The blog
Notes on colour and craft
Notes on colour and craft for people who colour: palettes, shading, colouring with an Apple Pencil, S Pen or stylus, how pages are made and how judging works.
25 October 2026
A colouring app for Apple Pencil: what each Pencil does in PencilDrop
PencilDrop is a free colouring app that uses what your Apple Pencil can do: pressure, tilt, hover and double tap, and the Pencil Pro’s squeeze, barrel roll and haptics.
25 October 2026
A colouring app for the S Pen: what PencilDrop does with your Galaxy’s pen
PencilDrop works with the S Pen on Galaxy tablets and phones. It reads the pen’s pressure, tilt and hover, so you can shade as you would with a real pencil, and it ignores your resting hand.
25 October 2026
A colouring app for Android styluses: which pens get pressure, tilt and hover
PencilDrop gives any pen Android reports as a stylus its pen features, with pressure, tilt and hover wherever the pen has them. A rubber-tipped stylus works too, as a finger.
7 October 2026
One colouring page, three colour plans
A colour plan is four choices made before you start: where the light comes from, five to seven colours, where the darks go, and one loud colour. One lighthouse page, planned three ways.
6 October 2026
Colour theory for colourists: five ideas for every page
Pick five colours, plan where the lights and darks go, warm the front and cool the back, keep one colour loud and mix your own greys. That’s most of the colour theory a page needs.
5 October 2026
Shading with an Apple Pencil: pressure and tilt, one light layer at a time
To shade with an Apple Pencil, press lightly and build the colour up in thin layers. Tilt the Pencil over for broad, soft areas and bring it upright for edges.
4 October 2026
How PencilDrop judging works, and why there are no likes
Judges see two entries from the same page side by side, with names hidden, and pick the one they prefer. Every entry gets seen, and its rating comes from all those comparisons.
3 October 2026
How a PencilDrop colouring page is made
Our line art is drawn with AI image generation, then checked by software and approved by a person before anyone colours it.
2 October 2026
Why adults colour, and why a daily deadline helps
Adults colour to give their hands something absorbing while their head goes quiet. A new shared page each day, with a closing time, is a reason to pick the pencil up again tomorrow.