Colored pencils have been familiar to everyone since childhood and are therefore associated with something insignificant and childish. But take a closer look and you will see that colored pencils can be used to draw beautifully and realistically.
So, let's look at the features of drawing with colored pencils. They:
- suitable for drawing only on small formats;
- have color transparency;
- difficult to erase with an eraser;
- allow you to create complex colors by overlay;
- Require drawing experience.
Materials
Beginners will inevitably make mistakes, so they'll need a lot of inexpensive paper that's thick enough to withstand multiple edits.
There is no need to choose highly textured paper. Hard pencils they will cling and the soft ones will break against it.
Colored pencils require careful selection in order not to be disappointed in drawing with them. You shouldn’t save money and buy pencils that are faded, don’t shade, don’t adhere well to paper, and are inconvenient to use, made from low-quality wood. They will not bring pleasure from drawing.
There are many manufacturers of professional and semi-professional pencils: Faber-Castel, Derwent, Creta-Color, Daler-Rauni, Koh-i-nor, etc. Study the reviews on them, look at the work they have done and make your choice.
It is preferable to buy from 24 colors. If you wish, you can purchase even more. After all, there are sets with hundreds of shades.
There are also watercolor pencils, which are brighter and softer than usual, moreover, they can be washed away with water.
How to draw
A few tips will help you avoid many errors:
1. Start with a sketch. Without paying attention to small details, outline the main points with a simple pencil on a separate sheet. You can outline areas of light and shade. We carefully transfer the result to a clean sheet.
2. Increase color saturation carefully. You should not immediately start with bright color spots, so as not to get confused. In addition, it will be easier to correct inaccuracies. The eraser will only erase the saturated layer of dye.
3. Draw with light lines. This will allow you to work through and improve your work with each layer.
4. Learn to see the depicted object as a collection of spots. This will make it easier for you to depict him. Highlight mid, dark and light areas
5. Mentally divide the subject into fragments and draw them gradually, because it is difficult to cover with thin pencil lines large area straightaway.
6. It is better not to use a white pencil to mark light areas, but leave unpainted areas of the paper in the area of the highlights.
7. After designations of three We mix the basic tones, i.e. transitions. Work on the same area until you get the desired shade.
8. Don't use just one pencil to indicate a color spot. Add a few more shades.
9. The more colors you use, the more interesting the effect will be, but choose ones that combine well with each other.
10. Having completed the main work, move on to clarifying small details and conveying the subtlest play of light.
11. Use different pressure on the pencil to get lines of varying thickness and brightness. But don't press too hard, otherwise you'll end up with unnecessary shine.
12. When the drawing is almost ready, move away a few meters and look at it from this distance. You may want to change or add something.
13. Now all that remains is to erase everything unnecessary: a simple pencil, mistakes and stains on the paper.
- See also -
Experiment with the choice of paper and color application, practice and you will enjoy the technique, which allows you to combine painting and graphic techniques.
Drawing technique with colored pencils - video
Pencils have been familiar to us since childhood. And we don't take them seriously. However, look at the masterpieces artists paint.
Colored pencils are a wonderful graphic material! They are easy to control, which means they can achieve a variety of effects.
Colored pencil works by Susie Ruby, Katy Ferreira, Teresa Mallen
Do you want the same?
Then you should master basic techniques drawing with colored pencils. Read and practice!
7 ways to draw with colored pencils:
1. Hatching
You can work with a pencil in different ways: by placing loose strokes tightly together to create an even color, or by making strokes with the tip of a pencil, leaving small gaps between them.
Both methods are good, what matters is where they are used.
Make even movements with your hand in one direction. Make sure the distance between strokes is the same.
Knowing how to make colors of different lightness is a very important skill. It is even more important to be able to make a gradual transition in the lightness of the shade.
You can change the shade from light to dark by changing the pressure on the pencil.
Try shading the strip, first barely touching the surface of the paper, and then increasing the pressure on the pencil more and more.
What you need to be able to do in order to shade well with pencils, see this Periscope broadcast:
3. Changing Hue
Colored pencils provide transparent layers of stroke. If they are placed one on top of the other, the color will be optically mixed. This is used to change the shade of a color.
Thus, even with a small set of pencils, you can achieve complex color shades by superimposing one color on another.
The same effect will be achieved with freer shading. Only in this case the structure of the stain will be more airy and textured.
To make the shading look aesthetically pleasing, do it uniform movements with the same pressure force and direction.
It is better to apply two different color layers under acute angle in relation to each other. However, sometimes the angle of the strokes can be absolutely the same.
4. Infusing color into color
It will work if you combine 2 techniques: light stretching (point 2) and changing shades (point 3).
