Transcripts
1. Introduction: It is possible to create some absolutely beautiful
drawings with colored pencils, whether they are long
and complicated drawings or something much more simple. And actually, if you
break the process down into a series
of simple steps, it's not as tricky
as you might expect. My name's Gemma Chambers, and I've been making online
art tutorials since 2020. I've helped tens of thousands of people improve their art. But today I want to
take an opportunity to really break this down, make the process really simple. I want to show you how to draw this very sweet little lady bed. Now, I'll show you all of the materials that you'll
need to create this, as well as the core basic
techniques I always use. We can then cover
the basic process I use for all of my drawings, whether they are
simple or complicated, and then we can go
through that process to draw this lady bed.
Let's get started.
2. Class Project - Drawing the Ladybird: The class project, we will be drawing this little Ladybird. I have particularly
picked this ladybird because it is such a
nice, simple drawing. But I also think it
looks quite sweet. Now, I will talk you through everything that you'll
need to create this, including how to
create this sketch. If you don't want to
create your own sketch, you can use mine. I've included that in
the class resources, as well as details of the specific colors that I've used and the
reference photo. When you've finished
your drawing, please do upload it into
the class projects. I would love to see
what you've done. Now, let's talk about the
materials that we need.
3. The Materials You'll Need: Draw this ladybird,
I've tried to keep the materials as
simple as possible. The most obvious thing
that you'll need to create this is a set of pencils. Now, I've actually drawn this with only very simple colors. I've only used colors from the set of 12
pencils that I own. And you don't need to have
the exact same colors as me. I'm drawing with
something called polychromas colored pencils. But if you don't own these, if you've got a yellow, red or green, for example, you will still be able to
create a good picture. The colored pencils don't need
to be extremely expensive. You can create some
absolutely beautiful pictures with something like creola. What's actually
more important than the pencils is the paper
that you're using. Now, in order to create a
colored pencil drawing, we're going to need to build up a lot of the pencil
on the paper. And we need quite a thick
paper to be able to do this. If you try and draw
with colored pencils on a very thin paper like sketch
paper or printer paper, it's not going to be possible to build up all of that color. Now, I like drawing on
something called bristle board. It's a really lovely
and smooth paper. Also very thick,
almost like a card. If you were only to invest in
one item for this drawing, it should be the paper
rather than the pencils. You can create a much
better drawing with the right paper and cheaper
pencils than you can with cheap paper and
really expensive pencils. Now the next thing you'll
need is a pencil sharpener, some way of making a really nice sharp point on the pencils. It doesn't need to be fancy. A cheap pencil
sharpener will be fine. And if you want to
create your own sketch, you'll need a ruler, graphite pencil, and an eraser. The next thing you'll need is actually something you're
going to need to make. It's not something you're
going to be able to buy. These are color swatches. Now, I create color swatches for every set of pencils that I own. What I want to do
is create a grid, and then for every color, go from as light as I can to as dark as I can,
and then I label. That shows me what each color looks like on the actual paper, the paper that I'm
going to draw on. I don't want to be
relying on the barrel of the pencil or the lead because they don't tend to
be very accurate. And this is going to
be so helpful for knowing which color I
need to use at any point. Now, the last
material that I need is some way of looking at a reference photo because I focus on drawing
realistic items. I find the best way to do
that is from a reference. Look at my reference photos. I like working on my iPad. I particularly like that I can zoom in to see all
of the details, but you don't have to be
working off of an iPad. You could print out the
reference photo, that'd be fine. So those are the
materials that I'll be using for this ladybird. Let's talk about
the key techniques that I use in every drawing.
4. The Key Techniques: Every drawing that I create, there are a few core
techniques that I always use, and the most important
one is layering. This is where I gradually
build up layers of the pencil rather than
just going in really hard. This basically enables
me to mix colors together and also create nice blends and
smooth gradients. It is the absolute backbone
of every drawing I create. Now, in order to build
up these layers, I need to be able to put down the pencil really
nice and light. There's a few things that
I do to help me do this. First up, I hold the pencil generally much further back
than you might expect. Rather than holding it
really close to the tip, I hold it about halfway
down the barrel, and what that does is literally stops me from being
able to press too hard. It means that I
don't need to have as much pencil control, and the pencil goes down
lighter as a result. Also always want to be working with a nice
and sharp pencil. Again, the pencil is going
to go down smoother. It's going to be
possible for me to create lighter layers
if it's sharp. So I am constantly taking my pencil away
and sharpening it. Look at how much smoother and more consistently
the color goes down with a sharp pencil
versus a blunt pencil. It makes a massive difference. Finally, you'll hear me talk a lot about circular motions. Generally speaking,
I want to try and get down the pencil as
smooth as possible. Either for the
initial first layers that I'm putting down on the
drawing or on this lady bed, for example, it's obviously
got a very smooth shell. In order to work as
smoothly as possible, I like to work in
circular motions or oval motions rather than just scribbling back
and forth with pencil. Again, puts down the pencil in a much more consistent way. And using these three
methods together, holding the pencil further back a sharp pencil and working
in circular motions, creates some really
lovely color that builds really well one
on top of another. So those are the
main techniques to bear in mind whilst
creating drawings. Let's now think about the
general process that I use.
