Here is a great step by step colored pencil demonstration by artist Veronica Winters.

During this video tutorial, Veronica will share lots of  tips and techniques for creating a stunning colored pencil drawing.

Veronica uses colored paper for her drawings as it speeds up the drawing process and makes her drawings appear brighter and more vibrant.

She uses smooth paper that doesn’t have much tooth to it.  She uses Prismacolor  Premier Colored Pencils. These are a high quality colored pencil with a lot of pigment in them. Well worth the investment if you are looking to produce vibrant high quality work like Veronica’s.

She is working from a reference photo that she took in Italy.

She begins with a drawing that she lays out using a graphite 2HB Pencil. She lays in the drawing very lightly as she doesn’t want the graphite to show through in lighter areas of her finished piece. After finishing her initial drawing, she will smooth out harsh lines with a kneaded eraser.  While she is creating her initial drawing, she is focusing on creating a great composition.

She uses a ruler in certain areas of her drawing to create straight lines.  She uses a color wheel to help her choose colors that work well together and are pleasing to the eye.  She makes dark outlines as she feels this is important to keep the clarity of the forms.  She uses the cross hatching technique to hide the appearence of lines. This makes it look more like a painting than a drawing….

I don’t want to give too much away, so be sure and watch this interesting colored pencil demo video below.  The demonstration is about 30 minutes in length so try and free up that much time to watch it straight through.

If you are interested in learning more about Prismacolor Colored Pencils as well as purchasing them online at a discounted price, follow this link for a video discussion and demonstration from the folks over at Dick Blick.

Step by Step Colored Pencil Drawing Demonstration Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugQBivnvl-U

A big thanks to Veronica Winters for sharing this wonderful step by step colored pencil painting demo.  Follow this link to visit her Website to see her work and to learn more about her.

About Paula:

I was born and raised in Sacramento, CA, USA, where it gets very very very HOT in the Summer. WAY too hot. I played the piano, took tap dancing lessons, did my homework, and spent a lot of time sitting directly in front of the air conditioner.

I always liked to ‘color’, and in the third grade I won a coloring contest sponsored by a local coffee shop. My prize was a banana split, a bank radio and  FIVE whole dollars.

WOW!

You could make money just for coloring? The seed was planted.

After that I grew up, went away to school to study architecture at Cal Poly, then went away to school AGAIN to study illustration at the Academy of Art in San Francisco.

I’ve made my living drawing and coloring in one way or another ever since, and it covers a pretty wide spectrum! I’ve painted flames on the sides of vans, drawn bus maps, drawn plans for hospitals and parking garages, designed retail displays, drawn pictures for movies, and done some advertising and editorial illustration.

Now I do childrens’ books, licensing, and sell my own work in a more “fine art” kind of way.

I live with my kitties who all help me color and take naps and knit.

And I still love the air conditioner.

Paula’s Website: http://www.paulapertile.com/

Step-by-Step Colored Pencil Demo

“Cotswald Cheese with Cherry Tomato”

This is a lovely wedge of Cotswald cheese (which has bits of herbs in it) with a little cherry tomato on top.

I will show you step-by-step how it was created. I used Faber-Castell Polychromo colored pencils on Strathmore 500 Series cold pressed illustration board.

The pencil colors used are Yellow Ochre, Canary Yellow, Grey Green, Cadmium Orange, Orange Yellow, Chrome Green, Sea Green, Geranium Lake, Scarlet Red, Dark Red, Light Flesh, Deep Red, True Green, Light Green, Light Ultramarine.

The finished piece is 5 x 7 inches.

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This was my reference photo. Its not very good because its a little blurry. So I drew the piece from life, which is what I prefer doing anyway. But I like to have a photo for back-up in case something happens to the “model”.

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Step 1

I sketched in the composition with Yellow Ochre. In real life it was much lighter than this. I darkened it up in Photoshop to show it here. I also purposely made the cheese a bit shorter, and also deleted the wood panelling and green tabletop. (If I was serious about using the photo for reference, I’d have set it up with something white in the background to begin with.)