As a result, you will achieve a more varied gradation of color tints.
More interesting and useful information about drawing
from the artist Marina Trushnikova
You will find it in the electronic magazine “Life in Art”.
Receive magazine issues to your e-mail!
5. Decorative techniques
On top of large light spots you can apply patterns, ornaments, and smaller specks of color.
The main thing to remember is the law of optical color mixing. If you put opposite colors on top of each other: yellow and purple, red and green, blue and orange, you get a gray or dirty shade.
6. Accepting white line reservations
This technique has been demonstrated. Christina uses this technique to sign her works.
It's very simple and effective.
Take a non-writing pen and draw something with it, pressing down on the paper. The pen leaves a mark - a groove, into which the color does not fall during further shading. A white line remains. This method can create thin light patterns:
I think you have been familiar with this technique since childhood. You need to take an object with a relief surface, place it UNDER a sheet of paper, and then make shading on top with a pencil where the object lies.
Hatching will reveal the relief of the convex surface. I used what I had on hand: a flat comb and coins.
But you can also find other surfaces: wood, stone, brickwork and others. The main thing is that the sheet is not too dense and is pressed when shading.
I spoke in more detail about the frottage technique in the Periscope broadcast:
Master classes
Color paintings have long been attractive for their colorfulness and have been in demand: they have been used to decorate houses and large halls for several centuries. To add color to paintings, artists use paints and pencils. Drawing with colored pencils appeared relatively recently, in late XIX century, when the simple pencil was invented. Later they began to improve it, give it different thicknesses, hardness, experiment with colors and use it in painting. During this period, it became possible for beginners to draw with colored pencils.
What attracts you to drawing with colored pencils?
This type of creativity is gaining great popularity. With his help, talented artists recreate the most complex color images. The variety of types and the point of a sharpened pencil allow you to emphasize the smallest fragments of the image.
This art is subject to anyone with a basic desire to create, be inspired, and learn. Yes! Just study! In our art school we are ready to teach all the intricacies of drawing using colored pencils. You don't have to be good at painting. The main thing is to have the desire to create.
How to learn to draw with pencils, subtleties and features?
During the training we cover several basic issues:
1. Who can draw?
Talent for artistic arts present in every personality. Some realize this themselves and begin to draw without any help, others have to develop this skill. This is regardless of age, race or nationality. Can you hold a pencil in your hands? Then you will become a good judge.
2. What to draw with?
We learn to draw with colored pencils, but what kind? There is a huge variety of pencils that differ in the hardness of the lead, the thickness of the rod, and the material from which the base is made. There is a designation that determines the degree of hardness of the lead: 1H is the hardest, 5B is the softest. This designation is indicated on the base of the pencil. Watercolor pencils are also often used. Charcoal, chalk, and sanguine began to be used as a variety of colored pencils.
When redrawing from another image, you may be disappointed that what you got is completely different. This is the inability to choose the right tones. Each color has many shades. In the case of pencils, the situation is the same. We will teach you how to choose the right type of pencils.
3. What to draw on?
Usually paper is used. It, like the type of pencils, must be chosen correctly. It may differ in density, roughness, and shade.
We will teach you how to select the right materials so that the desired design is ultimately reflected on paper.
4. What to draw?
The main mistake novice artists make is the incorrect selection of images. To make it easier to remember all the rules and subtleties, you should start with simple drawing, containing a minimum of elements and colors. When your hand is already full, all the basics have been studied, we move on to complex tasks.
5. How to draw?
Exist various techniques, principles of drawing and methods of applying strokes. This part of the training is challenging and requires extra concentration and time.
Popular drawing techniques include:
- pressure. In the case of paints, the more you put on the tip of the brush, the more pronounced and intense the color will be. With pencils it’s different - the harder you press when applying, the more pronounced the shades will be;
- shading allows you to give a certain effect to the work: movement, volume, direction;
— layering and shading allow you to create the effect of a smooth transition of colors and tones.
It is especially difficult to draw images from life on paper.
The entire process of drawing can be summarized as follows:
1. We determine from what we will redraw: from nature, from memory or from a selected sample.
2. Select materials and right size paper
3. Draw the main contours, transferring them exactly as in the source code.
4. Apply small contours.
5. Give the elements of the drawing volume, the desired color and light and shade.
6. When to draw?
Many today admire the work of other people, their hard work, popularity and do not realize that if they started yesterday, they would already be among such people. If you have the desire, time and goal, you can start learning immediately. Don't be afraid that it won't work out. Be afraid not to try.