5. The Process: For every drawing that I create, I always follow the
same overall process. So let's cover that process now and then we can start
working through it. The first thing I want to do
is select a reference photo. As I mentioned, for
every drawing I create, I always work from a reference. And there's a few
things that I'm looking for within
a reference photo. First up, I want it to be
really nice and clear. I don't want to be trying to
work from a blurry photo. I want to be able to see all of the details within the
thing I'm drawing. Next up, I particularly need it to have really good contrast. I need it to have amazing
lights, darks, and midtones. Creating a drawing from a reference photo
like this is never going to create as good
result as drawing from this. I also want the proportions of whatever I'm
drawing to look right. So drawing a ladybird
from an odd angle, again, it's going to look really odd when I've
completed the drawing. So that's also something
that I bear in mind. Once I've selected
my reference photo, what I then want to do
is create the sketch. I want to do is have really
nice and light graphite lines showing me all of the proportions of what I'm
drawing, so this lady bed. Now, I'll cover the method in a second that I use
to create this. But essentially,
what I want to do is create such light lines
that I can barely see them. I don't want them to be showing through at the end
of the drawing. But I do want to have
something to guide me. From here, before I start using any of the
colored pencils, I want to take a minute to really look at the
reference photo. I don't like to jump straight
in with the drawing. What I'm doing here is observing all of the key things I'm
going to want to bear in mind. So maybe there's
some obscure colors or a surprising patch of light. This will make so
much more sense when we go through
this ladybird, and you'll see
what I'm noticing. From here, I can start putting
the colored pencil down. And I generally
like to work from the lighter colors towards
the darker colors. So what I'm doing
here is looking for the lightest color that
I can see in each area. I then want to put down a
really nice and smooth layer of that color using the techniques that we
talked about a second ago. Once I put down the lightest
color in each area, I can then start gradually working towards
the darker colors. Now, what this does is create a really nice and
forgiving method where you're allowed
to make mistakes. If you make a mistake
with a light color, you can always fix it as you work towards
the darker colors. It kind of gives an
opportunity to get your bearings before moving
on to the darker colors. I work my way up to
the darker colors, what I then want
to start doing is really comparing my drawing to my color swatches that we
made and the reference photo to think about the
main color that's missing. And I'm generally speaking, working from the darker colors back down to the lighter colors. Again, this will make
a lot more sense when we do this
with the ladybird. And I generally like to work on this one section at a time, so working on the ladybird
first and then the leaf. But that would be the
same for any drawing. I would work one
section at a time. I work my way back down
through those colors, I can start thinking about
adding in any final details. This is, again, me
comparing my drawing to the reference photo
and the color swatches, thinking about if there's any other little
details I want to add. And that will look different
on each different drawing. Again, this will make more
sense as we work through it. So that's the process that I use for every drawing
that I create. Let's start working
through that process.
6. Creating the Sketch Outlines: Let's start off by creating
our sketch outlines. And in order to do this, I'm going to use something
called the grid method. This is where I put a grid on my drawing paper and
on my reference photo, and I'm just going
to draw what I can see in each individual square. So rather than trying to draw
the ladybird as a whole, I'm just drawing a
series of shapes. So let's go through this
with this ladybird, and hopefully you'll see
it's not too tricky. I will mention that for this
sketch I'm creating now, it's going to be some
quite hard lines. That's particularly
because I want it to show up on camera. In actuality, for
your sketch lines, you want to create a
really nice and light grid and really nice and
light sketch lines, and then they'll arrase
much easier at the end. So I'm starting off by marking in my grid on my
drawing paper here, and I'm making a grid that is with two centimeter squares. You obviously don't have to
do the same size squares. This is just what
works on my paper. Once I've drawn in
my grid lines here, I can then start looking at
drawing in my first square, generally speaking, I find it easiest to work from the
left towards the right. So let's start off by
looking at this square here, and there's really only one
line that we need to mark in, which is this line
around the outline. So looking at where
this line here is crossing the line of the square, I would say it is a little
bit to the left of halfway. So I want to put a mark there. I'm also looking at where it's crossing on this line on
the edge of the square, which is probably about a third to a quarter of the
way from the right. So I can mark in both
of these marks where I can see where the line is crossing the
edge of the square, and then I just need to join them with a nice curved line. And that is the first
square marked in. So let's do the same
on this square. This is, again, a
nice and easy square. So we know where the line is crossing this part
of the square here. On the right hand side, it's about the same distance from the corner, I would say. Put a little mark in
where I want it to cross and then join
those lines together. And then I want to do the
same for this square. Again, we know where the
line is crossing here. Up here, it's maybe a
fifth of the way down. It's quite close to the top. So I want to put a
mark around here. And then I can once again
join those lines together. We're literally only focusing
on one square at a time. Now, I'm starting
off by drawing in just the outline to the
shell of the ladybird, and then I can start
looking at other areas. So this square
here, for example, is a little bit
more complicated. There is a leg in here, as well as a little
bit from the head, but it's exactly
the same process. I'm still looking at where these lines are
crossing the edge and just trying to focus on
mapping in that square. You can see me working around
here one square at a time. The more squares I add in, the easier I think it
becomes because I can use the other squares as
reference points. Quite easy to add the
spots in as well. Again, I can see where
they need to go because of the squares on the
ladybirds body. Once I've marked in the
whole of the ladybird, all I now need to do is use an eraser to erase
out these grid lines. And then I should be left with a nice and clean
ladybird sketch. Now, don't forget you
want to be making really light lines as
you're doing this. In actuality, at the
end of this sketch, you want the lines to be so light you can barely see them. Now that we've got our
sketch, let's take a minute to talk through
the reference photo.
