Transcripts
1. Introduction: When you think of color pencil art, what comes to mind? Chances are you're imagining a coloring book from when you were a child. What if I told you, you could create incredibly detailed portraits using this humble medium. I'm going to show you exactly how to in this class. Hi, I'm Tammy, an artist, a YouTuber, and now a Skillshare teacher., and I will show you how to create amazing color pencil portraits from beginning to end. I love drawing portraits, and I've been doing so for over 10 years. Switching from graphites to coloring pencils wasn't an easy journey. I have now fallen in and love with the medium, that's coloring pencils, and I want to show you all my tips and tricks in this class. In this class, I'm going to go through the different types of coloring pencils. I'm picking the best one for your budget and skill level. How to create an accurate sketch, picking the right colors, creating an underpainting using markers for the base, and how to blend your pencils seamlessly. Throughout the class, I'll give you all my techniques to create a beautiful and polished piece with a fantastic finish. I hope you're ready, grab your pencils and let's go.
2. Class & Project Orientation: I'm so glad you decided to join me for this class. Our class project is to create a portrait piece using coloring pencils. As this class is aimed at all levels, throughout the lessons we'll be doing exercises to practice each elements of creating a portrait. We'll start by focusing on stroke styles, blending, choosing the right colors, sketching, and finally putting it all together in a portrait piece and adding the final details. For this class, you will need color and pencils, markers, papers, as well as a few other tools. Start with what you have, but if you're in need of new products, I'll now go into detail that might help your choices.
3. Supplies: Here are the supplies that you need. Starting with the coloring pencils, I'll broadly break these down into wax/oil-based pencils and water-based pencils. We're going to focus on wax/oil-based pencils in this class because they'll work better with some of the supplies I'll speak about shortly. The wax/oil is the binding agent in the pencil. Generally, wax-based pencils have a softer core, so they're easier to blend, and this is fantastic for doing things like getting smooth skin. The oil-based pencils can hold a sharper point longer, so they're great for really fine details like hair. If you're a beginner, you should consider getting wax-based pencils over oil-based pencils. This is because we're doing portraits in this course, so you'll find it easier to do all of the blending we need to. Prismacolors are a great first choice. I have the set of 120, but you definitely don't need that many. I think a set of 36 will be a good starting point. Just do what your budget allows you to. Speaking of budget, if you have a bigger budget, the Caran d'Ache Luminance pencils are fantastic. If you prefer oil-based pencils, I recommend the Faber-Castelle Polychromos. If you're already planning on buying the Prismacolors or the Caran d'Ache, you definitely don't need this set also. But if you already have the Polychromos, then you're good to go. Now for markers, it's no doubt the coloring pencils are the most important supplies you need for this class. However, I started using markers recently as an underpainting for my portraits, and it drastically improved my process. The purpose of this is to create a base underpainting that you can then go over with coloring pencils for the details. Coloring pencils are very patient medium, and you need to work in very light layers. Using markers just helps you to speed up the process, and this is because you can cover large areas of the paper quickly, so you don't have to finish your pencils. Speaking about two types of markers, water-based markers versus alcohol markers, you can use water-based markers, but alcohol markers blend into each other very nicely, so they will make your life easier. I recommend getting an alcohol marker skin tone set from the like of Arteza, Ohuhu, or Copic, depending on your budget. Some do only chisel tips, and some have a combination of a brush tip and a chisel or a fine bullet nib. I have all three sets and they work nicely so make your decision based on the marker tip. If it's a chisel tip or a brush tip, and also based on the color range and your budget. I'll be using the Arteza EverBlend skin tones set, and this is because of the wide range of deeper colors because today I am doing a self-portrait. Next, we need to talk about paper. This one is down to personal preference. Generally speaking, you have smoother paper versus a rougher texture paper. Smoother paper might be harder to add as many layers over the top because you've filled the tooth of the paper up quickly. The tooth of the paper is the surface of the paper. Paper that has a little bit of texture has almost little ridges which can help the pencils to hold onto. If you imagine paper that's completely smooth, it'll be harder for the next layer of pencils to have anything to hold on to. For that reason, I prefer paper with a little bit of a rough surface. You don't want it too rough either, so I like something just in the middle. A good