7. What will happen in the end?
By completing a step-by-step course for beginners in drawing with colored pencils, you will learn how to create your own unique images and gain basic artist skills, and we will get a successful and talented student.
8. Where to apply the acquired skills?
Everyone can link their later life with creativity. There are cases when students creative schools became worldwide famous artists, art designers, popular bloggers in in social networks in this direction.
Why our drawing studio?
We love and appreciate our work! You have fun while drawing, and we have fun teaching you.
We work using modern, proven methods that are suitable even for beginners.
Our students are never left without results.
Join our team and make your dream come true today!
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In this lesson I will show you how to draw Sasha Brauz, as well as how to color the resulting drawing using a simple technique (from light to dark). Start by tidying up your work area and sharpening your pencils.
To work you will need:
- simple pencil (HB)
- soft eraser (preferably Milan triangular)
- compass
- gel pen
- colour pencils
- white gouache
How to draw Sasha Brauz with colored pencils step by step
-
- Step 1
We outline the frame of the girl’s figure with a simple pencil. Using a compass, draw a circle for the head, which we then divide in half with a line extending beyond it. Outline the lower part of the face.
- Step 2
We draw the body with basic geometric shapes. We show the depth of the waist with ellipses; in the future this will help to draw the belt. The girl’s hands go behind her back, there won’t be any special problems with them. Let's prepare the basis for drawing the face.
- Step 3
Using smooth lines we draw the contours of the figure. We outline facial features, hair and clothes. Don't forget about belts.
- Step 4
We schematically sketch out the spatial maneuvering drive (SMP), taking into account only a few basic details. At the same time, we erase the production lines.
- Step 5
Let's start detailing. (PPM) has a rather complex design, so start with it. Try to take into account as much as possible more details. The girl’s right hand goes behind her back, in it she squeezes a handle with a replaceable blade. The second handle without a blade is located behind the bosom.
- Step 6
This is what the whole drawing looks like in detail.
- Step 7
Let's circle gel pen. Erase soft pencil lines, leaving only folds on the clothes.
- Step 8
Let's start painting. We don’t put pressure on the pencils, now we just need to lay a strong color base. We paint the hair red, the loincloth dark brown, the shadows on the blouse pale pink, the jacket light brown, the belts regular brown, and the drive gray.
- Step 9
Now go over the whole picture with light brown, but only lightly.
- Step 10
Add gray throughout the entire drawing.
- Step 11
Working with dark brown, we dial in the tone. Repeat Step 8 pressing harder on the pencils. Add a little blue to the drive for a steely shine.
- Step 12
Now, working only with black, add depth to the drawing. Strengthen the shadows. To create shimmer on the legs, stroke by laying the pencil lead flat. To top it off, use white gouache to highlight the eyes. That's all, the drawing is ready.
For a lesson on how to draw a tree step by step with colored pencils, we will need three colored pencils and one simple pencil. Colored pencils are brown and two green pencils (one darker and the other lighter). We will make a sketch with a simple pencil marked 3B or 4B.
How to draw a tree step by step
Let's start the lesson how to draw a tree step by step from a simple pencil sketch “3B” or “4B”. Lines with a simple pencil can always be corrected with an eraser, therefore, despite the fact that the drawing will be done with colored pencils, it is better to make a sketch with a simple pencil.
We draw a tree trunk and designate approximate form crowns
Take a brown pencil and draw a tree trunk. Please note that I am trying to give the trunk different shades Brown. To do this, you just need to change the pressure on the pencil. When the tree trunk is ready, we move on to the crown - this is the next stage of the lesson on how to draw a tree.
In order to beautifully draw the crown of a tree, you need two green pencils - one lighter, the other darker. If you don't have two shades of green, you can use one pencil. Again, by changing the pressure on the pencil, you can draw with one green pencil.
So, we erase part of the sketch with an eraser and draw with a colored pencil. As you can see in the picture below, the shade is lighter in the middle and the shade is darker around it. I draw with small strokes in different directions.
Erase the sketch step by step and draw the tree crown in two shades of green.
If you use one green pencil, apply less or more pressure on it.
Thus, in the lesson on how to draw a tree, we drew the crown step by step.
But there is one more action that will help make the tree crown more beautiful.
Take a simple pencil “3B” or “4B” and darken some areas of the crown with it. You can take not a simple pencil, but a black pencil. Use whatever pencil you have on hand to darken.
That's it, the drawing is ready. All that remains is to correct small details and wipe off excess lines with an eraser.
Thus, we drew a tree with colored pencils in several stages.
I would be grateful for your opinion in the comments to this lesson.
See the next lesson - and the lesson on how to draw a tree step by step with colored pencils is finished.
