contrast near the edges.
- Increase intense colors in the middle and reduce the intensity near the edges. Don’t leave blank areas in the areas that are less important.
- Make the shapes less clumsy by adding notches and lines. Make lines curvier and thinner.
- Direct the viewer’s gaze with contrasting shapes and lines.
Tip: Some areas can be more realistic than others. The world of imagination has no limits!
What Does Your Drawing Tell?
I usually work in my little studio, but this time, I finished the drawing in our living room, and I think that the aquarium, the furniture, the glassware, and the birds chirping outside … they all found their way to this drawing. But every drawing will become different. What does your drawing tell?
This kind of intuitive process is natural and free, and at least for me, much more exciting than making a stiff sketch and then coloring it. I hope this colored pencil tutorial marks the start of a new journey for you—one we can continue together, for example, in the course Mystical Minis!
Video: Artist’s Life and Inner Inspiration
This week, I made a video blog post where I share what I have been working on lately. This watercolor piece is one of them.
In the video, I also talk about the inner inspiration – that not everything has to come from outside, but there’s a lot within our inner world already.
You get to see my planner for 2026, which is also my art journal. It’s a notebook that has pictures of Jasmine Becket-Griffith‘s art.
Artist’s Life and Inner Inspiration – Watch the Video!
My favorite topics – flowers, watercolors, colored pencils, and abstracts – are all covered in this video.
In the last part of the video, I share my joy about the newest course, Mystical Minis – abstract art with colored pencils – Buy Now!
Intuitive Abstracts with Colored Pencils
This week, we create abstract art with colored pencils so that we let our intuition lead us.
If we only draw realistic art, we miss the layer that is under it. I often call my abstracts “skeletons.” They show how my art is constructed and what its spirit is. By creating abstracts, I can adjust my visual language and discover new shapes, techniques, and color combinations without being constrained by how things “should look.” It’s like Wassily Kandinsky has written in his book “Point and Line to Plane”:
Not everything is visible and tangible or – to be more explicit – under the visible and comprehensible lies the invisible and incomprehensible.
Step #1: Pick Your Shortest Pencil and Color Lightly
The first layer is a seed for future layers, so create a variety of shapes.
You don’t have to feel anything; just focus on variety.
Step #2 – Add Colors and Shapes Over the First Layer
The new shapes and lines don’t follow the first layer but get inspiration from it.
Rather than following the first layer, take a different direction and create the opposite of it. If the stripes of the first layer go in one direction, now color something else in a different direction. If the first layer has a big shape, now add something that is not so heavy, for example, thin lines. Get out of the traditional solutions, and find new ones.
If you don’t have the patience to continue longer, you can leave your abstract to be just a color play. Here’s one of mine in an art journal. This is from 2024.
Step #3 Remember Thin Lines
Stripes are fun to color with zig-zag strokes, but by using thin lines, you will bring more of yourself to the drawing.
See how I have used lines in these art journal pages (See the full art journal in this post from November 2025). More than outlining, I like to let the lines wander freely.
You can also use an eraser for lines. The eraser pen is great for thin strokes, but you can also use a regular eraser and then color around the erased part to make the line thinner and more elegant.
Any straight line is just a stripe, but when the line gets curvier and becomes winding, the artist behind the pen comes up, and more intuition can be brought in.
A line that is curly like writing can appear inside a shape or make new shapes. Here’s an example from 2023.
Step #4 Color over Color
Mix colors by adding a new color over the previous one. Color lightly so that the previous layer shows through.
Step #5 Into the Darkness
Be bold and add dark colors too.
The dark parts make these simple pages look finished. The examples are from 2015.
Step #6 From Intuition to Intention
The further you progress, the more you begin to wonder what the image is about. Remember Kandinskys words: “under the visible and comprehensible lies the invisible and incomprehensible.” I like to keep the abstract drawing in the incomprehensible stage for quite a long time.
At this stage, I was thinking about sweets, fruits, and drinks. But then I just let go of that thought and allowed the drawing proceed further. The easy thing for me is to make a floral piece from “a skeleton.”
And even now, my drawing started to get more flowery shapes.
It reminded me of the drawing I made in 2024.
But I don’t want to draw flowers only, so I continued to work on the drawing.
Step #7 Hide Most of the Shapes
Don’t fall in love with every detail! My art is full of details, and I have often struggled with which ones to save and highlight compared to others.
Here too, I made lots of decisions about which shape to save and which alter so that it doesn’t show so clearly. It’s not just about improving the composition but about the atmosphere and topic. Here, I was thinking about jewelry, printed fabrics, all the fashionable things, and how great designs are derived from plants.
I don’t dress fashionably, and I don’t consider myself to be appearance-oriented, but I have always felt a connection to fashion design. It’s a strange relationship, because all I have to do is catch a glimpse of, say, a Dolce & Gabbana fashion show and my mind is filled with ideas for paintings. My intuition often offers me solutions that I recognize as fashion-related in one way or another. I do have a background, but in industrial design, so it’s a bit mysterious to me!
In the end, I tossed these shorties away: Thank you for your service!
I store my colored pencil drawings in a plastic folder.