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Step 2

Here I wanted to establish some color on the whole piece, just to get started. Using a light pressure, I did an over all wash of Canary Yellow on the cheese, then started to indicate some of the shadowy bits with Grey Green. I did some light Cadmium Orange on the tomato, leaving the highlights. I also did a pale pale pale wash of Sky Blue for the cast shadow (which barely shows up here.)

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Step 3

Here I did Orange Yellow and Cadmium Orange over the whole cheese. I also used an eraser to indicate the highlight on the top edge.

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Step 4

Now its starting to get fun. I did the green bits with Chrome Green, Sea Green and Grey Green.
I used a heavier pressure for the greens, since they’re darker bits. I’m also not slavishly copying every little green bit exactly like it is in the photo. Some pieces are the same, but I’ve also done some editing and rearranging.

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Step 5

Here I went farther with the cheese. I did more Cadmium Orange over the whole thing, and also added a shadow for the tomato on the top of the cheese. I worked on the edge highlight too.

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Step 6

Now I’m starting to work on the tomato. I did Geranium Lake over the whole thing, with a little bit of Cadmium Orange.

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Step 7

I developed the tomato further here, with Scartlet Red, Dark Red, Cadmium Orange and a little Light Flesh in the highlights.

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Step 8

Yes, I know this looks weird. I needed to go darker, so added Scarlet Red, Deep Red, Dark Red, and more Geranium Lake. I also filled in the highlights because they didn’t look right anymore.

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Step 9

I fixed it. I put the highlights back in with a Helix battery powered eraser. I also added some more darks for shadows. And I lightly outlined the cheese and tomato with True Green.

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Step 10

Now I’m starting the background. I did an even layer of True Green over the whole thing.

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Step 11

Almost finished. I added more True Green, plus Light Green all over the background.
Then I used Chrome Green and Light Ultramarine for the shadow. I did more tweaking in the tomato’s cast shadow as well.

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Step 12

The finished piece. I added more Cadmium Orange over the cheese, and more True Green in the shadow.

About Amanda:

I started drawing back in 2000. One morning I picked up a pencil, some computer paper and started to draw an image from a folder I had by me. This was an Anime (Japanese animation or cartoon) that I liked back then. I was drawing that and other images from reference photos until 2003 when I created my first original character.

During the summer of 2003, I started to work on story lines and comics wile developing more of my style. I went into High School in the fall of 2003 and took more advanced art classes. I learned to improve my realism skills and began to enjoy it more and more. I worked realism into my style as my pencil and colored pencil skills got better. The art classes also taught me to work with watercolors, temperas, pastel, and charcoal. At that time, I developed more characters and stories for my comics.

Colored Pencil Tutorial By Amanda Sexton

Aye everyone! I wanted to get around to do a little tutorial on colored pencils. They are my favorite coloring medium. I did a sketch last night and decided to color it and turn it into a tutorial cause it’s not too busy and it’s not very big.

I hope to inspire you and to also take a journey though my brain on how I do my thing.

Materials

This bad boy is my 120 Prismacolor Colored Pencils. They are a great professional pencil to use. They blend nicely and have a creamy texture that I love. Did I mention that they are professional? That means they are pricey, and they are. If you ever get the money to buy them, DO IT. Well worth it.

I also use  (Prang) Colored Pencils for small areas and for blending, or Burnishing.

There are many ways you can blend your colored pencils. From Colorless Blenders to colors, to Tortillons or smudge stumps. I will be using smudge stumps and colors. White is a great way to blend, but the pigment is WHITE after all.. that means your colors will lighten and fade.

Now the paper I am using is a  (Strathmore) 400 sketch book , 5.5 x 8.5, 60 lbs. I love this brand. This sketchbook is nice and textured fore any media. I have tried a lot of different papers from watercolor, bristol, drawing, sketch, and recently tinted pastel. I like to have some texture to my paper when using colored pencil, but at times a smooth bristol works just nicely.