7. Studying the Reference Photo: Before we start putting some colored pencils
down on this sketch, let's take a minute to have a good look at the
reference photo. I'll show you the most
obvious things that I'm noticing and all of
the things that we want to bear in mind
in this drawing. And let's start off by looking
at the ladybird's body. So around here, you'll notice
that there's a light patch. There's a little
white patch here, but around here,
it's still light. It's a light red, which is, of course, pink. So I am going to need to add in a light layer of
red because I don't have a pink in my set to build up this
pinky kind of color, but I don't want to
apply a huge amount of color around here. Also noticing that on some areas of the body like
around here, for example, it looks a little bit like
it has an undertone of orange and towards the back
of the ladybird's body, look how dark this area
is all around the bottom. It's not much lighter
than the spot, which is very dark. It's pretty much black. This looks more like
a very dark red or a brown around here. So I'm going to need to build up a lot of shading
around this end. And there's a line
from, I guess, the wings going along here, which is not a dissimilar
color to down here. Ing at the head,
I'm noticing that there's a bit more to it
than just black and white, like you would expect. Around here, look at
all of this blue. There's blue here,
there's blue here. And even in the light areas, it's almost like a light blue. And there's kind of
more turquoise blue here and are kind of
standard grayy blue, I guess, around here. So we're going to need to
build up some of these colors. I'm noticing this
same kind of blue in quite a few places
on the leaves as well. You can see it in some of the lighter areas like a
long thinking of the leaves, the leaves on the
most part, look reasonably simple to me, except for the blue. There's a little bit
of kind of creamy, yellowy color here, and some
areas are pretty deep green. But we're just going to need
to look at the shapes in this area and build
up what we can see. Now, back to the ladybirds body, I'm again noticing that there is a neat little line around
the edge, particularly here. Little details like that, I really feel bring the
whole drawing together. So they are the main things that I'm noticing initially,
let's start drawing.
8. Building up the Base Layers of the Ladybird: Looking at the red
areas of the ladybird, the lightest color
that I would say is in here isn't actually the red
that you would imagine. I'd say it's more
of a orangy red. It very much has a orange base. So I'm going to take my
bright orange pencil, and I want to be
blocking this color in over the whole of
the ladybird's body. All I want to do is
avoid any white patches. In terms of how I'm
putting this pencil down, the whole backbone of how to use colored pencils is that
everything needs to be built up in a series
of light layers. Because we're going to need
to mix colors together, I can't just go in really hard full force with the pencil. That's not going to create
a very realistic drawing. So I'm pressing really nice
and lightly and blocking in the orange over the whole shell area, excluding the spots. To help me press really
nice and lightly, I'm holding the pencil further back than you might expect, rather than holding the pencil
really close to the tip, if I hold the pencil back here, it literally stops me from
being able to press too hard. Now, beyond pressing really nice and lightly
with the pencil, I also want to try and get this area blocked in
as smoothly as I can. So because ladybirds have
extremely smooth wings, that is my goal here to try and make it as
smooth as possible. Now, pressing lightly does
really help with that, but I also want to
work in what's called circular motions rather than just scribbling back and
forth with the pencil. Can see here I'm making
some little kind of circular motions or
maybe oval motions, and that's putting
down the pencil in a much more consistent
and smooth way. Now, another thing that is so important when putting
pencil down on the paper is to have a
nice and sharp pencil. It makes such a
massive difference. You'll see that I've got
a really nice point here, and at any point that
it begins to get blunt, I sharpen my pencil. Again, it just goes down in
a much more consistent way. It's much easier to control
with a sharp pencil. To begin with here, all
I want to be doing is getting my bearings on what needs to go where
on this ladybird. I don't expect it to be
looking amazing straightaway, but what I do want to do is get a good idea of what is
going to need to go where. So you can see I have
pretty much blocked in all of the wings
of the ladybird now. I've avoided all of those spots, so we'll add those
in in a second. What I now want to
do is move on to my next darkest,
most obvious color. Now the next most obvious
color that's missing is, of course, the red. This is that nice
and bright red. Again, all I want to do is exactly the same as I
did with the orange. I want to put this color down over the whole of the ladybirds back as nice and smoothly as I can and
still nice and lightly. And you can see that
these colors are kind of mixing together to
make a orangy red. It's a reasonably close match, I would say, to the
red of the ladybird, which it wouldn't be if I
only put down the once again want to be holding
the pencil quite far back to stop me from
pressing too hard. I have a really nice
and sharp pencil, and I'm once again working in these circular or oval motions to try and get this down
as consistently as I can. Note that it's not
perfectly smooth, but I am getting it
as close as I can. Now, on this area on
the right hand side, you'll notice that the
