in the news

A few months ago I was approached by the wonderful staff of Ann Kullberg's Colored Pencil Magazine to do a step-by-step article featuring one of my colored pencil works of the ocean. I must admit that I felt a little overwhelmed by the prospect of writing clear instructions for a magazine article! The featured work is a piece titled Ocean Blue. If you'd like to read in detail just how it was created do check out the May issue of this impressive magazine from Ann Kullberg.

And if you are looking for ocean themed art, a couple of the pieces shown in the article above are still available in my Etsy shop!

Let's Draw a Pear! - the final steps

This post concludes the tutorial, Let's Draw a Pear! with the final steps, 6 & 7.

Step Six : Using a kneaded eraser as a drawing tool to create texture

Now you are going to create the textured surface of the pear. Make your kneaded eraser into a pointed shape as shown in the photo above. Dab at areas to make spots where there are dots on the pear. You will probably need to keep reshaping the point on your eraser as it fills up with lifted colored pencil pigment. Your dots don’t have to be perfect.  In fact, the irregularities will better mimic the actual spots on the pear. (Notice that I place a scrap piece of tracing paper under my hand to avoid smudging the drawing.)

Also dab at the edges of the white highlighted shapes in order to soften and create irregular edges.

Next, fill in some of the dabbed out dots with Light Yellow Ochre or Brown Ochre to create the dots on the pear. Use Burnt Umber for the dots in the darkest areas.

Step Seven :  Putting the final touches on the drawing

Dab at the dots again in a random fashion, less carefully this time. This will make them more irregular in shape and tone. Then go over the entire area of yellow, except for the white highlights, with Cadmium Yellow Lemon. This will help set the textured dots into place. If a dot seems too big or misplaced, continue dabbing to lift pigment and then filling back in with yellow. If the dots you want to adjust are in the red areas, use the same process but fill back in with Light Cadmium Red.

Congratulations! You have now drawn a pear in colored pencil! Thank you for following along with my colored pencil process. I hope that you have found this tutorial helpful and that you will be able to use some of these tips, from photographing your subject to completing a colored pencil drawing, in your own art work.

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If you would like to give the drawing a try yourself, please let me know in the comments with a link to where you are posting your results. I would love to follow along with your progress too! 

Also, don't forget that if you would prefer to work from a paper copy of the tutorial you can visit my Tutorial page here on this blog and follow the links to a free PDF file that you may download for yourself.

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Something that I learned while putting together this tutorial is that I don't tend to work in such methodical steps. My drawing process involves much more back and forth, a little here and there, jumping from one area to another. So it was a bit of a challenge for me to try to sort out the process into stages that would make sense to someone else! Which made for a good learning experience for me to really examine what it is that I am doing when I draw. Hopefully it is helpful for you too!

Let's Draw a Pear! - Step 5 continued

This post continues with the tutorial, Let's Draw a Pear! Taking up where we left off in step five with applying colored pencil in layers to create form and depth of color, today's post is about adding the shadows to the pear.

 

D. Putting in the shadows

Carefully erase the remaining pencil outline except for the cast shadow shape.

Apply a light layer of brown Ochre to the bottom and right, shadowed side of the pear.

Deepen the shadow area with Burnt Umber on the right side of the pear, keeping the edges soft and feathery.  Lightly go over the Burnt Umber with Burnt Carmine on the right edge of the pear.

Begin to lightly fill in the cast shadow with Burnt Umber.

Add burnt umber to the right side of the stem for a darker edge.

E. Deepen the shadows

Use Dark Indigo down the right side edge of the pear and on the right side edge of the stem .  Add a little Dark Indigo to the base of the cast shadow where it touches the bottom of the pear.

Remember to look carefully at your reference picture! The dark edge is not consistent all the way from the top to the bottom of the pear.

Bring the Dark Indigo out into the cast shadow on the table. Add Burnt Carmine, Light Yellow Ochre and Cadmium Yellow to the shadow’s edges. Dab the cast shadow with a kneaded eraser to blend and soften the edges. Also erase the remaining pencil outline.

Friday's post will complete the tutorial with steps 6 & 7. I hope you are enjoying seeing this process. Remember, if you would prefer to work from a paper copy of the tutorial, you can visit my Tutorial page here on this blog and follow the links to a free PDF file that you may download for yourself.