choice for me is mixed media paper. If you're doing the same markers and coloring pencil combo like me, then mixed media paper will be fantastic for you because it can withstand both mediums. My paper choices are Arteza mixed media paper, but feel free to use any you want to. Just make sure the paper is quite thick. Mine is 180 GSM. Now sketching tools, this one's quick and easy, you just need your pencils, eraser, a sharpener and paper to sketch on. I like to sketch on a separate piece of paper rather than sketch in my sketchbook, so I use printer paper. This makes life so much easier because you can do your sketch on a loose sheet and transfer it into your sketchbook when you're ready. For pencil, I sketch with an HB pencil. That is just a regular pencil, but you can feel free to use a mechanical pencil or whatever else you're comfortable with. For eraser, I'm just using a normal eraser, but you can grab a kneaded eraser if you've got one. For sharpener, this is an important one, so please try to find a good one. I use an automatic sharpener because it just makes my life easier, but you definitely don't have to. Make sure you find a good sharpener that will get your pencils to a very sharp point. If you take nothing else from this video, please invest in a good sharpener. Final section on other tools, now these aren't that necessary, but they just make your life easier. First one is transfer paper. I spoke about sketching on a separate sheet and transferring your drawing. The easiest way to get your sketch from the paper to your sketchbook is by using a piece of graphite transfer paper. It's a great investment because you can reuse it so many times. If you don't have a transfer paper, that's fine, you can actually shade the back of your sketch using a pencil, so you can use HB pencil if you've got one, or a softer pencil, and then you can draw over your lines as normal. The transfer paper I'm using is Arteza graphite transfer sheets. Next is a white pen. This is amazing for the final details and the pop of shine. If you're drawing glossy lips, this is an absolute must. I recommend the Sakura Gelly Roll in size 10. Next is a fine liner. This isn't that important, but it can really help with final details like the eyelashes and eyebrows. I'll be using the Staedtler Triplus Fineliner. Finally, we've got the pencil extender. If your pencils are getting short, it can become more difficult to hold on to the pencils, and coloring pencils are expensive, so we're not going to throw out anyhow. Get yourself one of these. This one is from Derwent. I've made life easier by linking down my Amazon store, so all of the supplies are in one place. Regardless of the supplies you have, get ready to put it all together to create magic. Next, we're going to speak about photo references, where to find them, and how to get good ones. See you in the next class.
4. Picking the best photo references: References are very important, it gives a pretty good idea of what to expect from your final piece. I'm going to speak about five things to look out when trying to find a good reference picture. Number one, is a good-quality reference picture where the subject is clear and in-focus. Number two, is a large enough image that you can zoom into if you want to get extra details. Number three, the subject stands out from the background, so you can easily differentiate the subject from the background. Number four, is overall well lit and the lighting isn't too harsh. Number five, the colors aren't dull or pale. However, if this is the look you're going for with your piece then that's perfectly fine, but just know you can't edit the picture if you want to. Actually find images, you can use Google or Pinterest or even Instagram. Some great sites for royalty-free images are Pexly and Unsplash, or you could just take your own photo. I'll be using my own photo in this class. I've made a Pinterest board if you want a starting point, I've linked it down in the resources tab, feel free to grab one of those for this class. A good reference is so important, so take your time to find something that inspires you that has good lighting and is of great quality, and let's start this drawing.
5. Types of pencil strokes: We can finally get to the fun part. Our break pencil shrinks down into two elements, the way you hold the pencil and then the different types of strikes. First, make sure your pencils are sharp. Holding it closer to the tip of the pencil allows you to create darker strokes, holding it midway allows you to create lighter strokes, and holding it closer to the end of the pencil allows you to create even lighter strokes. When you're right at the end of the pencil, it's a lot harder to control. I like holding my pencil around the midway point. This is because it gives me good control and allows me to create lighter strokes. Let's talk about the different types of strokes. We have the linear, which is a simple back and forth, and we have the circular strokes. These are two types of strokes you can use for blending. Practice this on a scrap piece of paper. I use the combination of the two when I'm working and I interchange it depending on how I'm feeling. It's very important to work in light layers, so next, we're going to do some blending exercises.
