Hi there! I have created this brief tutorial for this painting. Please follow along, I have some handy tips!

Here is my art desk with the Creative Earth Wave ink/sketch all ready to go on my Arches watercolor paper block (hotpress = smoother surface). I've got my colored pencils in my pink box to the right, ruler, paints/palette, to the left, brushes by the top of the painting.

The great thing about a watercolor paper block is that you don't have to worry about taping it down, you can paint right on the block if you'd like (which is what I did). I started with using cadium yellow to apply an overall wash to the surface.

You can see my palette to the left to reference the color choices I picked. Working with the background for subtle blends of colors works great if you wet the surface first and then apply the pink and green colors (in this case I did pink on top and green on bottom). I went over it a couple times to intensify the color in certain spots. Then I used the purple as a shadow base on the figures. Painting shadows first, then skin color afterwards is a very helpful technique.

I then applied glazes over the whole painting (pink on top, green bottom, yellow all over) and added the initial blue glazes to the Earth. I also added a blue base for the mermaids hair because I want to paint her hair black. Blue makes a great undertone.

Now the fun part begins! I read about this technique and decided to give it a try: using watercolor, then colored pencil, and another watercolor glaze helps smooth out the colored pencil. When using colored pencil, you can only do so much before it becomes too waxy and color won't build. Painting over the pencil with another layer of watercolor makes the surface useable to add another layer of colored pencil!

After I have applied colored pencil shading, I go over the areas with their corresponding watercolor glazes (remember the colors I had on my palette?) I painted pink over the fairy, blue over the mermaid and Earth, and purple over the angel. The watercolors dry really fast using hotpress paper! You must work quickly to catch any runaway colors.

Next, it's time to work on the clouds for the background. As you can see, I have selected nice bright colors for the areas that I will be shading to make cloud formations. Making spontaneous blended clouds is a challenge. Luckily, the watercolors I put on made their own little shapes and formations. I used the colored pencil to shade in these areas - creating a cloud formation base that I don't have to make up...it's already there!

Almost finished. I went back and yet again darkened the dark areas with colored pencil after my last watercolor wash.  After shading in the clouds, I went over the whole background with a yellow wash and it blended the pencil nicely so that you don't see pencil lines. To blend the angels dress and other dark areas like the mermaid's hair, I used the favorite technique of a white colored pencil to blend in the colors nicely.

Here is the finished piece with digital adjustments. My scanner makes my images look a bit grainy so I fix them with my digital art program. I used a blending filter and brush to blend rough areas. Then I had some fun and used some digital sparkles and flares. I also touched up the highlights a bit on the hair and skin.

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial! I plan on using this combined technique in the future.