bright red kind of stops. There's a light patch here, and then the red comes
around and up here, and then it's much
lighter in this area. So I need to build up more
of the red and kind of mark where this edge
roughly needs to be. I need to add the red all around this light section around
here to about here. And then, as I say, this
section is so much lighter. So you can see that I
have stopped to avoid that very light section
on the right hand side. Let's go over the bottom
now just still working in those circular motions and
building this up gradually. And as I get around to that
area around the front, I don't want to go over
that very right hand, that light area I mentioned. This is really all
there is to begin with. Now, before I move on
from the red pencil, there is just one
small area that I want to map in that
I think is going to make my life much easier as I work my way through
some of the other colors. Now, let's just put down
a very light amount of the red in this
light patch here, mostly because I'd say
that light patch is a pink and a pink is
just a light red. Now, you'll see on the back here because the body of a
ladybird is two wings, there is a line going down the center separating
those wings. So you can see this faint
line going down here. It's kind of even between the spot and the edge
of the ladybird. Going to make my life
a lot easier if I very subtly map in this line
now with the red pencil. So rather than waiting until I'm using a much darker pencil like the black or a dark brown, I can get it mapped in now, and then if it's not
looking quite right, that means it's very easy to adjust as we work towards
the darker colors. I want this to try
and be as accurate as possible as
easily as possible. Just add a tiny little bit
of red up the top here, which is literally just for
this tiny little curve. So now I've got something down on the body
of the ladybird. Let's think about putting
something down on the head. And actually, we're
going to start off here by using a light blue. Now, it's easy to assume
that there wouldn't be blue on a ladybird because no one thinks
of ladybirds as blue. But if we look at what's actually here on the
reference photo, look how much blue
there is within this, I guess it's a black section, the head of the ladybird. So much blue all around here. And in some areas quite a
bright blue, I would say. So I'm going to use
this light blue to block in a lot of the head area. Now, there are some areas that I'm going to want to
avoid with this color, particularly the
odd white patches. So I'm thinking mostly about this white patch here and
this white patch here. Everywhere else, I want to put a nice and smooth
amount of this blue. And then we will
build this up with the other blue as we work our
way through this drawing. So once again, you'll see that impressing nice and lightly. I am holding the
pencil closer to the tip here than
I was on the body, specifically because
I need to be very precise on
where this is going. I don't want to go over
the edge of the head. So although I am still
pressing lightly, I just need that extra little bit of control
at this point. Do the same on this little
front area as well. And this will all make a lot
more sense when we start building other colors on top of this,
particularly the black. Now, let's put the blue on
some areas of the legs. Some of the legs do
have a little bit of blue sort of slightly
showing through. So anywhere where I can
see a little bit of blue, I'll add that now let's move
on to the black pencil. So as a general rule, I like to work from
the lightest colors towards the darkest colors. That said, because
on the head here, there isn't a huge
amount between the blue and some grays and the black. So let's just go
straight to the black. I'm once again using
this nice and lightly. There aren't a huge amount
of areas on the head, which is going to need a
really dark and rich black. On the most part, there's just some light shading
with more like a dark gray. Let's look at the
shapes that are here. The key to drawing
this is to realize that all we're doing is
drawing a series of shapes. We're not drawing the
head of a ladybird. So looking at the shape
around this white patch, it's much darker here. There is a little bit of a reasonably deep gray
line around the edge. It's darker at the top. And there's a very dark patch here and generally
surrounding this light patch. There's also this dark, almost semicircle shape here. And halfway through this is level with the edge
of this white patch, so it crosses here. Then it's also much
darker around the bottom. There's this kind of
backwards S shape here and it's quite dark
around this lighter patch. Then probably the
easiest area is all along the back of the head between the head and body here. It's very, very dark. It's sorted into a
few different strips, and there's a lighter area that we're going to
need to work around, and then it just turns into
the leg down the bottom. That's essentially
what I'm seeing. What I need to do is work around here, mapping
all of that in. So I've drawn around the edge of this first central section. And even on very dark areas, right now, I'm not
pressing hard. I want to get everything
really lightly marked in, and then we can build it
up and have some richer, more prominent colors later. I never want to go in
really hard with the pencil because then I'm just
really committing to where I've put that color. I've generally shaded in on the middle
section of the head. Let's start blocking in where those really dark
shapes are going to go between the
head and the body. So I'm going around
the outline first. I'm also outlining
that lighter strip in the middle that I mentioned. And although it's not
easy to see on camera, I can still see the sketch
that I am working from here. So that does make this