6. Exercise: 2 colour blending : Now we know how to hold our pencils with the different types of shape. We'll now move on to creating simple two-color blends, which is the first class project. We're picking colors next to each other on the color wheel, and these are known as analogous colors. I'll show you how to create a seamless blend by layering. Let's do this together. With your sharp pencils, pick any two analogous colors, and I'm going to do a yellow to orange blend. The method we're using today is called the layering technique. We gradually achieve a smooth blend by applying light layers of each color. I started by roughly mapping where each color is going for layer 1. Now for layer 2, you want to go in with slightly more pressure on both sides, but reduce the pressure as you go into the transitionary area. Finally, for layer 3, we're going in with even more pressure, but focusing on a smooth transition and just going back and forth with both colors. This is the final layer, which is the banish layer, which is when we go on with so much pressure, we can't add any more layers over the top and it gives us this beautiful opaque finish. Keep practicing your two color blends. It's the first step but unlocks so many opportunities, so make sure you get it right. If you did this along with me, show me your work done in the class projects tab. By the way, I'll leave all of the blends I've done today down in the Resources tab. So feel free to look at that for inspiration. But now we can move on to the three color blends.
7. Exercise: 3 colour blending : Building upon what we've just learned with the two color blends, we're taken up a notch by doing some three color blends, and this is the second class project. Once again, we'll pick an analogous color. So these are colors next to each other on the color wheel. For this blend, I'm doing a green to blue blend using the layer method once again. We're building up on what we've just learned with the two color blend practice. For layer 1 we're simply mapping where the colors will go. I'm applying each color into each third, slightly overlapping, but just applying linear strokes. Added more color for layer 2 and for layer 3, we're gradually building up the opacity by adding even more pressure. Layer 4 is the burnishing layer and this is where we're finishing up so we can't add any more layers on the top. Practice multiple color blends and for your blends, do as many or as few layers as you require. Well done, You now know how to blend multiple colors. Try other three color blends, keep practicing until you get it right and please share your work in the class projects tab. I've shown all of my blends in the Resources tab with the color name. So if you're using a Prismacolor set and you want to color along with me, then feel free to look at that. Now we've done random color blends, we're going to move on to picking the right colors for different skin tones. See you in the next class.
8. Picking skin colours for different skintones: Well, don't forget into this point of the class, we have now practiced multiple color blends, which has helped us to familiarize ourselves with colored pencils and how they work for blending and layering. Now we need to pay attention to the colors we'll use for portraits to create nice and vibrant skin tones. At this point, you've probably already chosen the portrait you want to draw. If you haven't feel free to pause this class and do so, or feel free to follow along with me while I show you the different colors I picked for different skin tones, how I identified the undertones, how I picked the marker colors as well as the coloring pencil colors. Before I go into it, I just want to address that many people struggle with this because they put too much pressure on picking the right colors. The reality is you don't have to be stringent with this. You can change up the reference as much as you want to. We're not trying to replicate it exactly. We're just trying to create a nice effect that will result in an overall nice portrait. The reality is, even when trying to depict realism, you don't have to pick the exact colors for the portrait to come up good. As you can see, changing the hue of this portrait doesn't take from the realism of the portrait. It's better to focus on having good contrast. Having really good lights and darks in the piece to just make it look nice and complete overall. I'll be showing you how I pick the colors for, four skin tones. We've got light, medium, dark and deep, and don't take any of these as the gospel. It very much depends what your actual reference picture is saying. Please pay attention to your reference. All of these references are in the Pinterest board as I've mentioned. Feel free to follow along with me or use your own reference as I'm going through this. I'll be using the arteza markers and prismacolor pencils, it might help to have all of your colors swatch. I'll just walk you through how I tried to identify the colors I need for each one. In the real drawing, I would use many more colors, but this would definitely help to provide a starting point. With the marker colors I try to find the main base shades and then I can get a little more creative with the pencil colors. Just watch me go through these four skin tones and try to identify the colors and picking before I do. Remember, there are no right or wrong answers and you can definitely change it up with your own drawing. Just try to find different references to practice with. It's not an official class project, but you can pause here to practice this color mapping. When trying to identify the different colors you should use. A tip is that you should avoid using black for skin shadows, especially for deeper skin tones. I find that it just tends to make the drawing look flat. Instead, try to lean more towards purples and blues when layered with browns, it creates such beautiful depth with your pieces. I'll show you with myself portrait later. Great, you now know what to consider when trying to pick different colors for different skin tones. If you haven't already grab your reference picture, re-watch this class as many times as you need to, and try to identify the colors that you think you need for your portrait. Refer to the resources tab if you want the color names and if you want to color along with me. But now it's time to start on your own portrait and we'll start by creating an accurate sketch. See you in the next class.
