Bunny Drawing Tutorial | Colored Pencil

1. Intro: Hello, Hello and welcome. Let's learn how to draw a bunny for this course here. Now, this is done in a four-by-four inch size paper. You can go larger. I suggest not going smaller than that. And before you start read the instructions to see what colored pencils you need and what kind of paper as well. And if you have any questions while you are practicing this portrait, feel free to contact me on either my email or through Skillshare itself. And once you have completed the portrait, I would love to hear your feedback as well as see your complete portrait. So feel free to write a review with a picture of your portrait. So let's go ahead and get started. 2. Begin with the eyes: Hello, hello. So let's get right into it. We're going to start with the bunny, rabbit here. And we're going to start with the eyes, of course, and work our way out from there. And I usually start with a black to do the outline for the eyes. So let's go ahead and get that pencil sharpened and start to draw the outline of the eyes. Now if you haven't heard this before, Always keep your pencil as sharp as possible, especially when you're drawing details. It is more important when you are drawing smaller portraits than larger ones. But it is very, very helpful to have a sharpened pencil because you, it allows you to have a better detail, sharper details. So just keep that in mind. And if you're a pencil is a little bit dull and you're running low on the actual pencil, like this black one here. And it's a little bit harder to draw. I would recommend using one of those pencil extend, extenders where you can insert that pencil into this little insert area with extra basically extends the pencil. You can look it up online like a color pencil. Extend her or just depends on extender, general. And that will really help to be able to prolong their life or your pencil and still be able to get a good grip on that pencil. I don't use my inner very often because they feel a little bit weird while I'm drawing. But that's just something that I had to get over it and actually use them so that I don't waste my pencils because I have not really used pencil down to its nob yet. I have a lot of pencils that I know that I still need to use up. But I just, I just move on by more pencils and move on. I've got quite a few that I need to actually use up rather than just moving on to a larger pencil. So if, if that does happen and you don't have a pencil extender, and that's something that like me. I'm I I like the feel of the pencil and not something that's holding it because it's like kinda like a metal piece to it. If you're like me for that, all you have to do is just go and buy a replacement one. Now, for the pencils that I use, There's not really an online I'm sorry, an in-person shop around here locally. You can look at local art stores if you have one near you. Most of the time they're going to have it but places like Hobby Lobby Michaels, they're not going to have the Prismacolor I'm sorry, not Prisma. They're going to have Prismacolor for sure. But the favorite Castile polychrome OS, and they carried ash luminance. They're not going to have those. So if you are looking for a quick replacement, you can always go to the store and its yourself. Different brands such as the prismacolor, I highly recommend that as you're either as your backup or as you or even your primary. For, for beginners, prismacolor is definitely great option. I actually, that's how I started out was with prisma colors. And I still use them sometimes I use them for when I'm teaching in-person classes or as a reference to help others out. I will use Presby color instead. And there are great happy medium between these two kind of pencils. Because one of them that Karen dashed illuminance I believe is I think it's wax base and then the other one is oil-based. So the prismacolor is a lack space as well, but it is a happy medium between them. Because the Karen dice luminance is very soft, soft touch. It's really great for blending details. And then the Faber Castile is a harsher, coarser pen or pencil. And it's actually great for details because your pencil will stay sharper for longer. In the, not as easy to break as the Karen ash. Now the prismacolor is a happy medium between the two. They are soft but they won't break nearly as much as the Karen dash as well. And they're really, really reasonably priced. Considering the colored pencil market. There's a lot more color pencils that you can get it for cheaper out there such as crayola or there's a couple of other brands that I'm not even really I've heard of, but I haven't actually tested them out before. So if you find one that is not Crayola, but it's a level up or something that is similar to Prismacolor, but they're way more reasonably priced and you can get a packet, a variety of packet. I definitely recommend doing that first and then working your way up as you go because the colored pencils that you use. So this is also up to your preference. So if you're not comfortable with using these high-quality colored pencils, then you certainly don't have to spend all your money by knows you can always find alternatives. And now the reason why I use these higher-quality pencils is they really are high-quality. They were great, the pigmentation is awesome. They are also a light fast, which means that the colors, they don't fade nearly as fast over time as cheaper quality colored pencils. The Prismacolor, some other colors are light fast as well. Not all of them. It will vary, even some of these more expensive ones, the color, fastness does vary, but most of them are light fast. And that's a really great for portraits, especially if you're going to frame them something. If you're going to have them up on your wall and it's going to be under the lighting, under sunlight or something like that. It will start to fade over time. So you wanna make sure that you are using higher-quality pencil so that the color will stay the same color as when you first use them. Now with all wax base, even oil-based, these pencils will start to, it'll look very fresh as you're drawing it. But they will start to create this curing effect. So they'll start to kind of do this drying out. I don't know exactly how to explain it, but you will see like, especially with the black, if you're drawing an alert or section with black something you start drawing really, really having you put up this layers. You can see that waxy coating. And it's very, it can be a little bit reflective and it can look a little bit off in some areas like it'll look different. You can see the text. But as that is curing over time, it will all start to blend together. So don't worry if it all looks different as you're drawing it, it'll all start to look the same afterwards once it starts to cure. So if that's a little bit complex, don't you don't have to worry about that information as of right now, especially if you are a beginner and you're just testing this out and try and have fun, then definitely don't worry about that. I don't even worry about that, but I did notice that over time, especially with the more wax based pencils, they will have that waxy coating and it'll look kind of weird, especially if you have a certain lighting on your portrait where it creates this reflection. Don't worry about that. Just move your lighting so that it doesn't create that reflection and just continue drawing. I sometimes have that issue too, where I have the lighting or it's really reflecting onto the portrait. I can't really see what I'm drawing. So just, just changed the lighting up and remember to always build your layers from light pressure to heavier pressure over time. Same goes for the colors itself. From light colors to heavier pressure, have heavier darker colors. So let's go back to the bunny here now I know I've gotten pretty far with the nose and the mouth there. Now these colors that I'm using, you wouldn't really think about using burnt orange. But there is quiet a bit of this orange tint to the bunny here. Now, for this bunny, I tried to keep the colors as simple as possible so that it is pretty easy for everybody with a general colored pencil palette to be able to use. So if you don't have a burnt orange color, you can look at your palette and C was the next closest color to use. And that'll usually be. So for this instance, probably something like. 3. The head: A lighter, warm brown. Or you can use an orange but just use it very sparingly. And you could see in the eye, I did. Leave room for a highlight. You want to make sure that you always leave room for the