much, much easier. I'm really following the shapes that I've already mapped in. So I'm filling in these two
strips towards the top, really following all the shapes. And you can see it is looking a little bit peculiar right now. That's okay. As I
say, I don't expect it to look amazing
straight away. So let's map in the shape of
the leg at the front here, making an outline,
and then I can shade in once I've worked out
where the leg needs to go. And I'm very much using
my sketch to do this. And then let's fill
in those shapes towards the front of
the ladybirds head. So I want to add
a subtle outline around that white patch. I can go around that
backwards S shape, go around the edge first,
and then once again, shade it in nice and lightly, and generally draw in
this semicircle shape, map in all of those
areas that I mentioned. And I think reasonably quickly, this front of the ladybird, the ladybird's head is starting
to look like a ladybird, even though all I've done is draw it as a series of shapes. Now, whilst I've got this black, I also want to draw in all of the legs and go over the spot. Going to start with this
spot up the top here. So I'm once again outlining the area and then
I'll shade it in. And this spot up here
is quite interesting. So because this spot is over the central line on
the ladybirds back, I'm actually marking it in as two semicircles and
then shading it, and it kind of
creates the illusion of that line up the middle. This is obviously
not something I need to think about on
the other spots. Still not pressing hard here, still pressing nice and lightly. I'm trying to get my bearings, still working out
what's going where. I honestly think that this
is the hardest part of the whole drawing is mapping out the
shapes to begin with. And then we're just
going over the colors and building up the
color bit by bit. So once again, you can see
I've outlined the spot, and then I'm going over
it with circular motions. Make sure you don't go
over that light patch on the right hand side. That's not a spot.
That is a light patch. Once I've gone over all of
these spots nice and smoothly, I can then start
focusing on the legs. Now, the legs are generally
split into sections. You can see this leg has
the large patch at the top, and then it's a little
bit of focus here, but it has this middle
section and then the end. I think it's much more
obvious on this leg, but first let's
look at this one. We've got this larger
patch up the top, and then because the legs bent, it appears the rest
of the leg is here. I want to go around, kind of an it out at the end
in a little triangle shape. Also make another subtle
triangle at the end here. The same on this leg, we've
got a larger area here. Then the leg comes down in this direction and then
down in this direction. And I kind of want to put
a triangle at the end. That's how they all look to me. Now, once again, a
reminder that this is so much easier if you're adding these legs with a
sharp pencil because actually the drawing
that I'm working on here is reasonably small. I'm going to be to add in a lot more detail
with a sharp pencil. If you try and do this
with a blunt pencil, it's going to be so much harder. Once again, generally find it easiest to outline
the shape first. So you can see me going
generally around the edge. It's a bit fiddler when it's such small items
like these legs. And then once I've
created the outline, I can then shade in the middle. So now I think our ladybird is looking really, very clear. Everything is really quite
thoroughly mapped out. Now, let's carry on
using this black pencil, and what I want to be doing now is building up some
of the contrast. Again, when you think
about a ladybird, you assume that its wings are
all red, but they're not. In reality, the left
hand side along here, look how dark this
area of the wings are. They're very, very dark brown. And the same can be said
for this line along here, and there's quite a dark line along the very top
of the I'm going to do is use this black to start mapping in where
some of those darker, more shadowed areas
are going to be. Now, as I mentioned, I would say that this area
is a very dark brown. The brown that
I've got, I think, isn't quite dark enough, so I'm going to put a very
light amount of the black, and then I can put some
brown over the top, and it will create a
really dark brown. Just want to focus on
particularly the left hand side of the ladybird and building up a little bit of this color. I do want to make sure that I'm using the pencil
very, very lightly, particularly when I
fade into an area that I want to leave
more like the red. I don't want to have really
abrupt edges to the pencil. Now, whilst I'm
using this black, I should mention the tool
that I'm using here. So you may be able to tell that my black pencil is
absolutely tiny. It's very close to
the end of its life. It's so small that it would be really uncomfortable for
me to use it as it is. So I've just used a
pencil extender here, and that just allows me to hold the pencil much
more comfortably.
9. Brighten up the Colours and Add in the Leaves: I'm generally happy with
the black areas now. I want to build up a bit
more color on the face. Now, I mentioned that there
is a lot of blue on the face, and we used the light
blue before, right? Actually, I'm going
to use the darker, more vibrant blue, as well, because I think there's
not quite enough. I think it needs to be much
brighter and much bolder. I'm literally just going over any area that I want to be a bit brighter that is generally
on the right hand side. So on the top around here, and I'm still working in these little
circular motions and still working nice and lightly. You can see I'm not putting a huge amount of this pencil down. We don't need loads.