9. Create an accurate sketch: We have finally made it through all of the practice exercises, and we can put together everything we've learned to our own portrait piece. The first and one of the most important parts of realism is to get an accurate sketch, so that's what we're going to start with. I always do sketch my sketch on a separate piece of paper and I transfer it over to my sketchbook when I'm happy. This is just so I didn't have to erase directly on the sketchbook and damage the tooth of the paper. But you can choose to sketch directly in sketchbook if you want. There are several techniques you can use for creating an accurate sketch, but one of the easiest, especially for beginners, is the grid method, so that's what we're going to do today. This is when you draw grid lines on your reference picture as well as on your sketching paper, and then you can sketch based on what you can see in each square rather than a focus on the overall image. Personally, I prefer to add my grid line digitally and since I'm sketching on random printer paper, I don't have to bother drawing the grid lines on my paper either. I just print another copy of the grid lines, which has saved me time, and now I can start my sketch. Draw along with me. Pause to draw your grid lines if you need to. The first step is to number the squares on both the reference picture and the sketching sheets. For the sketching process, we just want to create an outline by paying attention to where different parts of the face fall in each square. I've started with the hair, but you can feel free to start wherever you're comfortable. I've left the sketching process in real-time so that you can see how slowly I'm going. I've just cut out pauses and occasional breaks as well as skip through some of it to move it along. There are a few key points I want to highlight in the sketching process. Number one, trust the process, especially in the beginning stages, it can really look crazy, and you just have to trust what you can see and that leads on to the second one. Draw what you see and not what you think you see. Don't imagine, the eye should go here, or this shape fits better. Just try to pay attention to the outlines of what you actually see. Number three, take your time. This is one of the most important parts of this entire class. It's not possible to do realistic work without an accurate sketch, so really take your time, and you will produce something you're proud of. In your first iteration, focus on getting the main shapes down. I started with the hair shape, the face outline, and then I put in some detail in the face. Even at that point, I'm not thinking about further details like the eyelashes, or the earrings yet, so don't get too bogged down by some of the details like every single hair strand. Also remember to erase as much as you need to, especially if you're drawing on a scrap paper like me. In total, with this sketching process took me just under an hour. Yours might even longer or a lot quicker. Just take your time and enjoy the process. I'll leave you now to watch the rest of the sketching process. When you have a complete sketch that you're happy with, time to transfer the drawing onto the sketchbook. I'm using a graphite transfer sheets, but if you don't have one, feel free to shape the back of your sketch using a soft pencil and then draw over all of your sketch lines with a biro. I'm using one of the different colors so that I can easily differentiate my sketch lines and where I've already transferred. Fabulous, we have learned to use the grid method to get an accurate sketch, and now we can give this portrait some color.