highlights. That will really create an awesome effect where it makes the eye look very realistic. If you have, if you leave the highlights there with each portrait, the highlights are going to be a little bit different. So sometimes I will leave it completely blank. And then sometimes I will draw in the highlight was like a light blue or something like that. So that's what I did for this when I was a youth. So very pale blue. You can use a white if you don't have a pale blue and just very lightly blend, do small circles. Blend in the black into the highlights a little bit so that the highlight, it looks very natural. So if you have, I'm using, it's actually a light French Gray Karen dash luminance. But I want to call it a light warm gray hair because not everybody is going to have a French gray. Yeah. I think that's specific to Karen dash itself too. So you can find it's basically like a very pale gray, but you want to try to find a warmer tone. So if you have something like that, great. If you have a cooler gray, that's fine too, because the orange will also help to warm up the portrait. Some use that and draw in the same direction of the fur. If you have, if you are new to the to my videos, you always want to draw in the same direction as the fur. And you'll start to see that in all of my my classes there that I always try to draw in the same direction as the far. And the reason why I do that, even after building up a lot of layers is so that it looks as natural as possible because the direction of the fur makes a huge, huge, huge difference whether your portrait is going to look realistic or not. And if your reference image is a little bit blurry and you can't really see the direction of the fur. What I like to do is go and find another picture on the Internet of the same type of breed and try to find like the same spot. So if it's like on the cheek, I will go and try to find a dog that's facing the same way and look at that same spot and try to use that direction of the fur to to replicate that because it really does make a big difference. I've, I've had a lot of portraits in the past. Even nowadays, I still struggled with it some times where I will get reference images that are just, they're not great. They are taken from farther away. Pixelated blurry because the dogs moving, things like that, or even low quality, low lighting will create low-quality images too. So I get those quite a lot. And I still like to accept them depending on how low quality it is. But if I know that I can do it from past experience, then I will definitely accept it. And I'll use other reference images online to replicate the direction of the fur. And I don't really think that that is that there's anything wrong with that because you're still drawing that dog. You're still drawing their eyes, their, their features, their character. But what you're doing is just looking at something else to get a better understanding of where those features are supposed to be essentially. So there's definitely nothing wrong with that. And so for smaller portraits, it is bigger. It is different than drawing bigger portraits. And you want to be mindful of that too. So if you are interested in drawing bigger portraits, just be prepared for more patients because it does take a long time to draw a larger portraits. For me. I draw, I draw every single day. There's only recently have I actually taken longer breaks such as maybe a week off or something. But I do draw a little bit every day even if it's just for an hour. I draw every day and practice, practice, practice. And really because I am a motivated to do it, It's not that I dragged myself to do it either. It's disciplined and it is basically like my meditation in a way it keeps me a little more sane. Getting to draw, like I'll draw either early in the morning when nobody's up and as completely silent. Or I will put on some nice relaxing music or something that's motivational podcast or an audio book and have that in the background as I'm drawing and it creates this. Soothing effect for me, it's, it's where I'm able to not necessarily checkout, but more of keep my mind more peaceful and that bay because I'm focusing on drawing what I see, replicating that and in creating those repetitions with your hand, it's almost like knitting, for instance, because you're using your hands and you're doing this thing and it's, and it's really great for people that have, let's say like ADHD or something because you can be multitasking while also creating something at the same time. It's really great for me because it is very relaxing and soothing. The beginning, it was not like that for me at all. In the beginning, I definitely struggle that I was very, very impatient because I didn't know what I was doing at all. And I I looked up how to do these things and I didn't really get a lot of information. So this is why I'm creating these videos, is to help guide you in the same direction as what I was struggling with. To begin with. I didn't have much guidance and watching these videos, even if you're not actually following along and actually trying this out. Watching news videos will really, really help you get a good understanding of how this works and how to use these colored pencils the right way. There is definitely a method to the madness. There's so many different brands of color pencils are so many different techniques that people use. So my technique has changed over the years and you'll see that and some of my past videos, especially on my YouTube channel, you will see that I have taught one way and now I'm teaching a different way. I always like to stay with the method, at least as a beginner. Stay with the method of drawing light to dark with both pressure and color pens or with color too. So for instance, here, I created a base with that light warm gray, and now we're building it up with the burnt orange and the dark brown. And you can see here that I was drawing short strokes with a dark brown. With this firm. There are short and kinda sporadic and chunks of the dark brown. So that's what I'm trying to replicate here. And it does some time like this one is, I think it is two hours long. Most of them miniature portraits take about two to three hours long. Sometimes they'll just take an hour-and-a-half. And those are, those are actually really great to do, especially as a beginner, because a lot of my students, they're not necessarily what they complained, but what they have an issue with a lot of the time is having the patients and not being so hard on themselves with not building up enough layers. If you are struggling with the tooth of the paper showing the tooth is basically know how some people are smooth and some paper is rough. You want to try to find a smooth paper, but a paper that's heavier than a £100. So what I'm using here is a Fabriano artistic hot press watercolor paper that's a £140. There's also a £300. That's way more expensive. But the a £140 does. Great Still. And these are, this one is expensive. If you're just starting out, I don't recommend using that just yet. I recommend using the Bristol board smooth paper and you can use that. I think it's I think it's in a £100.120 maybe. But you can use that to start out. That's actually what I started out with, with the Prisma colors. 4. Finish the head: I started out with, with the Prisma colors. And what that will do is it will prevent some of the tooth from coming through and not have to build up so many layers to get rid of the tooth. So I'm still keeping my pencil is sharp here. Use a dark brown and draw just the little short chunks of fur there. Now it's definitely, it's still in the same direction, but it's not exactly, it's kind of a random pattern if that makes sense. So this is actually really good start or portrait because you couldn't be a little more careless with it. And it'll still look very natural, just like when you're drawing up there. You can draw the for an, a sporadic way as long as it's still kind of in the same direction. And that's still looks like the bear because that's just the way the fur is, is very short course and a little bit wild. And that's similar to the bunnies for here too. So if this is your first one, this is a really great introduction to it. And if it's not, this is actually, this will be a good, fun and easy portrait to do. If you're pretty used to drawing portraits already. I really liked drawing this bunny because I've been wanting to draw up money for very, very long time. And there's all sorts of different bunnies out there. But in my mind, I had this idea of drawing a full body picture of a bunny as it is sitting, not