Colored Pencil Portraits Made Simple: Your guide to exquisite drawings

1. Class Introduction: What's up, guys, My name is movie. I'm going to enter M phase freelance artist. I'd like to welcome you all to my newest classes and colored pencil portraits. My goal here is to get you from making drawings that look like this. Drawing is that looked like. Back in this lesson, I'll be going over my process from start to finish, beginning with an outline and then as we walk in and finally, fully rendered. I will also be going over my materials and some helpful tips and how to extract the most potential to be called fence. So whether you're brand new to color pencils are been doing this for awhile. I'm very confident that I'm better than these lessons. That's techniques that can elevate, which will involve sex. Or that said, let's begin. 2. Drawing Supplies : Alright, so here's all the materials you're going to need for the class. We've got some paper. I click eraser, kneaded eraser, a pencil eraser, sharpening block, an exacto knife in bristle brush and mechanical pencil, and some dividers. I'm going to elaborate a bit on my choosing these tools and the purpose they serve in destroying. First the colored pencil. This is a colored pencil by fabric Estelle known as the polychrome most, and this is the cobalt green color contexts. The colored pencil is basically a pencil with colored pigments. In this class we're going to be using only one, working exclusively monochrome. This affords us the luxury of focusing more on shape, design and value, which are the foundations of realism. Color pencils are also usually the wax based, oil-based. This one I'm using is oil-based. And this affects slightly how they can be used in the drawing. Some people like to blend the pigments with mineral spirits. Other people prefer to burnish. Both have equal merits, but in this class I'll be using the latter technique. Moving onto the paper. I'm going to be using these sketch bans by Master's Touch, the velum variety. I like these because they have some weight to them, which is helpful when you're making finished drawings. They also have enough tooth to grab the pigments and the erase well without damaging the surface of the paper. Moving on to erasers, we have three different kinds of erasers. Each serve a different purpose and a tremendous aid in achieving smooth transitions in value and excellent shapes. Kneaded eraser is malleable, so you offers more variety in the kinds of marks we can make. I'll click your race as a bigger version of the pencil eraser can also be modified to varying points with a blade. It's great for erasing larger passages and the drawing. Lastly, a pencil eraser. It's very precise erasing tool. It feels good in the hand. It's easy to sharpen. The only drawback is it's sometimes leaves it colored residue, especially if you're pushing really hard. As far as our sharpening tools go, we have a sharpening block and an exacto knife. Sharpening book is by neutron. I use it to sharpen the color pencils, of course. And it works in a similar way to sandpaper. You roll the lead over the block and this smooth out the edges and gives you a fine taper. But before you move on to the sharpening block, you have to first get rid of some of the wood through a rather width, the exacto knife or razor blade, which is a slightly more dangerous option. Here we have a hog hair bristle brush. It's used as a blending tool. So typically in the drawing, after I apply a few layers of pigments with some pressure, I scrub over the surface of the paper with the brush in the process, pushing the pigment further down into the tooth of the paper and darken that area as well as softening the edges. We've got another pencil. This one is a mechanical pencil, 0.7 millimeters from Staedtler. I also sometimes use the red pen. So when I use this in the beginning of the drawing, when I'm trying to get an outline, it has the added benefit of not requiring sharpening and also being able to be raised. More advanced artist, you might be able to get away with using the colored pencil on the outline stage. But if you feel like you're going to make a few mistakes, I'll suggest also using pencil in the earliest stages. Last but not least, we've got our divider, and this is just a measuring tool. It's useful for verifying proportional accuracy and can be used on a one-to-one basis like inside size or a relative basis for comparative measurements. It's got an adjustable fixture presence, which enables you to modify the scale to your liking if you're new to drawing this and especially valuable and instruments and I recommend using it. That's all for the materials. I see you guys in the next video. 3. Getting your proportions Pt. 1: So in this stage, our goal will be to develop accurate proportions that will serve as the framework for the values to come. Currently on screen, I have a simple grid consisting of three intersecting lines drawn on my reference to Amy and assessing the proportions. I generally look for anchor points such as the lacrimal caruncle or the bottom of the lip, like we have on screen. Once that is established, I move on to identifying the top and the bottom of the frame, as well as the width. Using my divider to gauge the correctness of my guesses. Next, I start at the top of the head, working with mostly straight lines and establishing the large geometric shapes I see at this point the triangular shape on the left side of the head. Every key measurements I make, I endeavor to verify with my divider. So avoid the gradual accumulation of mistakes that often leads to a subpar drawing. Angle breaks occur when there is a sharp change in direction and the contours. And I used to start and endpoints for your lines. As we advanced went to the hair, my approach is to capture the overall shape and gesture of the hair, the straight lines, ignoring individual hairs and smaller shapes that I see. Making my way through the eyebrows, my focus is on capturing the simplest possible expression of that curved rectangular shape. Making sure to work on both eyebrows in unison to ensure symmetry. Addition to cross checking the alignments, I'm also comparing the overall length and width, as well as the distance between the eyebrows. The eyes in this picture can be visualized as a seed shape. Sitting in the eye socket. It's best to identify the extremities of the overall eye shape. And from there, narrowing down into more specific features like the iris. Now's a good time to question the alignment of your eye relative to your eyebrows, utilizing horizontal and vertical plumb lines to make sure that everything is moving in the right direction. As I begin to work on the second, I, I'm making sure to continue to make those visual comparisons. Whether that'd be the angle between the two eyes, the relative widths, their relative lengths. Always making sure that things are moving together as they should. 