A pastel palette for cozy coloring

A pastel page colored with Ohuhu markers

This page was colored with an Ohuhu pastel alcohol marker set. It is a useful reference for how these shades look once dry, which is often different from the cap preview. If you are unsure about the set, the full Ohuhu markers review covers the tips, the paper and the limits.

The five-color pastel palette

Dusty pink adds warmth, pale blue adds coolness, cream connects both, sage introduces a natural tone and lavender works as a soft accent. Choose muted versions rather than fluorescent or very saturated markers.

Swatch the set together and photograph it if you want to reuse it. A palette becomes more useful when you can return to it without rebuilding the combination each time.

Pages that suit these colors

• A cute animal with props: a cup, a cushion, a small bag.
• A cozy bedroom with a blanket, a lamp and a bookshelf.
• Simple flowers on a very light background.
• A bubble bath page with soft blue and light pink.
• A desk scene with notebooks, pens and a warm drink.

Pastels work well on bedrooms, cafés, little shops, cute animals, bookshelves, bathrooms and spring scenes. They are especially helpful when an illustration already contains many small objects because the short palette unifies them.

Choose one of the cooler colors for windows and distant areas, then bring the warmer pink or cream toward the main character.

Use pastels with your marker type

With alcohol markers, test how pale shades dry and keep a protective sheet under the page. With water-based markers, use small shapes and avoid repeated passes that may roughen the paper.

A white acrylic marker can add tiny highlights after the page is dry, but the palette should still work without it. Use details as a finish, not as a way to rescue every area.

The Ohuhu pastel marker set I use

I bought the Ohuhu Honolulu B 48 pastel color set to have soft pinks, pale blues, greens, purples and neutral shades that are easy to combine. The reference includes 48 pastel colors and a colorless blender. The version shown in my photos has a brush tip and a fine tip.

• The brush tip works well for filled areas, petals and rounded shapes where the stroke needs to remain flexible.
• The fine tip is useful for small accessories, narrow patterns and details close to the outlines.
• The completed swatch chart is more reliable than the caps when choosing a palette before starting the page.

I do not try to use all 48 colors in one illustration. I usually select five to seven shades: one main color, one or two neighboring shades, a neutral for shadows and one small accent color. This limit keeps the pastel result readable. You can see the same value-based approach in the four-step alcohol marker tutorial.