laying down, not standing out as it's sitting. And I thought this one was absolutely adorable with the little tail on the back. So I hope that you are enjoying this one as well. And remember to stay patient and take frequent breaks if you need to. You can always pause the video, take a break, come back later. Now the reason why I have these done in sections is so that you can take a break and come back. Even if it's like a week later or something, it gives you a really good refresher when you come back and you have already had that experience and you're really close to being done rather than then putting the, the whole class until like something like four sections. I think that two sections is great because there about an hour long. And once you've completed this one, you only have that second one to go. Rather than if you complete one section, you have three more to go. You know, it feels like it would go longer. So that's why I did that was I wanted them to be about an hour long. And classes are generally about an hour long. So that's a good estimate as to how much you can take. So that's why I did that was to create an hour-long session for each section. And if you really wanted to, you could just take a break and come back to this section to later on that day even or, or within 15 minutes. But it's totally up to you your choice. And it does it does take time and to become patient as well. So if you are struggling with the patient's part, try to relax, try to breathe more, take more breaks, come back to it. That's what I had to do in the beginning was I had to take very, very frequent breaks. I couldn't do more than 15 minutes at a time. So my portraits, like an eight by ten for two, it would take me a whole month to complete because I didn't know what I was doing. I was trying to do this. I didn't know what methods to use to create certain effects, and I was getting very frustrated with that. So I took very frequent breaks and I just learned over time through practicing just about every day. But you don't have to practice every single day, especially if you don't have the time. But if you really do have a passion for this, you will find that you will want to draw almost every single day, even if it's just a small section, you could be done right here, 24 minutes and you could be done and come back to it a little bit later on or the next day or something. And that's completely fine that you've gotten a good section done, something like this. I would not have been able to complete in one day when I first started. So you're definitely doing much better than me if you've gotten this far. So going back to the dark brown, like I said, I did want to keep the color palette simple so that everybody can. Um, can you use these colors from their own palette? Hopefully, these colors are colors that you actually have. These do come in most color palettes. So that's how I tried to keep it very simple. And you know what if you even if you don't have the pencil, like I said, you can just find another pencil that is very similar. So there's all sorts of dark brown colored pencils. This one I'm using, it's a little bit of a warmer tone. So if you can find a warmer or dark brown, that is great too, that'll really help, especially if you don't have the orange color. So just keep drawing. I'm going to take a break here from talking so you can just enjoy this part and come right back in about a minute or two. Alright, I'm back here. So I hope that you are still working very hard on this portrait here. And following along pretty well. Now, if it doesn't live just like this one that I'm drawing here. That is actually really good. Honestly, you don't want to try to replicate exactly what you see are exactly what I'm drawing. You're going to have your own style and that is completely okay. I have struggled, still struggle with it honestly, of comparing myself and my work to others and some amounts I think it is healthy to compare for constructive criticism. And if you want your style to be like somebody else's style, I don't think there's anything wrong with that per se. As long as it's within healthy boundaries. There are quite a couple artists that I follow on Instagram that are unbelievably amazing. And it's the exact style that I want to do. And that's I tried to watch what they do and try to not necessarily mimic exactly what they're doing, but try to see how they're getting a certain method done, such as how did they get there first. So smooth looking without all the roughness and the brakes and ruining the paper essentially by too many layers. So I will watch what they're doing to try to better my own methods because I do find it very important to work on yourself and do better. And I think there's a fine line between healthy criticism and unproductive criticism and obsessing over somebody else's work. 5. Drawing the ears: And obsessing over somebody else's work and getting frustrated at yourself because it doesn't look like there's is definitely unhealthy. And I have done that before. I've sometimes I still do with this one hour and I said don't just absolutely amazed with her art and I don't know how she does it. And I try to find out what kind of material material that she uses. And actually our material is already pretty similar. So then when I find that out, I was like, Okay, so it's maybe my methods that is different and that's fine. You just cut it, cut it off. You stop comparing yourself and you actually just do the work and practice. And it really is all about enjoying the process and trying new things, trying new methods. So if one math is not working for you, you don't like how it turns out. Try out something else. And I know that time is a big thing that people think that they don't have enough time to, to do better to, to practice. And in some ways I could understand that especially if you have a full-time job or you have a whole family at home that you have to care too. And I definitely understand that for sure. I've got a three-year-old son and lots of family and household. So we have we just got a lot of chickens outside and a whole garden and everything like that. So there's, there's a lot to maintain and I definitely understand the feeling of not having the time. Now I am a stay at home, mom, quote unquote. But after my son turned wine, I turned my my hobby hobby into a business. So I was still technically working while also raising my son and keeping the household together. So I can definitely understand about the timing. If you have just hack it even even if you have just 30 minutes in the day, 30 minutes to an hour. Just try drawing, practice a little bit. Go, go and draw some eyes or draw some ears, or even just the head, like the bunny's head. And you'll find that over time doing that and staying consistent. Even if you're not motivated, just staying consistent, you'll start to see changes. And it's very subtle. It will come on and come out to you and you will not realize it. But you will start to see really big differences. And I'm already seeing that with one of my students. She's taking all my classes and she is definitely stayed consistent and I can see huge, huge improvement in her portraits and I'm so proud of her for that. And that's what I want to see. Everybody who takes my classes is to see progress like that. And you can even make progress in just 22 portraits. But you will really see it until afterwards. That's just how that works. So if this is something that you are really interested in doing, I highly recommend doing his little portraits because first off, during the little portraits makes you feel like you've accomplished something faster. And second. You have a whole complete portrait that you can give it away to as it goes left or put into your portfolio. Things like that. Doing large portraits takes longer time. It makes you, made me more frustrated as I was when I was learning to draw because I didn't have a finished portrait and I was getting very, very not necessarily unmotivated, but I was getting very upset about not having something done. So I didn't want to try any harder. But I I I did get myself quite a big break when I started. And what really helped motivate me was that I had emissions in the beginning to do and those commission work. Some of them are quite embarrassing honestly. But that's where I learned and that's how I stayed motivated was because I was was paid to do a portrait and I just had to learn. As I went because of that. But I think that doing these miniature portraits are actually a better option than doing the larger ones and just going right into doing commission work. Because