And actually, a really small amount
goes a long way. So I'm just building up, going over the same
area bit by bit, really looking at the reference
photo to think about how much I want to be
building up and at what point I think it matches
that reference photo. Let's generally keep building
up some of the colors. And as I mentioned, on the
back of the ladybirds body, this area is that
very dark brown. Let's use the dark brown
that I have in my set here to build up some of the color on this
left hand side. So at this point, now
that I have mapped in all of the key shapes
from the ladybird, I want to be gradually building up the
vibrancy of the color. I want to get to
the point that it's looking really nice
and bright and bold. But I can't do that
all in one go. I need to gradually build one color on top of the
I'm literally going over the same areas where
I put the black so going over that line for the wing going over this
whole left hand side. You can see I'm still
working nice and lightly because we're still gradually
building up those colors. I want it to be nice and clean along the bottom
as much as I can. And generally still work
in those circular motion. Actually, I'm going
to build the pencil a little bit more over to the
right hand side as well. So I don't need to add a
huge amount on the right. Generally, the right areas are a bit brighter
and more vibrant. But it is quite a bit darker
over this light patch. So you can see all along here, this is so much darker
than the rest of the area, particularly here,
but also there's some very bright areas
around the top here. And this just has a
deeper color to it. So let's build up this
quite dark brown. Don't need to add a huge amount and bear in mind that
we will be adding red over the top of this
to make it a richer color. So it'll end up looking like a dark red rather than a brown. So let's just add a little bit more of the color around here, avoiding that area
at the very front. And then I want to
be thinking about the next color that I
think needs to be added. Now that we've built up
all of these other colors, all of the brown and the black, it's showing how muted, the color looks on the wings. So let's use that
bright red and again, lightly go over the top
of the whole wing area. Now, at this point, I
don't really need to avoid the spots because they're so
much darker than the red. It's not really
going to show up. What I generally want to do
is tone down that brown, make it look, as I say, more like a darker red
rather than a brown. Just going to build up
a reasonable amount of this red over the
whole of the ladybird. I may be pressing a little
bit harder than I was, but I am by no means
pressing hard. There's still more colors
that we're going to need to build up on this
ladybird's body. And you can see quite quickly how much better
this is looking. So I'm literally
repeatedly going over the same areas with these nice circular motions to try and make it
nice and smooth. And it's making that area at the front look a much lighter color because the rest of the body is becoming so much more vibrant. Now that I've built
up all of this red, I once again want to think about the most obvious
color that's missing. And actually, I'm going to
go back to the black pencil, and it's at this
point that I can start applying some
much firmer pressure. So whereas previously, we've been only pressing
really nice and lightly. It's now looking really obvious that the black areas
aren't looking dark enough. I'm very clear on where
the spots need to be, where all of the patches
on the head need to be. So I can apply more pressure. I'm not pressing full force. Don't just press
really, really hard. I am just pressing
harder than I was with the lighter pressure to make
the color look more solid. Going to go over all of the areas that I think
need making darker. Now, this is a lot of the areas that I have
already spoken about. So particularly between
the head and the body, I want to be going over some of these patches where
it is so much darker. I've already mapped it in, so I know where
this needs to go. I'm going to add a
very light amount of the black actually around
the edge of the head. I think it's going
to look better if it has quite a defined edge. And then I'm also just
going to build up a little bit of extra
shading on the body. But I'm mostly focusing on mapping out where those
darker areas are going. So like around here, for example. I'm
happy with the head. I'm also going to
go over the spots. They are pretty much
a solid black color. But at the moment, I think
they're looking too light. Let's also just lightly go
around this light area. Similar to on the head,
I just want to have a nice defined edge
to the lady bed. And then let's lightly shade into that just so
that it smooths out. It doesn't look like
a really solid line. Then let's go over
this spot here in those two sections
like we did before. Going to apply
some firm pressure to each of these
spots one at a time. Make these look a much
more solid color. Before, because we had built up such a light
amount of the pencil, the spots are almost
looking gray, and I get to the
point where I've built up so much of the red, they're getting a
little bit lost. Now, do make sure
that you don't have really sharp edges to the spots. They kind of blend into
the red area around them. So you'll see that
I lightly go over the edge of the spots just to smooth it out
and blend it in. You can see me doing that here. Go back over that wing line. I think that this has
got a little bit lost, but I can still see it. It's just not looking as
prominent as I would like, so let's go back over it. Because I've already marked
it in with a lighter color, I'm very clear on
where it needs to go. I'm also going to use the
black pencil to go back over this shadow on
the left hand side. I'm back to pressing
reasonably lightly now. I don't want the shading
to be as dark on this left hand side as
it is on the spots, but I do want to build up a
good amount of the pencil. I want to have a decent
shadow on the left hand side. And then let's smooth
the shadow out into the rest of the body.
