Realistic Drawings With Colored Pencils: A Beginner's Guide

Owning and using the right materials is absolutely key to drawing with coloured pencils. If you're using the right paper, and generally have the right tools, you're already off to a great start. I'll show you in this lecture all of the materials you'll need.

Colour swatches are, without a doubt, one of the most important materials that I use in every drawing. Let's talk about what they are, why they are so important and how you can make your own.

Layering is one of the fundamental skills that you need to learn to draw with coloured pencils. Every single drawing that I create relies on using this method. In this lecture I'll show you both how and why we layer.

In this lecture, I want to cover exactly how I put the pencil onto the paper. The specific marks I make with the pencil and how I go about making them. This will be well worth practicing!

Let's cover the full process that I go through for every coloured pencil drawing that I create. I think that drawing with coloured pencils can look really complicated, but I actually always follow the same process. Master that process and it won't be as overwhelming to start a new drawing.

We've covered the main process for drawing anything with coloured pencil, let's be a bit more specific and think particularly about drawing fur. I'll talk you through the same steps I always go through to draw fur.

Selecting the right reference photo to work from is a key skill and essential for drawing realistic items. I'll show you how to select a reference photo, and what you're particularly looking out for

As I mentioned earlier on in this course, swatches are an essential component to drawing with coloured pencils. I'll show you exactly how I use my colour swatches to make and match colours. I'll show to how I created colours that match a couple of objects from my house.

I'm still working my way through the main skills you need to draw with coloured pencils, and creating the sketch outlines in an absolutely key one. I'll show you the main method I use to create a highly accurate sketch. If you don't want to create your own sketch for the 4 drawings later in this course, I have included the sketch outlines at the start of each section.

That's the main skills you'll need to know to draw with coloured pencils and complete this course. Let's get ready to start drawing!

Let's start out by having a look at the reference photo. I want to look for the key colours and shapes before getting started with the drawing.

Let's begin by building up the very lightest base layers. In this first lecture, I'll show how to add in the lightest colours and begin to map out the key shapes.

Now that we have something down on the paper, I want to start building up the main shapes within the apples. There are probably more shapes than you'd expect!

As I've mentioned a few times throughout this course, the key to coloured pencils is layering. Let's continue to build upon the shapes we marked out in the previous chapter.

Now all of those main shapes are marked in, the apple is looking a little bit muted. Let's continue layering and really brighten up this whole apple.

I've found it easiest to split this section into 2, so in this lecture we can contine to brighten up the apple even further.

Now that the apple is looking mostly completed, I would like to add in some of the final details. I'm particularly looking at adding in the stalk - it just doesn't look complete without it!

The final part of this drawing is to add in all of the white spots. The apple looks pretty good before I add these in, but these are the final details which really make a drawing!

Before we even think about putting down any pencil on the paper for this rose, I want to take a really good look at the reference photo. This helps us to see the key shapes and colours.

Let's start off again by building up the base layers. I want to get all of the key shapes marked out on the rose to try to get my bearings.

Now that we have something on the paper, I want to show you how to build up the contrast. To begin with, this is a really light process, but bit by bit, I can begin to increase the darker colours.

Now that the contrast has been increased, I want to look at brightening up the colours - it's still looking too muted at the moment. Let's look for the main colours that are missing at this point.

This covers the final step I go through for all drawings. Let's look at adding in the final details.

Once again, let's take a look at the reference photo before we start drawing. I definitely think the more you get used to seeing what's actually on the reference photo, the easier the drawings will become.

Let's once again begin by building up the lightest layers of colour. Getting the key shapes and colours marked in. In this drawing, we'll be following the fur texture method that I showed earlier in the course.

Now that the lightest layers are marked in, let's work our way up to the darkest layers. Gradually building up the colours and the vibrancy.

Now that a really good framework of base colours has been created, let's start building up the fur texture. I'll show you the series of colours I cover to create this.

Once the fur texture has been built up, let's tone it back down. Right now it looks too scratchy. Once again, let's look at the reference photo and see what needs to be adding to make this mouse more realistic.

This little mouse is nearly finished now, let's look at adding in any final details. To work out what's missing and what needs adding, let's once again look at the reference photo together.

Now that we've had a look at the reference photo, let's start getting the lightest colours onto the paper. Starting here with the main blocks of colour rather than worrying about any kind of details.

Now that the main lightest colours are marked in, let's look at adding in some more details. I'm just wanting to get the main shapes of the bubbles marked in, rather than anything hugely detailed right now.

Once the main bubble shapes are marked in, it's much easier to add some further details. I can work one bubble at a time, really looking at the main shapes and colours within each bubble.

Now that the bulk of the duck has been drawn, let's look at getting all of those final details marked in. This is really where the whole drawing comes together.

This is the end of the course! I hope you enjoyed it and with the course drawings have built a great foundation you can carry forward to just about any drawing you'd like to create!