especially if you are not comfortable with taking huge risks like that, these are a great way to practice. Bell up your portfolio. And you will have like a whole complete portrait. I absolutely love doing these miniature portraits and I make prints out of them to later on so that I could sell it to two people. And they're just absolutely adorable. And I love reading them out and a little four-by-four size and selling them in marketplaces and stuff too. It's a lot of fun and there's a lot of uses 22. So if you are struggling with finding the right lighting to draw with, I highly recommend buying if you can afford it. Buying studio lighting. Now I use this giant studio light. It's got like four or five of those studio bulbs into it. And then I have like a little soft box to direct the lighting. And that's what I'm using here. But I didn't start out like that. I started out with just using a normal light bulb. And I noticed that as I was taking pictures of our portraits, that for one, there was a reflection happening and I really hated that I could not stay in that for two. It was warm lighting, so it's not going to come out right. If you are using a normal light bulb, it has this warm tint to it and it looks very unnatural. So instead, what I did if you don't have the light bulbs, try to use natural light if you are by a window. Use that lighting during the daytime to draw. Or if you're trying to take pictures of it, go outside and to kinda shady area if you can. And take pictures that way. Those are the two best options if you can't afford studio lighting at the moment. But it did go through a lot of different light bulbs. I went through in between the warm light and a studio light, I went through lighting that was still kind of a warmer tone. And that was actually fairly recently, but I noticed that it had this weird purple hint or hue to the to the pictures, not just the drawing, but the picture in general. So I didn't realize that that was the issue of the whole time until I bought studio lighting and it was a huge, huge game changer for me. The recordings and the picture taking, it's all a completely different topic. And I might actually make a video on that too, but that's one thing. If you're struggling with lighting, try to just draw and natural light as much as possible. Or you can still draw and warm lighting at the moment. But if you're gonna take pictures, try to do it outside or with studio lighting. You could even use like if you have a one of those makeup mirrors that has the lights and has the daylight setting. I think that is the the correct type of light that you can use. So you can use that. Phrase it on your portrait as you take the picture. That should help too. So we are working on the ear here now. You didn't see that I use the pink a little bit. You don't have to use it too heavy, just a light pink. And then just keep going with the same pencils and draw very light pressure, short strokes. You definitely want to draw it lightly at first so that if you do make a mistake, it won't be too noticeable and, or you can erase it. Now, I recommend not completely erasing sections if you mess up because it will not come off of the paper very well. And it will ruin your paper over time by erasing too much. That's definitely from experience. Try to draw a lighter to avoid mistakes as much as possible. And I, for smaller portraits so you don't have to worry about this all too much. Sometimes I'll do it. But you want to create a first layer using some type of light color. So for this one, I've been using the light warm gray as my first layer and you still want to draw in the same direction as the for, for your first layer. Because that, that texture that you're drawing with the pencil will still show up even more. 6. Finishing the ears: Drawing with the pencil will still show up even after all of those layers. So just be careful with that. Now, when it comes to erasers like you just saw there that I did erase a little bit. I was trying to make the ear a little bit more orangey with that pink. So you don't necessarily have to erase. But if you're going to erase areas, I suggest getting one of those pencil erasers because they're very detailed. You can erase very small sections and for a reasonable price because those are actually pretty cheap on line. Or even in an art store, you can get different kind of erasers to, but I suggest you try to use like a, some sort of white eraser, an artist's eraser. Or one of those ones that is like one of those ones that bold together like you can mold it around and stuff. I forgot what they're called, but it's very common in art classes and stuff. It's something that they recommend is on their materials list. But you can mold it. And it's actually not like an eraser where you Rob. It's one that you pick up the pigment with so you can mold it to whatever shape you need and put it down on the paper and pick it up and the payment was starting to come away. I don't use it all too much just because I've been lazy and haven't actually bought any recently. But I use a white artist's eraser. I use white because even with that pencil eraser, sometimes I will see the pigment of the erasers still on the paper. So you have to be careful if you're going to erase an a section that you're not gonna put any colored pencil down on. Again, I suggest using a white eraser as much as possible, but for that pencil eraser it is yellow. So use that for small details that you're wanting to fix but still draw on to replace. And then another one that you can use that's a little bit more of, I'm a little bit more expensive. Is a electric eraser. Know those you what you do is you press a button and it rotates the eraser. So you can actually erase heavier with heavy pressure and even more detail. And it comes in different options where you can get he could put a larger eraser on it or smaller, thinner eraser so you can erase detail. I know a lot of photo-realistic colored pencil artists use that to erase sections of like for skin and whatnot where it has like little bumps and stuff. They'll use that eraser to erase those sections to create those highlights and the skin. I'll use it to for like the whiskers or highlighted areas and some other for two. But it will not remove all of the pigment. Nothing, none of these erasers are going to remove any of the pigment. So if that's something that a little bit worried about, just try to not make as many mistakes. I made a lot of mistakes too, and I erase a lot too. But just try to draw light pressure to dark pressure because that will actually help avoid making those mistakes. So for this ear here, we're actually using a dark gray. And it's going to be mostly dark gray for the whole back part of the ear because it's kind of in the shaded area. So you can be a little bit more cautious with this one so that the texture isn't nearly as like heavy. Because you want to try to make it as smooth and blended as much as possible. And that's you want to keep your pencil sharp as well, of course. And just draw it like there's gonna be a little bit of an outline on the side of the ear there. So use that. You can use the black or the dark gray to draw that little outline there. I'm using a black now to draw the outline so that you can tell the difference between the front and the back ear. Alright, so now you've got that done. Use a light warm gray to start to blend little areas and to show that the ear is still warmer tone. Still part of the bunny there because you can use a gray and the black, but you need to add some, a little bit of a warmer tone to it. That's something that I've noticed too over time, is you can mix your colors. The tones, the warm tones and the cool tones. I do preach this a lot too, is next year cool tones and warm tones. And you will see the difference. It's, it's really cool. I, over a period of time I was using more cool tones and warm tones and I probably should have been a little bit more cautious of that because animals, living creatures, anybody that's alive, will always have warmer tones. So when I was, I was really getting into the cool tones because I thought it was really cool that you can use all these cool tones to draw highlights and whatnot. I even drew this white high school one time that I use a lot of cool tones and at the time I thought it was really cool looking and whatnot. But now realizing, Oh, I probably should have added some warmer tones to the shaded areas at least because the dog didn't look very much alive. Not as fleshy, you know. So be careful with that too. If you're going to mix the two, try to use or tones as much as possible and