So nice and lightly. You also need to use this
pencil to go over the legs, make these a little bit bolder. I'm just defining the shapes and making them richer color. And I can do that
to all of the legs. And then I'm pretty happy with
how the ladybirds looking. It's just still
not bright enough. So let's work gradually
back down through a lot of the colors that I've used
so far on the ladybird. So let's go back
to this quite dark brown and go over all of
the black areas again. My goal here is to still try and get down the pencil
as smoothly as I can. I want this to be really
nice and I also want to go over the black
because it kind of removes the harshness
of the black. So I can use this pencil to tone it down and just still
keep building up, particularly the contrast
on the ladybird. Now, as I get to the
very left hand side, the darkest area
of the ladybird, you can see I am really using
quite a firm pressure here. I want to try and
get rid of all of the white spots of the paper, and that will help
with trying to make this look as
smooth as possible. I'm going to go over
any other area that I think needs to be made
a little bit darker. So a lot of the same areas
that have been over before, generally up the middle of the wing and around
this lighter patch. Let's once again go
back to that red. I'm going to go
over the area again and it's going to further
brighten the lady bed. You can see, even
with this small patch what a huge difference it makes. Now, the more pencil
that I build up, I do need to start pressing
a little bit firmer, just so that pencil goes
down nice and brightly. I'm really getting to
the point where I'm trying to smooth out the body. I want it to look
not quite as patchy. Colors not looking
quite right to me. It looks like it needs to be a little bit more on
the orange side, like I mentioned when we were putting down
the first color. So let's go back to that orange and with a really nice
and firm pressure, again, go over the whole
body of the ladybird, avoiding that light spot. I also don't want to
go over the light patch over to the
right hand side. But you can see that that
is changing the color so that it's looking I think it looks closer to the
color of the ladybird. The ladybird isn't very
bright red that I'm using. It's more of an orange version. This point, I am pretty
happy with the ladybird. What I want to be focusing on now is the leaf that
it's standing on. And actually, the leaf
is reasonably simple because the whole thing is
a little bit out of focus. The main focal point of this
drawing is the ladybird. The leaf is literally
something for it to stand on. So let's look at the
leaf and think about the lightest color that
we can see in this area. So there are a few colors
within the leaves. You can see a very
light and bright green, particularly around
here, around here, and you can see it around here. That's the general base color, I would say of the leaf. There is also a
lot of light blue. So a similar blue to
the top of the head, you can see around here, for example, and along here. So we'll need to think about
adding that in in a second. But to begin with, I'm
using my lighter green, and all I'm going to do is start to get my bearings
on these leaves. I want to begin to map
out the main shapes. So I'm literally going to
go over anywhere where there is a leaf and I'm going
to block in that patch. For example, here, I'm going
over the stem of the leaf. Then I can go over all of the individual
leaves along here, and I'm going about this in exactly the same way as I did at the beginning
of the ladybird. I want to be pressing
nice and lightly. I want to be working
in circular motions. And I've got a nice and sharp pencil which
is going to help this go down in a much
smoother, more consistent way. Now, I can literally
just follow the sketch and follow where all
of these leaves are. I need to be following the
outline around here and I'm blocking in this whole
area all around here. I want to be going along this
line underneath the leg, and then I want
to be blocking in this whole patch under here, all the way down to the
bottom of the leaf. I don't need to worry
at this point about any of the lights and
darks within the leaf. I literally just
want to block in the section of leaf that
I'm going to be working on. And that is all there is to. So I'm happy that
I've got something down on the whole green area. What I'm now going to
do is use my darker green to start mapping
in the key shapes. Now, this isn't by any means a perfect match for the general
green within the leaves. I'd say that they're a bit
kind of an earthier green, a bit of a more
brownyreen but this is just something that we can begin to get the
shapes marked in, start to work out
what's going where. So let's look at some of the
shapes within the leaves, and I'll show you
what I'm seeing. It's important to
remember that I am literally mapping in shapes. I'm not thinking about the fact that this is a bunch of leaves. I'm literally marking in shapes, and by drawing the shapes, it will all come together. Here you can see a darker patch around here and a darker
curve around here. There's two lines
up in this section, and then it turns to
one line up the top. There's a light patch in here, a light strip that
I need to avoid. And then it's much darker here. And then there's
some darker kind of strips going up here as well. In a kind of curved shape
with these strips going. Along here, it's darker
on the top edge, and then it comes this way
with that same darker line. And the darker line
comes down here, so it's kind of
making an S shape. And then there's some
general darker strips, darker on the left hand side, a dark strip going
up here, up here. And then it's a little
bit lighter on the right, but we've still got these
strips going up like this. I'm literally trying to
draw in these shapes as best I can looking at what's within that
reference photo. Now, I can't stress enough that it doesn't need to be perfect. I do have my sketch
to help me get these lines in the right place, but as long as it's reasonably close to the
reference and I get the lights and darks in reasonably the right
place, that will be fine. I certainly don't spend ages
trying to make it perfect. Work down the rest of the leaf. And once again, I think this is the hardest section of
the whole leaf pot. And you can start to
see where the lights and darks are here as well. So there's a dark line
going down the center here. Then there's these dark couple of strips going
around and around. It's kind of like a s shape, a squashed sea shape. There's a darker patch here
