COLORED PENCIL BASICS Draw along with me!
SHADING Using a straightforward side-to-side shading motion, a smooth even layer of color is built up. A very light touch can be used to deposit the faintest amount of pigment for graduated shading.
SHADING Make a series of shaded areas, solid and graduated. How much variation can you achieve? How smoothly can you blend two overlaid colors? Make sure you use a light touch and gradually build up the color. Use two primary colors to practice getting the secondary color
HATCHING Rapid, regular, evenly spaced lines are drawn, leaving a little white paper or underlying color showing.
HATCHING Hatch a large area with straight marks - avoid making hatches that curve in an arc created by your wrist or arm movement. Try stopping a series of hatch marks along a line, to create an edge. Use two primary colors to practice get the secondary color
CROSS-HATCHING Hatching overlaid at right-angles. This can be done with different colors, or carried through multiple layers, to create a textured effect.
CROSS-HATCHING Lay down an area of regular hatching, and then hatch across it at right angles. Create areas of fine hatching and course. How does it look when you use similar colors? Complementary colors? Try overlaying multiple layers and colors.
SCUMBLING The 'brillo pad' method, tiny overlapping circles rapidly drawn. Again, it can be used to build up a single color or different colors.
SCUMBLING Create fine and coarse areas of scumbling. Use regular even circles and random irregular circles. Try scumbling over a smoothly shaded area. Use a variety of color combinations.
DIRECTIONAL MARKS AND INCISED MARKS Short directional lines which follow a contour, or the direction of hair or grass or other surfaces. These can be densely overlaid to form a rich textural effect. Two thick layers of color are overlaid, and then the top color gently scratched into with a blade or pin to let the lower layer show through.
DIRECTIONAL MARKS AND INCISED MARKS Lay down two thick layers of contrasting color. Use direction lines to create movement and texture. Using an needle add incised marks to your directional lines. See how it adds highlights? See how the color on the bottom comes through?
BURNISHING Burnishing is simply layers of colored pencil overlaid with strong pressure so that the tooth of the paper is filled and a smooth surface results. This image shows a burnished surface compared with a basic overlay of color. With some colors, especially with waxier pencils than the watercolor pencils used for this example, a quite translucent and jewel-like effect can be obtained with careful burnishing.
BURNISHING Go over and over the same area, starting lightly and building pressure, until you have a smooth, solid block of color. Try alternating colors or shades, laying light over dark and vice-versa.
VALUE WITH COLOR Create a sphere with values and shadows without using black
EXTRA TIPS! Even burnished, solid layers of colored pencil can look dull to the eye, because large, solid areas of color fatigue the part of the eye that perceives color. This is especially true of intense primaries, yellow and red in particular. To trick the eye, vary the color intensity of an area of colored pencil by using a range of similar colors - such as hints of orange, magenta and burgundy in an area of red. They can be blended in or used in small strokes or dots, as in a pointillist or impressionist painting. This stimulates more of the eye and gives the impression of brightness. Use contrast to heighten the visual effect of color, adding touches of contrasting color, such as yellow in a highlight, or dark blue in a shadow. Make the shadows alongside a pale area even darker, or using crisp white highlights to make shadows look deeper.
MORE PRACTICE! Before starting the major colored pencil project you will be practicing the techniques you just learned.
MORE PRACTICE! You chose a macro reference picture and try to re-create the color and texture on a 4x5 piece of paper. Why 4x5? For the 4x5 Art Show!
EVALUATION Techniques used appropriately Colors are accurate Values are present