then use the cool tones for mostly the highlighted areas. Not as a replacement for white because that was kind of a mistake on my part. You could definitely use it for like the body of the paper. But when it comes to the face, I definitely recommend trying to do more warmer tones just to make the dog or the cat look a little more alive. I'm there. That's another thing too, is trying to figure out what colors to use is. It can be very complex. And it was actually in the beginning for me, it was very, very overwhelming. I didn't know what colors to use, and so I played around a lot and I was using a very simple palette, just like this, this portrait here, I only used about five colors for most of my portraits. Now, I use ten to 15 different colors. And I think the more complex, the more colors that you use, the more the portrait comes to life. And I know that that is overwhelming because especially if you have a very simple palette, you don't know what to do, you're probably pretty overwhelmed. I know I was when I had just those small Prismacolor palette to work with. I didn't know. I was limiting myself at that point. But the great news is that there are colored pencils that have larger palettes out there that are very inexpensive, that you can try out first just to play around with the colors. I definitely highly recommend doing that. It's getting a larger color palette and working with that and just play around because there's a lot of different grays is warm grays. Cool grays. Even the sepia color that's like one of my favorite colors. There's dark sepia, that's like a warmer tone and then there's very light CPS. It look completely different from one another. Alright, so we're closing up here of part one. So you've basically got the head in the ear done that actually it takes longer than the rest of the body. So you should be pretty proud of yourself. Awesome. You finished it. Draw like the little, the little whiskers coming up to that really adds to the realistic aspect of the bunny. But if you've made it this far, I'm very, very proud of you. I hope you continue to part two because it should be a little bit faster than part one and you'll be able to get more of a realistic feature going on. So I will see you in part two. 7. Begin the body: Welcome back to part two. So this one is almost just as long as the last one. I know I said previously that it might be a little bit shorter, but what it is is that it'll feel a lot shorter. Especially when I first did this. It definitely felt shore of a timespan because now that you've done the head, the head was kinda the hardest part, it will always be the longest part as well. For all of my portraits, the head is always the longest part and then the body is just shorter because you're not drawing nearly as much detail. So that's what's going to happen here. And now you want to start out with the light warm gray here. Draw that first layer and make sure that you are drawing in the same direction like short strokes. Now the first layer you can actually draw, not necessarily short strokes, but you can draw kind of like more circles if you need to. But I still recommend drawing very lightly and try to draw on this indirection as much as possible. And then the burnt orange here is to warm up that area. So if you have an orange or if you have a warm brown that you feel like it was pretty close to it, you can use that as well. It's kinda interesting that the bunny actually has orange tones to it. I noticed that some of my portraits actually have a lot more orange tones that I think than I thought. So that's kind of important to use, as I mentioned before, you want to make your portrait look as much alive as possible. So using those pink tones, using the orange tones will really help to bring that in. I use all different kinds of pink tones and my portraits. Now, I'll use a very pale pink to cover as either a base layer or the highlighted area. And then I'll use more like pastel pinks that are closer to purple color, purple tones and things like that, that to use for bigger coverage or even just for drawing little sections of a further look like they have like a warmer grayish pink tone to it. So it's actually a lot of fun practicing with the different colors. You will start to find that out yourself too. If you just don't put any pressure on yourself as much as possible and just relax and actually enjoy the process. And try out your own colors as you go. Then you will really start to see what potentially you have for yourself. That's one thing that was very liberating for me was that I did not follow a structure. I didn't follow any guidelines as to how to draw or what exact colors to draw. Now, for these videos, I do have the the type of color marked so that you can have your own guideline. But I do not tell you the exact color pencil because I know for one Nobody's going to have the exact same colored pencils that I do. Unless there as experienced as me and like to use the same pencils. And for two, I want you to use your own constructive criticism and figure out what colors you like to use the most and figure out which ones work best for you. And that will really, really help you build your own self-esteem with your portraits and your confidence by figuring out your own colors and your own method. And these portraits that I do are definitely very, very helpful for guidelines. And, or just to have fun, they give you are just here just to have fun and you're not actually here to try to improve. These are very, very easy, simple, like, really easy to follow along and really relaxing because you've got the nice music in the background and my voice-over it does. I'm talking about nonsense or useful stuff. But just, just enjoy, enjoy the video, enjoy the music, and kinda relax and go into the groove of it. It is almost like a, like I said before, it is a form of meditation because you're in this type of rhythm and then you have the music going on in the background. And you can start to do your own thing and start to relax a little bit as you get more confident in. And I think that that's very, very important is to build your own confidence. And these videos are a great guideline. That's what they are. They are a great guideline for you to get started on your colored pencil journey. Or just to have fun if you've got a kid or if you, if you are a kid, that starting out withdrawing, these are perfect for that because whether you're just not really into digging deep into the colored pencil world, or are you just trying to do something while you're bored at home? This is a great, great video. These are great videos to follow along with. And just really is just to have fun. If, if you think that you don't have the time to complete these, trust me, you do. You really, really do it because you don't have to actually watch the whole video. Pull two hours all in one time span. Once you have access to these videos. That's it. You've got access the whole time so you can come back to them at any point in time and watch them as many times as you need. Or if you're just wanting to watch him just to get an understanding of how to draw, but not necessarily copy. That's also a great way to get started with it too. Now I do have a lot of videos on my YouTube that are kinda similar. Where it's just like a time-lapse video of be talking with some nice music in the background, or just normal time on SPSS. Videos in general. I find them actually really fun to watch. I get into some YouTube videos that are similar to this actually where it's like a time-lapse, but it's some guy that is mowing their lawn or mowing somebody's lawn. And they're just, it's just music in the background for most of it. And they'll talk over it, bubble blah. But it's like an hour long or something. And he's just mowing the yard. And it's actually really entertaining because it's it's like a video about nothing. You know, it's, it's, it's about life, it's about normal things. And that's what I really want to emphasize. Here, is this sense of normalcy. And especially on my youtube, a sense of normalcy where, um, I've got a completely normal life here at home with live in more with the farmstead lifestyle. With a little child and family and chickens and garden and we live out and you could say this is more of the rural side out in East Tennessee. And this is my first time actually living in rural area. I've lived mostly suburban lifestyle and I really, really enjoy it. It's actually helps me relax and calm down and focus more on my needs than anything else. And there's there's a lot of people out there that, that that is exactly what they want