10. Map the colours on your sketch: Now the fun begins. This might feel nerve-wracking, but you've got this. To make our life even easier, we're going to map out and identify the colors that we'll need for the portraits. If you haven't already swatched your markers and your pencils, this might be a good time to do so. This bit of pre-work will help you so much more in the long run, because instead of racking your brain to try to identify the colors when it's time to actually color, you can just refer to the sheet and see what colors you've already picked out. Building up on what we've learned in an earlier lesson about picking the right colors, we're just trying to identify the colors we can see in the reference. Remember your colors don't have to be exact, you just want to pick out some key base colors as you can see. This practice step is more individual to you and your reference picture. It's not something you can follow me exactly with. In fact, for the rest of the class, you can't really do that, except you're drawing with me using the exact same reference picture. Even so, you should practice this yourself anyway. Now we have all our colors laid out, we are ready to start coloring.
11. Creating an underpainting with markers: Now we have all of our colors mapped out for us. It's time to do the underpainting layer with the marker base. The purpose of the marker base is to provide a base underpainting that will later build out. We also think about this in layers and the key here is to trust the process and persevere. Keep looking at your reference, your color map sheet, and your markers, swatch colors to help guide where you're actually going to place the colors. Working with light layers will create a natural smooth blend. Working from light to dark could also help. Persevere past the ugly face and stop when you're happy you have a good enough underpainting. Just enjoy watching my underpainting coming together. We've got a marker base all done and don't worry if you're thinking it's looking a little bit crazy. Remember, we loved the blending and practice earlier and we're about to use that knowledge to create a beautiful skin blend. see you in the next class.
12. Achieving details with colour pencil : Now, we have the base of the skin done, it's time to add some details with colored pencils and all of the techniques we've already practiced. Don't forget to grab the right colors for the highlight colors and the deep shadows. If it will help you do a similar exercise that we did with mapping out the marker colors by mapping out pencil colors that you think you need. But keep your pencils handy so that if you feel like you need a different color you can just grab it and also, please keep your pencils sharp, that's the most important thing you can do for yourself. The markers really helps to get the basic colors and the shadows done. The coloring pencils are really going to help to get the finest details and achieve smooth skin. Just like all the previous stages, you really need to pay attention to your reference. Draw what you see and not what you think you see. It might help to focus on a specific area at a time. So try to get that to a good point and then move on to the next one. This is what I like to do. I always start with the eyes because I think it's one of the most striking and important parts of the portray, but feel free to start wherever you're comfortable. A tip here is to be brave with your shadows. This will help throughout the coloring stage. But consider the fact that the whites of the eyes won't be complete whites. There will be some gray shadows in there. When you move on to the skin for the shadows like the folds of the eyes, please avoid using black or dark brown. The actual colors you need will vary greatly, but you want to consider purples, burgundies, blues, just to name a few, try to pay attention to your reference and find a relevant color that is not brown or black. If there any parts of a piece I use black for is the makeups are the eye line or lashes, that is it. Now coloring the skin is what can really take the portrait to the next level, but you have to be patient. Just like every other step, take your time and take it easy. Remember to take as many breaks as you need. Coloring pencils are very slow medium, but you can do it. The process we're doing here is building up on the layering and blending exercises we did a few lessons ago, where we practice two color and three color blending. We start with a light layer of color and we quietly built up pigment the more layers we added. We will be doing the exact same thing here. Because of the marker base, I already have a midtone brown color done. The first thing I'm doing with the pencils is putting a light layer of a light yellow color for the highlights. On this brown skin, this light yellow looks lighter than you might imagine. Keep this in mind when picking your colors. Remember colors look different depending on the base. If you need to try your coloring pencils over different marker basis on a scrapbook paper. Now I have all the highlight areas were identified. The next step is to blend out the edges of the highlight areas. We want to try to achieve a smooth transition from the midtone to the light color. For this, I'm using pencil colors closest to the browns, I've already got support the marker base. Once again, this is done using very, very light layers. You don't need to worry about, again, a smooth finish yet. We will gradually be working towards that. At this stage, you just need to focus on the right color placements and blending out the edges in this layer step. Now I'm moving on to the lips. The skin is definitely not done, but I'm just gravitating towards it next. You'll notice I only put a light pink base for the lips with the markers. This is simply because if I'll show it on a bigger scale, I could have utilized the markers to help with some initial shadowing. But you'll soon see the coloring pencils are more than capable of all the detail I need here. I'm starting my mapping out the shadows and lines with detail. As soon as there's a highlight area, it starts to look 3D. Now I'm going back to the skin to layer some more. As you can see, it's just a back and forth process of adding more color and then trying to blend the color out, until we have a nice opaque finish at the end. But you can see that the piece is already looking nice and vibrant. When I'm happy with how things are looking, I'm going to add some fine details such as the eyebrows and the eyelashes. For the lashes I've started by using a sharp colored pencil, and I'll also be using a fine liner for details. But that is definitely optional. Now that those details are here, this drawing really feels like it's coming together. The final main thing I like to use is a white pen for the sharpest, sharpest highlights, but this is definitely not compulsory. Feel free to, if you feel like you're drawing needs it. It helps for reflective areas of shine like the eyes. If you're drawing super glossy lips, you're also layering this on, so you can blend this out a little bit, or you can just choose to use a white colored pencil if you want. The phase is done. We are nearly there. It is coming together. Look how beautiful and detail your portrait face is looking. Next, we're just going to finish up with the hair, the clothes and other accessories.