Outer vs. Inner Inspiration
We often need outer inspiration to get started, but to continue, we need the connection with the inner inspiration.
Wassily Kandinsky wrote:
In spite of all the apparently insurmountable contradictions, the present-day human being is, indeed, no longer satisfied with the external alone. His vision is becoming sharper, his ear keener, and his desire to see and to hear the inner in the outer ever increases.
In the course Mystical Minis, we color small abstract drawings and move from the outer to the inner. You can’t find a course like this anywhere else. I have got inspiration from Wassily Kandinsky’s colleagues, Hilma af Klint and Georgiana Houghton, as well as the modernist author Virginia Woolf. Every exercise is different, but all are mystical.
Mystical Minis – Draw abstract art with colored pencils – Buy Now!
Making a Creative Impact – My Words for 2025 and 2026
I like to choose a word for the year that guides my actions. In 2025, it was “Release”. This year, it’s “Impact”.
I think that Impact is a natural continuum of the word Release. Once you have learned to release a lot, it’s time to learn more about making a creative impact.
Have You Chosen Your Word?
Tips for choosing your word from last year’s blog post:
>> Choosing the Word for 2025
Discover your word through art journaling from 2019:
>> Guiding Word – Choosing and Visualizing Your Word of the Year
How Did My Word Work in 2025?
In 2025, I released a lot. It was not only because I wanted to, but also because I had to. The year was very challenging financially, and the world events have been depressing. It has meant bad things for the Finnish economy as well.
My art year could be divided into three sections: oil painting, watercolor painting, and drawing/art journaling.
Reflections on 2025: Exhibition + The Best Painting
In February 2025, I had a solo exhibition at the gallery Gumbostrand Konst & Form, where I presented not only my paintings, but also my virtual reality artwork, Unknown Land, which I completed the previous year.
Here’s a video about preparing for the exhibition.
Another highlight of the year was a visit to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
In 2025, I painted five oil paintings and a couple of acrylic paintings. It is usually difficult to choose the best painting, because they are all unique, but I think I am most proud of this painting called Elixir. It has already been sold, because I had to, but I have looked at the image of it many times since then.
See how Elixir was made: Following the Inner Color
Watercolor Painting in 2025: Wild Garden
One of the biggest projects of 2025 was making the course Wild Garden. I made a lot of recordings for it, some of them from our garden. Before Wild Garden, I had made a course called Freely Grown, where you also paint flowers freely. But in Wild Garden, I wanted to go deeper and expand the subject. Wild Garden is a tribute to flower gardens, where we paint flower greeting cards and larger garden views.
>> Wild Garden – Flower cards and garden scenes in watercolor – Buy Now!
I love painting flowers freely with watercolors. I painted several flower watercolors in addition to the pieces for the Wild Garden course.
>> See how this painting was made: Let’s paint Like Emily Wrote
Happened in Drawing/Art Journaling: Fun & Mystical
In 2025, I pulled together everything I’ve done over the recent years in art journaling. In spring, I made a course called Hearts and Stories, where you make small drawings and use them as collages on the journal pages.
>> Hearts and Stories – Draw hearts and characters – Buy Now!
In summer, I went through my art supplies (Art Supplies I Should Not Use Anymore) and donated the supplies I no longer needed to a person who had just started an art hobby. In the fall, I went through all my art journals (Half-Empty Art Journals I Should Fill Up) and combined or discarded some. I also finished one of my art journals and made a video about it.
In December 2025, I released a course called Mystical Minis, where you draw abstract art with colored pencils. This course really captures the essence of the word Release. When I got the idea for the course, I decided to just follow my own lead – the words “Intuitive Power” – and let my creative engine run at full speed. I was in a flow state, and making the course felt exciting. I hope Mystical Minis is also an exciting and mind-opening experience for you, too!
>> Mystical Minis – Draw abstract art with colored pencils – Buy Now!
Word for 2026: Impact
I have been thinking about the impact the outside world has on me and how I can positively influence it. Even if creative ideas arise naturally and intuitively, I also want to think about what kind of impact they make.
For example, when finishing a freely-born painting, highlighting one detail above the others increases the impact. In the painting Cosmos, it was important to paint a small blue flower so that it connects the universe in the upper right corner and the beautifully rising vase.
>> See how this painting was made: About Music and Painting
In my work, whether it’s creating or teaching, I want to adjust small things to achieve even greater impact and connect many kinds of things in an impactful way.
The word Impact is not only directed outward, but also inward. We can ask whether all inspiration has to come from the outside. We are exposed to a large amount of information and external events anyway. So, could now be the time to give more space to inner inspiration that will have a more creative impact? I want you to start this kind of process with my course Mystical Minis, and in 2026, I aim to support you on this path.
I think that the biggest threat to art is that people give responsibility for their own thinking and entertainment to others. Then there are no paintings at home, only screens. Then moments become fragmented, and there is never enough time for yourself and your art.
Smilingly: Tell me, am I getting old? Or am I just too Finnish with these thoughts?
Anyway, I hope to remain relevant to you and make a positive creative impact on your art-making in 2026.