Also don’t forget to have a good pencil sharpener. One that is hand held is best. Fixative is a MUST when you are done.. I learned this the hard way.. trust me

A WORD TO THE WISE: keep your hands clean, your pencils sharpen and a scrap paper under your hand. Smudging and skin oils is your worst enemy. Eh.

To the good stuff!

There is my baby that I posted last night. His name is Jadar and watch out, he is going to be blue skinned with green hair! Yay! Anyway it is a good idea to shade when you sketch to get a feel of where the light source is coming from. In this case it is from his halo/ above him. I drew Jadar as an Angel cause of the song I was listing (I heard the story behind the song today and boy it’s sad). He does not die AT ALL in my comics so none of my friend/ fans of him will have to worry. (I know them, they will see this and think that..)

Sorry for the poor color quality on my scanner. I inked it wile leaving the halo and hair pencil (something I want to try..). I started with a light shade of True Blue, Prismacolor. I kept some areas white for the highlights. I also added Prismacolor Metallic Silver to the background to give it some pop!.

I took Prismacolor Violet and lightly shaded it into places where shadow will fall. Giving the object a 3D look is always my goal and by adding different shades, like the violet to blue objects helps. I then took out a small smudge stump and blended the colors together, with a light pressure. The smudge stump make a little impact on the drawing, but it’s there and helps.

A Prismacolor Violet- Blue was added to the darkest of shadows with light to medium pressure. I use medium pressure to the areas that are highly dark and lightly to the areas that are only touched by the other two colors, like under the cheek bones. The stump was used again lightly to blend colors.

I WANT TO TAKE THIS TIME TO POINT OUT A MISTAKE I MADE. I shaded the tops of his eyes wrong. But I fixed it.

Prang Blue was added with medium to heavy pressure. Medium was added as a shade and heavy to blend the Violet Blue dark shadows like under the chin. I like to use Prang , or some times Crayola, fore blending. Their pigment has less wax in them, so they are harder. Great for getting the color into the tooth of the paper.

I told you he was blue!

With heavy pressure I added Prang Light Blue over the light areas. To blend it more I used a Prismacolor Powder Blue to some of the white highlights. Toped it off with a colorless blender to smooth out the pencils more. God blue is beautiful…

I may add that this looks 10 times better in person.

I colored the wing with Prismacolor Powder Blue and Prismacolor Light Cerulean Blue. The wing is white so I like to shade with blues. I NEVER shade with gray for white. Unless it’s smoke or a ghostly figure (look at i20.photobucket.com/albums/b234/Kamourianking/melancholy-1.jpg (Melancholy)). And yes.. I know what a ghost looks like. I have seen plenty of them personally out in Gettysburg, PA. I then blended with a Prang Light Blue and toped it off with my Colorless Blender. Around the white edges of the highlight I added Prismacolor Goldenrod then blended with Prang Tan. This will draw the elements into the picture together. Pardon the pun..

To start with his hair I picked some greens of both brands.

Prismacolor:

• True Green
• Grass Green
• Dark Green
• Canary Yellow

Prang:

• Green
• Apple Green
• Violet

Some times I pick out every color of green out of my package when I am working big or more detailed, but for this I took only a few colors.

I colored the halo with Prismacolor Gold and Prang Yellow. I wanted to color this first because if I colored the hair first it might get very messy. If I color it fist the halo would mask it’s self off. It also gives me a great sense of where the band of light is coming from. Again pardon the pun. I took out Prismacolor True Green and wile leaving the white areas out, colored. I used more pencil like strokes for the hair. I want to note that I do not color hair in the normal Anime/ Manga style. Unless I have a anime one day but when I color I don’t follow the rules. I am more realistic than that.

Prismacolor Grass Green with light to medium pressure was added to deepen the depth of shadows. This includes the ends of the hair and above the halo.

I took Prismacolor Dark Green and added more depth. I used heavy pressure to the really dark areas, like under his ears.

Prismacolor Canary Yellow was added to the highlighted parts. Prang Apple Green and Green was added to burnish and blend the other colors of green.

And there he is in all of his glory! I added a yellow highlighter around the character to bring out his “glow”. Put a watermark on it and he is done.

Thank you all for reading!