and a darker shape on here, a kind of oval shape. And then working down the leaf, there's a darker strip
going here and then through here and all of these
darker shapes along here. And they're particularly
prominent at the end. So as you work your way down, what you should
have is something that kind of resembles
some leaves, but it's not looking
quite right. The colors aren't looking right, and there aren't enough
of the darker colors. But that's okay. We can keep building on this
and building it. Before I start moving on
to those darker colors, as I mentioned a second ago, I can see a lot of blue
patches within the leaf. So let's use the lighter blue to add this in anywhere where I
can see a hint of the blue, which is actually in
quite a lot of places. So all around here, there's quite a lot of
the blue, as I mentioned. But also, I can see a
lot of it around here, all around the end here. Generally, anywhere where the stem is a
little bit thinner, it has a blue tone to it. I think it's the light
showing through the leaf. There's a lot of blue all here. And all of these lighter dots have a blue ish tone to them. So let's add a light amount
of this blue to just slightly change the color of the green and slightly brighten
everything up. You can see that I'm
still working in those circular motions because the leaf is a little
bit out of focus. We do want to try and make
this as smooth as we can, so it's very similar to drawing the ladybird
in that regard. I can move on to the
dark brown pencil, and I'm going to further
define all of the shapes here. Now, once again, this is so
much easier now that I've worked out roughly what needs to go where with
that darker green. I am literally just going over all of those shapes that
I mentioned a second ago, still with the circular motions and still nice and lightly, mapping out all of the
shapes so that we have a little bit more
depth. Into the leaf. So I'm going through
this reasonably quickly now because it is literally exactly the same
as what I did a second ago. I like to work in quite a
kind of methodical way, so you'll see that I've
started at the top, and I'm generally working
my way down to the bottom. And that is the way
that I will always work on this section of leaf. Once I'm happy that
I've built up all of these shapes a little bit
more with the brown pencil, what I want to do is keep working towards
the darker colors. So I can move on now
to the black pencil. I only want to put this in
the absolute darkest areas, building up a little
bit more of this color. So the darkest areas
are, for example, here, this looks particularly
dark around here, all underneath the ladybird and along here down
the bottom hip. There's not a huge amount of places where I need to
build up the black, but you can see just by putting the black in these few areas, it's making a huge difference to the general look of the leaf, and I think it helps it match
the ladybird much better. It looks similar in
its general tone. Now, I don't think the colors
looking quite right now. I think that the
lights and darks are looking much closer
to the reference photo, but the general color of the green isn't
looking right to me. So I'm going to go back over
the whole thing again with the lighter green to try
and brighten everything up. So literally doing
exactly the same as I did a second ago going
over the whole area. And you can see how much
just going over this lightly is brightening
up all of the leaves. You wouldn't imagine that
going back over it with the same color would make
that much of a difference. But because we're building up
so much more of the green, it's making it so
much more vibrant. I feel like the color of the green isn't
looking quite right. I think it's looking
too kind of blue, and it needs to be
a bit brighter. So I'm going to put
the tiniest amount of this bright yellow over
all of the leaves. And although it may look a
bit too bright at the moment, I think the general
color is a bit closer, and all we'll need to do is
tone down the brightness. And once again, going
over the whole thing, avoiding any areas that are that bright blue that we put
down just a short while ago. But I still want
to be working in these circular motions and
building up the yellow. Now, to tone this down, make
it a little bit less bright, I'm once again going back to that dark brown and doing
exactly the same thing again, so going over all of these light and dark
areas one more time. But because all of the base
colors, all of the greens, yellows and blues have been built up so much more this time, it's looking much richer. The colors look much
more realistic. Really getting to the
end of this drawing now. It's very nearly finished. We've just got a
few more minutes. I once again want to
be thinking about the most obvious difference between my drawing and
the reference photo. So I'm going to use
the black to go once again over
those darker areas. I think that the leaf just isn't looking as rich as the ladybird, so I want to make the darker
patches a little bit darker, particularly building
up around the legs where generally the
leaf is darker. Actually, I'm going
to go back to that darker green and go over a lot of the
leaves one more time. I think although
this looked a bit peculiar when we
first added it in, because we're just slightly adjusting the green of the leaf, I think it tones down that
yellow a little bit more and makes the whole leaf
area look more interesting. So just very quickly going over the whole area from
top to bottom, I'm really not adding a huge
amount of this green at all. I'm just going to tweak
a few of the shapes of the leaf down here
with that dark brown. It's just looking not
quite natural enough. It's a little bit too abrupt
on how the leaf finishes. And then let's use the red
to just tidy up and make the edges of the top of the lady bed a little
bit more crisp.
10. Summary: That is the end of the drawing. I hope that you've
enjoyed this tutorial, and hopefully it makes colored pencils a
little bit clearer. The key here is to use the right materials and
use the core techniques. So particularly
layering the pencils, gradually building up the colors rather than going
in really hard. Once again, I like working from the lighter colors towards
the darker colors and back towards the lightest and generally working
one section at a time. Now, I hope you
enjoyed this class. If you did, please
leave a review, and don't forget to upload your drawings into
the class projects. Happy drawing, guys, and
I'll see you in the next.
Gemma Chambers, Pencil Artist