Let's Draw a Pear! - Step 5

This post continues with the tutorial, Let's Draw a Pear! If you are following along with the steps of this drawing, please don't forget to put a link in the comments. I would love to see your pear drawings!

Step Five : Applying colored pencil in layers to create form and depth of color 

 A.  First color layer

First, lighten the pencil outlines by dabbing with a kneaded eraser. Using light pencil pressure, fill in the entire pear shape with Light Chrome Yellow, leaving the white highlight areas the white of the paper surface.   

Because our reference photo shows the pear with all-over yellow cast to the color, you will begin with an even layer of yellow over the entire shape of the pear. With each layer of color, use uniformly light pressure when applying the colored pencil to the paper.  I often will turn my paper in several directions when coloring in, to vary the direction of pencil strokes giving a more uniform quality to the layer of color. 

  

B. Second color layer

Now you will begin to look for variations of color within the pear shape and on the stem.  Observing where these variations form general shapes of color, begin with Light Yellow Ochre to block in those places of darker, warmer yellow on the pear.  Add Light Green to those areas with a greenish tint. Add Cadmium Yellow and Cadmium Yellow Lemon to the brighter yellow areas on the front and light side of the pear.  On the stem, use Light Yellow Ochre, Brown Ochre, Sanguine, and Light Green to block in those color shapes.

Remember to keep a light pressure when applying your colored pencil to the paper.  Rotate the paper’s position to keep changing the pencil’s stroke direction.

  

C. Third color layer

Fill in the area of red-orange with Light Cadmium Red. Use Cadmium Orange to feather the edges of the red.

Next use Burnt Carmine to deepen the darker red areas out to the right shadowed edge. This will darken and neutralize the yellow-green on the shadowed edge of the pear.

Now add a couple of touches of Burnt Carmine to the darker edges of the stem.

*If you would like to work from a paper copy of the tutorial you can visit my Tutorial page here on this blog and follow the links to a free PDF file that you may download for yourself.

Wednesday's post will continue with step five, adding shadows with colored pencil layers.

Let's Draw a Pear! - Steps 3 & 4

Today's post continues with our pear tutorial begun in the last post. Click here in case you missed steps 1 & 2. Or go to my Tutorial page and follow the links to download a copy of the entire tutorial, Let's Draw a Pear!, in PDF.

Step Three : A list of materials used to make this drawing

Here are the supplies that I used to make this drawing of a pear. For my support (paper or other surface for applying art media) I used my favorite Rising Museum Board. It has a slight texture and a somewhat firm surface. This allows for lots of layering of the colored pencil. Another good support for colored pencil work is Strathmore Bristol Vellum 500 Series. It has similar characteristics to Rising Museum Board and provides a very suitable surface for colored pencil.

The other items I used were tracing paper, artist’s tape, a mechanical pencil, pencil sharpeners, kneaded erasers, and a white plastic eraser stick.

The colored pencils that I used for this pear drawing were all Faber-Castell Polychromos colored pencils. I used the following colors (in this order):

Light Chrome Yellow, Light Yellow Ochre, Brown Ochre, Sanguine, Light Green, Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Yellow Lemon, Light Cadmium Red, Cadmium Orange, Burnt Carmine, Burnt Umber, and Dark Indigo.

Faber-Castell Polychromos colored pencils are often available as open stock from art supply retailers.

Step Four : Transferring the image to the drawing surface

Mark your drawing support for a 5 x 7 inch format.  Place tracing paper over the photo reference and mark the corners. Trace the outline of the pear shape and shadow with pencil. Other than the pear’s shadow, we are not concerned with any of the background. If it is too difficult to see the shadowed edge of the pear against the dark back ground through the tracing paper, draw that edge with a white colored pencil directly on the printed out photo reference.

Turn the tracing to the back side and draw along the pear shape with a soft lead pencil.

Now place the tracing right side up over your marked drawing surface, lining up corners and tape the tracing paper to the drawing paper at the top.

Draw over the pear shape outline with a pencil, careful not to press down too hard. Using a heavy pressure will impress lines into your support. Now the outline of your pear shape should be transferred onto the drawing support.

Monday's post will show the first stages of the colored pencil layering techniques in Step 5. Hope to see you there!