Realistic Drawings With Watercolor Pencils: Beginner's Guide

Owning and using the right materials is absolutely key to drawing with watercolour 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.

Let's go through the basic and key techniques you need to know for drawing with watercolour pencils. From how to get the pigment down onto the paper to the best way to activate it with water, I'll show you what you need to know.

Whenever I work with watercolour pencils, I always follow the same overall process. I want to explain this process and cover all of the key steps. This will show you everything you need to know for us to begin working through those steps.

Now let's start working through the full process ready to draw a cupcake. The first step is to have a really good look at the reference photo and see the key shapes and colours.

I want to put down a sketch onto the drawing paper. In this lecture, I'll show you how I go about creating a very accurate sketch which is one of the keys to a realistic drawing.

Let's start putting down some colour onto the paper. I'm starting here by putting down the lightest colours. I can use these as a way to begin getting the key shapes and colours mapped out that we can then build upon.

The lightest colours have been drawn in, let's gradually work our way down to some slightly darker colours. In this lecture, we'll be looking at the mid-tone colours, as we gradually build up the cupcake.

Let's continue adding to the base layers of the cupcake and I only want to focus on the very darkest colours for now. I'm particularly thinking about the cupcake case, which is the darkest area of the cupcake.

Now that all of the base layers are drawn in, I want to start adding in all of the details. Starting at the top of the cupcake and adding in all of the little decorations, before adding a lot more structure to the cupcake case.

We've now gone through the full process of drawing a reasonably basic object using watercolour pencils, let's look at adding a bit more texture and ramping up the challenge. I particularly want to look at the process for drawing fur.

In a similar way to creating the overall drawing using watercolour pencils, I always follow a specific process whenever I draw fur. I want to show you that full process and cover all the steps I go through before using this process to draw a cute little squirrel.

Before we get started drawing, I always like to have a good look at the reference photo. I'll show you in this lecture, exactly what I'm seeing in this squirrel reference photo.

Let's start building up the colours, once again starting with the lightest colours. Just like with the cupcake, I want to look for the lightest colour in each area and begin mapping out the main shapes.

Now that we have something down on the paper, I want to gradually start working towards the darker colours. Here let's focus on the mid-tones. I'll talk you through what I'm seeing in the reference photo whilst building up these colours.

Let's move onto the darkest colours. We've got the lightest and mid-tones marked in at this point, I want to add in the darkest colours. There actually aren't a huge amount, but I can show you what I'm seeing in the squirrel and why I'm putting those darkest colours where I am.

At this point, all of the base layers have been built up, I want to show you how to add in the fur texture. We want to get the texture all mapped in, and I'll talk you through all the main things that you should consider whilst doing this.

I want to focus on a specific area in this lecture. You're probably finding that the more detailed spots, like the front paws and face, aren't looking quite right at this point. Let's really define these more details parts.

In a similar way to the last lecture, the back paws and tail is also not looking quite right at the moment. I'll show you how to define these areas and add in the detail that's missing.

This little squirrel is really nearly finished now! It needs some of the finishing touches though. I'll show you how to smooth out the fur and stop it from having that slightly scratchy look.

Let's move onto the final drawing we'll be completing in this course, and for this drawing you'll need one extra material - a white Sakura Gelly Roll pen.

In the same way as before in the previous two drawings, I want to start by having a really good look at the reference photo. Let's look for the key colours and shapes.

Now that we've had a look at the reference photo, I once again want to start by drawing in the lightest colours. I will show you the lightest colours I can see in the reference photo and where these colours should be built up.

Following on from the lightest colours, I want to map in the mid-tones. I can show you how to build these up before we activate it with the water.

At this point, I want to focus on the darkest colours within the violin. Once again, let's look together at the reference photo before getting the colours marked in, and then we have a really good template to add further details.

Finally, let's add in the final details. I'll show you how to add in these details, particularly the strings of the violin, 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!