to do is focus on their needs while also trying to connect with others outside of where they live. And I think that these videos watching on YouTube and even watching these videos here where you're trying to follow along and watch the video and see how to draw and actually follow these guidelines and whatnot. It's just a great way to connect. And I think that that's really amazing. The power of social media can do that. So to get into this video here in a section, I'm using the burnt orange now. I do use a lot of the dark brown. And I actually do. 8. Adding details: Leave room with the white rather than drawing light to dark, I left darker chunks and then I will go over it, just so vary it a little bit with the light warm gray and then the dark gray too. But sometimes what I'll do is draw darker section, especially if it's like trucks that were there. Buffer is more chunky and kinda sporadic but still kinda in the same direction. I'll draw that first instead so that I know where everything is at in terms of the patterns, the different patterns. And now it is a little bit difficult sometimes to try to draw exactly where that pattern is supposed to be on the body or on the face. And that is why I like to do an outline. First, I tried to draw where the pattern is. In general. After I draw the eyes, the ears, and the nose, then the main body. Sometimes they'll just draw a little bit of where the pattern is. Now for this one, I didn't draw where the pattern is. You can do that if you want to. I'm gonna know by now it's probably too late. But it's not all too important because this pattern isn't super specific. But if you definitely see a specific pattern, such as this current record portrait that I'm drawing, That's a cat and and the forehead. She has patterns almost like a V-shape, like corns almost going down the forehead there. And I wanted to to outline that to make sure that I know where those are gonna be so that I can draw it as accurate as possible. So for something like that, that's really important. But if it's gonna be, for instance, this one where the pattern is still sporadic but you still have heavier texture with the dark brown. Then you don't always have to worry about that. So you can just draw that pattern and work with what you have there. But I definitely recommend drawing as much of a highlight as you possibly can as a beginner. But if you're pretty confident with your proportion, like understanding where proportions are and whatnot, then you don't necessarily have to draw that. I don't think that outlining is cheating. There's a lot of controversy about that, but I really don't think that outlining is cheating with it in this case because we're drawing all the bits in details. You're kinda making up your own proportions as you are drawing. The outline is just a guideline as to where those things should be located, but it is definitely not a follow exactly where that outline is, if that makes sense, a lot of the times I will do an outline. And I we'll draw outside of the outline or inside of the outline to make my own adjustments as I go to replicate what I'm seeing in the reference image. So you don't really have to follow your own specific outline, especially if you might have moved the paper and made it a little bit of a mistake as you're outlining those things happen. So it is really, really just a guideline, not something to actually strictly follow. So that's why I don't think it's cheating because you're not actually following all of the outline. Especially we're not drawing all of the outline with every single detail. The beginning. I actually did do that. I drew a lot of detail and outline and I wasted a lot of time drawing the outline. I've tried a lot of things. I've done the grid method freehand. All of those take a long time and I don't think that it is worth it once you have practiced quite a bit over time. Just because when you're drawing with the colored pencil, you are free handing the whole time. The only thing is that the outline is just a guideline to see where those things are supposed to be located in general, not to actually strictly follow. So if you are doing an outline that has so much detail in it, that is fine for the beginning process, but you will find over time that you'll start to get better proportions. And you will not need such a strong outline. And you'll, and you'll just start to draw the general outline where it's just the body. The outline and then the eyes and the ears, and the nose and the mouth. And that's about all you will need. So I wouldn't be too hard on yourself if the proportions aren't quite right, especially in the beginning because it is quite difficult. You have to train yourself to see the proportions and where they are referenced in terms of where they're located compared to one feature to the next. And what I mean by that, now I do have a video about proportions and kind kinda like a cheat. This aren't really cheap. But like something that a little method that you could use to figure out what your proportions a little bit better. They actively figure it out so that you can it'll start to become a habit and then you won't really need to use that cheating system, but certain method. So what I mean is you can use the pencil. And for instance, this pencil here, the dark brown pencil from the tip of the pencil to the end of that color. On that pencil. You can use that as a reference. So like if you were to put that up to the eye from the tip of the eye at the corner, all the way up to the top of the eye. You can use that as reference. See how long that eye is, and then compare it to the distance between the nose and the mouth, things like that. There's actually a trick. I don't know exactly. I had not made a video on this, so I'm not exactly sure. It's been awhile since I've I've looked it up. But I think it is the distance between the two eyes. It's like the same distance between the mouth, things like that. And then and then the nose too. But I want to make a video on that part because I think it really is important to even if you're not free handing, you are still technically free handing. So you want to make sure that you are drawing those things proportionally. And having that understanding that there are actually mathematically features that have the same distance. And you want to try to make sure that those are the same as you are working on the portraits so that it does look proportionately correct. But you can use the pencil as one to measure the distance, make sure that they're both the same. So if there's two eyes, you can measure the two eyes the same exact way to see if they are the same size. Now, the eyes are never going to look the exact same though, because not one living creature is going to have the exact same features in both sides is just how it is. So with the eyes are going to be a little bit different for each one, but you do want to make sure that at least the distance is the same. And the amount of like how open the eyes or how close the eye is. What I tried to make sure that that's about the same two. Sometimes, you know, the animal has one eye that's a little bit more close. And that's just how they are, especially if the client requests that they want that drawn exactly how that portrait is, then that's completely fine, but you want to try to keep them as proportionally similar as possible. And even for the nose, the nose is never going to look the same. Like one nostril, we different from the other one. And it frustrates me sometimes because I want them to look the same. But they're not going to. That's just how it is, especially if the portrait is not facing head-on. If it is facing it to the side a little bit more, you definitely can have a difference in the features. You want to make sure that you try to look at your reference image as much as possible and make that comparison and make sure that you are drawing the same shapes as much as possible. Now shapes. 