13. How to colour hair: Drawing hair will vary depending on what reference picture you are using. There's so many different hair textures and hair colors. I'm just going to have to be broader with this class. We can roughly break down the hair drawing process into four steps. Step number 1, starting by covering the entire hair shape with the mid-tone color. For this we just use a marker base. I've used a dark brown with my reference. Step number 2 is highlights. This is used with colored pencils to map out the general strands of the hair. You just want to follow the shape of the hair and just go in into the form of how the hair falls. Step number 3 are the shadows. I'm using black for this because I'm trying to depict very dark hair. For this step we are just using colored pencils into the details. Again, following the shape of the hair, but we're just trying to get to the darkest point. Our step number 4 is just back and forth. Adding more highlights as you see fits with the pencils, adding more shadows, even just using markers for blending. The amount of back and forth you need will depend on the hair type, their hair color, the hair texture. Just know it's impossible to capture every single strand, so don't bother, just focus on the overall flow and the shape of the hair. Add some loose strands here and there. If you even want to change the shape of your hair or the color and your reference, feel free to. But that is the basic process of coloring hair. Now I'll show you this better version of the hair process if you're interested and curious to see how it comes together. Now, we can move on to the close and the finishing touches.
14. Fine details and finishing touches: The finish line is in sight, it's time to finish up the drawing. If you're doing a composition like mine, you might have a little bit of clothes, and neck, and chest to draw. Depending on your reference, you might not have anything at all and that's cool, but the technique here is the exact same as the skin and the hair. We want to put a base down with the markers first of all, and then we're going to use the colored pencils and some of the markers for the detail. I like to keep the clothes very abstract in my pieces. I really want to focus in on the face so that's where I put the most detail, but everything else can really blend into the background. I end up using moisty markers for the clothes, just trying to mimic the effects, but not caring too much about producing something exact. The finishing touches use fine liners, use pencils, use a white pen; anything you need to create the effect you need to create. Make sure you try to capture the deepest shadows. Use those purples, use those blues with the deepest, deepest shadows. Also, in the bright highlights, use that white pen to capture the sharpest points. Here is the speed drawing if you'd like to see the finishing touches come together. We are done. We have successfully completed our portrait.
15. Conclusion: Massive congratulations to you for making it through. This was a tough class and we have made it to the end, so well done. In this class, you would have learned to get an accurate sketch, achieve smooth blending using coloring pencils, pick vibrant colors for a portrait, and produce a beautiful piece. If you haven't already, make sure you grab your pencil to do some practice and share your creation in the Projects tab below. Check out others' work and hype them up. I'll be down there looking at all your creations as well. I hope you enjoyed this class and you're able to create something you're proud of. Keep practicing, you can do it. I have more tutorials on my YouTube, so subscribe to me at Temi Danso Art and follow me on Instagram at Temi_Danso if you want to see more art from me. Keep learning, keep creating, and I can't wait to see your art.
