use colored pencil

There are many ways to use colored pencil. Below are some tips. You will find this layered approach is similar to that of watercolor painting.

1) PRACTICE

-Use a scrap of good paper. (You have some in your portfolio).

-Practice with the material. Try varying your pressure (aim for the lighter side) and mark making. Experiment with creating smooth transitions, soft edges, and more gestural/textured surfaces. Try hatching using more than one color.

-Try layering various colors from your box. Plan your palette for your drawing. I suggest building your darks gradually, as you would with a watercolor painting.

-Practice "mixing" your own neutrals. Aim to not use the black in your box. If you have a larger set of Prismacolor, try not to rely on the grays and tans. That doesn't mean never; just see what you can create on your own.

2) CONTOUR DRAWING

-Colored pencil can be difficult to erase. It benefits you to have a strong drawing to start, both form and composition.

-Consider beginning your drawing in light pencil. (Maybe an HB or 2B...I wouldn't use a 6B for this.) Heavy pencil tends to not play nice with colored pencil, so I suggest you establish your drawing and then lighten your lines as needed. (I often suggest this when using watercolor too.) You may also do your initial drawing in a very light colored pencil, just know that erasing/editing can be more challenging.

3) BLOCKING

-Work from general to specific. Address large areas and shapes first, and save details for later. Work your background first or simultaneous with your foreground--they are equally important.

-Do not create outlines in colored pencil, unless they are extremely light. If you are trying to achieve a flat/graphic look, let's talk about it beforehand.

-This quote is from Ms. Kalmes' document about acrylic painting. It applies here too:

"Keep adding layers to establish color value and deepen saturation. Your brushwork (here, line work) should be planar movements as you are breaking objects down into color, value, and shape sections. It is advised to keep your section edgework as soft as possible as hard edges can be cumbersome to soften later."

-Use the white of the paper as your lightest value. While you can build your whites back in, I don't encourage it; you'll end up getting a fairly thick build up of colored pencil and a waxy surface. (An exception to this of course is if you are working on paper that is not white. In Drawing III, you will use toned paper and build in your lighter values).

-You have lots of saturated colors to work with in your Prismacolor box . I personally use those most often. I can then increase saturation in a subsequent layer if I wish, (say adding a layer of red on top of an initial light layer of red) or desaturate, (by adding say blue or green on top of that red.) Once you have desaturated a given area, you can't really bring the saturation back with colored pencil.

Below are some progress images of a drawing of mine.

BUILDING DARKS

-Consider creating your darks through layering. Aim to avoid the black pencil, or use it sparingly. (Note, I didn't use any black or white in this drawing.)

-Because erasing is difficult, build your darker values strategically. You can push your darks as you go; it much harder to lighten a given area.

-Keep in mind that colored pencil, and Prismacolor in particular, can get fairly waxy if you layer too much. If you want a very dark value, practice ahead of time and see if you can get there with a few layers and not too much pressure; so you don't end up with really thick waxy areas. Ideally your surface feels fairly consistent (rather than thin light areas v.s. thick dark areas).

MEANWHILE....

-Move around the surface! Don't let yourself obsess over one area.

-Move around the room! Step back from your work often. Prop up your drawing board, and see how your value and color structures work from a distance. What is emphasized? How does the eye travel around the composition? Squint, or perhaps take off your glasses if you wear them--look not at the details but at the larger choices you are making.

-Colored pencil can smudge. Put a piece of newspaper or scrap under your hand as you work, or over areas you want to protect (light areas in particular).

-Consider how your mark making, its character and direction, may be working for or against the surface or object you are trying to render. For example, look at the top v.s. of the bottom of the tomato and bit of water I drew below:

Here is my finished drawing:

SOME FINAL THOUGHTS

-Try using colored pencil with collage, or on top of watercolor washes or pastel. You will need to experiment with what colored pencil layers well with. (For example, colored pencil can exist next to an area of acrylic in a work, but not on top of it.)

Below are some contemporary artists who often use colored pencil in their work:

Thalia Agosto (ChiArts, class of 2019; @zenartifex

Leigh Ruple

Graham Little

(below is colored pencil and gouache)

Winnie Truong

Elijah Burgher

Also:

Juan Downey

Maureen St. Vincent