9. Continue the body: The same shapes as much as possible. Now shapes is a different thing too. If you are struggling with drawing an area that is very dark or very light and a bigger area that you just have a hard time replicating that doesn't look quite right. Try to focus in on one section first at a time. So for instance here, look at the eye of the bunny. If you are looking at the eye, it looks like, kinda like an almond shape, right? Well, you want to, you want to think about that shape and not just look at the reference image and just see the reference image. You want to think about that shape, kind of focusing on that and cancel everything around it. Focusing on that shape and then the whiteness around it. The whiteness around and it kinda has a bigger almond shape but a little more curved. So look at each shape and cancel out everything else. So basically narrowing your focus in on that shape and remembering that shape and that, that will really, really help you. Especially when it comes to things like your, like when you're drawing a bird and you're looking at the wings. The wings will have all different kinds of textures and patterns. Try to focus in on the each individual shape. And look at that rather than looking at the whole. Looking at the whole is going to be a little bit different. For instance, here with this body, you could definitely look at the whole and so replicate what you're saying because the texture will overlook the exact same. So for that, you do, you can look back and look at the whole and draw as you're doing that. But when it comes to shapes and stuff, you definitely want to really think about that shape and try to replicate it as much as possible by doing that. And don't actually look at the hole. So it is kinda interesting how those little tricks to work over time. Now I'm using those black here. We just did the dark brown and a little bit of the orange tone to it. Now this black to darken the dark brown sections. And it's not everywhere, it's just in certain areas that you will do this. Um, I don't really, like I said, I don't really like to use black for main areas unless it's for the eyes. So you will find that I will draw with black over top of something just to really darken that feature. I have left this section here to complete as part of the last bunny here. This is the essentially this is kinda where the leg is and then the front part of the chest. So we're gonna do the front part of the chest first. Now it's gonna be curved a little bit. So your first layer still want to draw in the same direction of the firm and just kinda go like in that curve, go in that same pattern as much as possible. And you can also use this Lightroom gray to lightly draw over the dark brown at sections. But not, not all too much because you do want some of that white to show through. We will do a little bit of some fixing up towards the end as well. So if you miss any sections and you Are wanting to catch up. Don't worry about it. Just focus on continuing on until the end. And then you can take a step back and look at the portrait and see what you need to fix. So he's the dark brown here and start to draw in that pattern. Now, I like to draw and sections rather than the whole picture. For instance, drawing the whole first layer for the whole picture compared to just doing sections. And why I do that is so that I can have a better understanding as to where my features are located and the proportions. It is easier to draw and sections. Then the whole for that because then you can actually see the the, the outline that you had drawn. If you had loved that section alone, even if you had a first layer for the whole thing, you can still see the outline, but it is easier for me just to do section to section. So I highly recommend that if if that makes it easier for your two, now you can try out doing the whole, the whole rabbit and that first layer. But I find that it's easier just to do those because each section is going to be completely different values. And you want to make sure that you are not making the whole thing look flat with just a similar values. So drawing section is, section is a better option. But you can try out which, whichever one you want first and see what you're comfortable with. So here we're still using the dark brown, of course. And you'll add layers of black and the dark gray over the top to make it darker, so don't worry about that. So we are a little over halfway through. And if you need to take a break, feel free to pause the video and I'll go take that break and definitely come back. I really encourage you to finish the portrait. I know that most of these classes, they're all about two hours long, two to three hours. And I can be pretty painful at times to have to go through that, especially if you're not enjoying the process and it's not turning out the way you want it to. So if you need to take a breather, go ahead and do that. So with the dark brown resto, continuing on, drawing in the same direction. Now for this shape, it is almost like an egg shape in a way, but a little bit more fully because the top is more of like an oval and then it will flatten out because the bunny is laying on the ground. 10. Leg and Tail: And then it will flatten out because the bunny is laying on the ground. So you got to remember that this is part of the leg here. So just remember are like the shape of the bunnies leg. Keep looking at the reference image and think about that shape more than anything else as you're drawing this. And keep watching the direction of the fur because it is going to be different than the body. And that's really what makes the difference between what shows the difference between the body and the leg is the direction of the fur. So keep that in mind, be aware of that and leave room for the tail because it tells can have a different direction of fur. And the little foot at the end too is gonna be a little bit different. So just be aware of that as you're drawing and for the amount of pressure that you're using, I am using a little bit of a heavier pressure to get the dark brown bits. You can see that I'm using light between my heavier pressure. And what that does is it creates this multiple layered effect with the first. So using the light pressure, heavy pressure, both at the same time, it does help. Doesn't always happen every case, but it does with this one because the fur is so sporadic in terms of the where the where the firm is located. So like for instance, there are heavier trunks and some spots and lighter chunks and others. And it's not all completely brown. So that's what I really wanted to emphasize is that now all a solid brand massive for and there's going to be layers of highlight. And that's what we're doing here is leaving room for the highlights to come through. And that's why I'm using dark to light for this one. And drying the little foot there. It is a different direction of first, so just be mindful of that and you don't have to be all too detailed with it because it is just a little foot as long as you are drawing and sand direction and really just emphasizing it rather than trying to be too detailed as the most important part. I find that drawing too detailed with smaller portraits doesn't always look diet great. You kinda have to be. Think about the whole picture and be a little more abstract and then go from there and you can add more detail afterwards. It's the same for when you're drawing larger portrait to. You start with abstract first and then you add your details afterwards. Even for this where I drew dark to light, it still is kind of an abstract look to it. And then once I have, once I use the gray and the black to darken it. That's what really brings in the details. So remembering that two is, don't worry about the details until you've built up quite a few layers and then you can start to think about the details and what needs to be placed where on the darker sections you do want to make sure you know where those are located as such as for this one, the there's there's the low lights in the highlights and low lights are where the brown fur is and the highlights is where I've left the white. We will fill that in with the light warm gray a little bit later on. But not all too much because you still want to show some of the white coming through. I really do like to add this burnt orange to the bunny. It's just absolutely adorable. And this, you're just drawing very lightly and kind of think about it as of a hint of orange, more of an abstract general coverage. And I know that in this video, the colors are a little bit lighter than the actual picture. So if your image is coming up a little bit darker, that's completely fine. That's actually how mine is too. It's a little bit darker features. But just be mindful of orange and make sure that you're not drawing details with the orange is just more of a hue of the orange and not, not actual texture, if that makes sense. And now we've got the towel a little bit more established there. You definitely want to draw a pretty heavy around it just to emphasize where it's located and where because it's so dark right there from the shadows. That's why we, I drew it that way. It was to basically emphasize that there's some shading going on and there's a little bit of a fold where that tail is located. So you can use a black or a dark gray here. I've done a lot of it, a mixture of both because the dark gray really helps to show a little bit more coloring, but it darkens it at the same time. Whereas the black is just straight black. And sometimes the black can cool down some of the warm tones. So you just want to be mindful of that too. I know it's a little bit different because you would think that black would not really affect the tones of the colors, but it really does. Adding black can, can cool it a little bit. And I think that's just to do with the colors themselves like the because it's a wax base or an oil-based. They can kinda have that effect. I guess the way that the black is made, to me, it seems like it, it cools it down at times, but if you're using the black over top of a warm tone, it it will still show through as warm. It's just if you were to use more and more black than the warm tone, then you'll start to really see that it cools it down a little bit too much. So just be aware of that. 11. Finishing up: To really see that, it cools it down a little bit too much. So just be aware of that too. And I am using the dark brown a little bit here to kinda emphasize on how sporadic there for is definitely is a little more chaotic around the leg there, but you really want to emphasize the direction of the fur to to make sure that you can tell that that is the leg and not just the rest of the body there. You can see that the line between the, the top of the leg and the rest of the body is more emphasized than going further down like right underneath that pencil right there. It's connecting a little bit better. So just make sure that you are connecting that apart as much as possible. And then still leaving that gap at the top to show that that's disconnected from the rest of the body there. I hope that you're enjoying this. I'm already, I'm enjoying talking about this bunny. And I'm talking to you guys about my art journey and these really awesome tips for drawing too. There's a lot of things that I forget to tell you, no. And while I'm doing these classes, but there's lot of important things that, that is good and healthy for you to learn on your own as well. So I tried to implement my own experiences and things that I think that you could benefit with, such as the warm tones in the cool tones and then drawing the same direction as afer, well, when it comes to your own, a lot of pressure. And then the way that you draw light to dark Bo La, you can draw dark to light if you want. It's just easier to draw light to dark to avoid mistakes essentially. So once you get more comfortable practicing, you can figure that out. Whichever way you find. That's easier for you. Essentially. So the colors, the color is the color palette. I definitely suggest going and exploring your own color palette. Trying out new colors. Like, I know some artists, they will use the crazy colors and their portrait and really try to create this very vivid, unique effect that has all these different colors. And it really does turn out pretty cool when you do that. Because if you limit yourself to different, to adjust the same color palette, or just about four or five pencils. Not always going to be disappointed in the end because it's not going to look as realistic, but especially even if it's like if it's black or white for when it's fair, You would think that it's just monochromatic where it's not that many colors. You wouldn't believe how many colors they use in black fur. There's, there's so many different tones that go into it to create a realistic look and actually white-black for one of my hardest to do. So if you are struggling with that, just remember that and try to add more color to it and see where you go from there. Now there are different types referred to, and I know that curly for is very, very difficult to draw. And super long buffer can be pretty difficult. Sure, it seems to be the easiest, of course. So if you're going to try to practice different animals on your own, try to start out with the easiest type of four possible and then go from there. Now, this tail here we're using the light warm gray to kinda it's really white tail. So I'm just using a warm gray to emphasize that it is there. Then using it a little bit more in the highlighted areas to blend it a little bit better. And then you can use or just basically fixing things up now. So what do you think needs to be fixed up? Go ahead and do. Now. Don't worry about adding the details all too much because it's a small portrait. You have spent already almost two hours working on it and you don't want to overdo yourself and get frustrated. So just take a, take a break if you need to come back and look at it with fresh eyes and maybe you can ask somebody in your house. To take a look at your portrait and get some constructive criticism on it. I like to ask the people on my house Laughter. I do a portrait to get some fresh eyes on the portrait to see what, what needs to be fixed essentially. And because after staying at a portrait for salon, you kinda get so caught up in the details and, and it's hard to look back at it. When you're the one that's done that portrait and you've been focusing on that portrait for weeks at a time or something? I highly suggest that I like to ask my husband a lot. He is very honest and he is a little bit of an artist myself. Actually, he does different kind of art and he does have an artist's eye. So it really helps for me to have his constructive criticism to tell me. Okay, this part doesn't look right. I don't know what you need to do about it, but it doesn't look right. And that actually helps me because then I focus in on that part. I'm like, Oh yeah, you're right. That does need to be fixed. So if you have somebody in your house that can look at the reference image and it has a little bit of experience to maybe with art or even with just animals in general, or as really good at looking at detail. I would ask them what their opinion is on it. And I know that it can be scary to ask others about their opinion. There's been a lot of portraits that I do not ask for opinions too because I'm I did not like how it turned out and I just don't want to ask what their opinion is on it and just move on from there. But I still always always go back and fix. My Hi, Gary is that I think needs to be fixed. So if you are done with the portrait, think you're done. Take a break. I sometimes will even wait a whole day until to actually look at the portrait. Sometimes leave and cover it up. I'll cover up my portrait so that I don't look at it as I'm walking through the room. And then the very next day or something, I'll look at it with fresh eyes and see what needs to be fixed. Because if you keep looking at it as you're walking through the room or some fun. Your eyes are too used to it. And it's not going to help you be able to figure out what needs to be fixed. So I highly suggest that too, and covering it up to it will help keep the portrait from being exposed to natural elements such as dust and sunlight. So especially if you are working on a portrait that's going to take a long time. Like when I started out, it took me a whole month to complete just an eight by ten portrait. It's going to take you awhile. I suggest covering it up or something when you're not working on it so that it can be protected. I don't always do that. And I have my son has drawn on my portraits. And I've been very lucky that I could fix it up and not have to completely redo it. I think the only time I had to redo one portrait one time and it was a wasted I think it took a week-and-a-half. I said a whole week and a half. When I was done with the portrait, looks horrible. It was just it was not done right. I think I did too much shading and it did not look good. I did there was no way that I could fix it, so I had to I didn't trash it. I still have it in my portfolio, but I just completely redid it. And what's helpful about redoing the same exact thing is that it will always turn out better than the second time around because you've already practiced it. So you have to redo portrait. You're not alone. I've done it before. So I hope that helps and we're coming to a close here. So if you are still working on making adjustments, you can still do that. But we're done. And I am so glad that you have completed this with me. If you didn't actually do the portrait. That is okay. I hope that this has helped you with any tips that you really didn't think about. And maybe it'll help you with your portraits later on. Thank you so much for following along. I hope to see you in other classes.