4. Getting your proportions Pt. 2: Brian, I'm continuing to develop the shapes are seeing the face, making minor corrections along the hair and the eyes. As I make my way into the nose, I'm trying to establish its maximum length and breadth using the lacrimal caruncle as engaged for those end points. Once I feel comfortable with those measurements, I begin to develop the nose, simplifying it into a bottom side and the top plane must have squinting my eyes to better see the outline of the shadow shape along the bottom plane of the nose. The angle breaks are your guide. Make them obvious in your outline and periodically check them against one another as you move along in the drawing. Starting to go in and outline the nostrils at this point, but also just giving such details. So you have all the features established. You might find that your nose is slightly misplaced, wants the mouth is drawn in. So it's always best to pause on the little details to the major forms are verifiably accurate. Onto the mouth, my process here remains the same, sticking two straight lines and using the grid as my guide as best as I can. I'm estimating the shape of the mouth. He's in the location of the philtrum and the outside corners of the nose, congested proportions. No me worried if your drawing is looking less than beautiful right now. I was also partially modified by what I was seeing myself. So it's remain focused on the abstract. Cast this on your mind and he thought or join a lip and visualize those 2D geometric shape. Now's a great time to establish your center line visually, a cross check that the main facial features are all tilted in the same direction? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. More confident about the placement of my lawn shapes. I'm returning back to the notes to indicate the nostrils. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. At this juncture I'm thinking about the planes of the head, lightly indicating them in my pencil and using them as a tool to verify the drawings accuracy. And also indicating the smaller forums I see around the eye sockets in the nose and around the mouth. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. As we approach the end of this stage, Now's a good time to reflect on the choices you made, the aspects of the drawing you like versus what you didn't like. As well as putting in some final touches to clean up your shapes and improve the gesture of your lines. That's all for now. I'll catch you in the next video. 5. The Block In: We are officially at the start of the blocking. Our goal for this stage will be to delineate our light and shadow shapes and enhance the overall design of our outline. After transfer my drawing through different sheet of paper, I'm ready to begin with my colored pencils. The first step will be to erase pencil outlines till it's barely visible and go over those lines with a colored pencil. The reason for this is that graphite and called pencil or immiscible. Thus, in order for you to advance the drawing with value or pencil marks must be removed. As you move through this part of the drawing, a certain degree of boredom will inevitably arise. It is imperative that you maintain the focus and still aspire to improve the work you've done in the previous stage. Now's a good time to elaborate on those lines with C curves, s-curves, and streets. I generally like to start with the hand and portraits as it frames the entire face and gives context to the values within. At this point, I want to be taking the head with full value, meaning I will not make it as dark as I see in the reference, but keeping it light and limiting the values to just a couple of bass tones, pretty much a shadow and a light value. They had blocked in. I'm going to begin developing the darkest values in the face, starting with the eyes, the eyes, hair, nostrils, and upper lip, or the darkest elements in this picture. Thus, starting with them, establishes the upper limits of value. And our drawing that is the same. Nothing else in our picture should be darker than those. Stated parts. My workflow for drawing the eyes is as follows. First, I work on improving the design of the actual eye shape. Then I apply the darkest values, as you can see from there, and move on to the lighter values and the eye working my way through the edges, modifying them to be softer or harder based on what I see in the reference, I try as much as possible to squint my eyes, dot then back-and-forth between my reference and my drawing, identifying inconsistencies and correcting them. Despite the fact that I will be revisiting all of these areas. I believe as it relates to the facial features, it is wise to slow down and make sure you're capturing exactly what you see. As we add value to rejoin, the alignments of things can often shift around. It is always a good idea to cross check our proportions using plumb lines or whatever else we can. As I begin drawing the mouth and I'm starting my darkest darks kingdom to match the values in the nostrils and the iris. I'm also careful not to exaggerate the presence of the teeth with hard edges and too much contrast. In this instance, White Teeth and shadow or anything but whites. After that, I block in the rest of the shadow value in the upper lip and the bottom of the lower lip, making them slightly lighter than the values in the crease of the lips in the upper lip. Oops, possibly the footage there in the interim, I applied one find value in the neck, keen its value to be identical to that of the upper lip. In addition, the eyebrows can be visualized as value shapes. With indications of hair strands. You need not go in and draw 1000 strands. If you will, please. Hairs and small shapes will create the illusion that you see. Alright, Finally, at the end of the block, and relatively speaking, this is a very basic blocking. You can definitely take this further if you want to. In your drawing, if you have established or your shadow shapes improved on the contours from the previous stage. You are more than ready to move on to the next lesson. 6. Shading the features Pt.1: The eyes: The blotting behind us, we can begin to reveal the majesty of the form throughout half-tones. In this drawing, the light source is coming from the top right-hand side of the picture. Baseline knowledge, as well as what we see. The dark is half-tones are going to be in and around the chin on the face. Keeping a light hand, I will add value along those planes of the face, working to maintain evenness in the application and his sense of breath. As you lay in these value shapes. It's important also to work on the edges surrounding it, including but not limited to, the shadow below the bottom lip and the crease of the lips. Once that band of relatively dark halftone shapes establish, I proceed to add value to the lightest plane on the chin. Ignoring the highlights, I can see this plane is quite a bit lighter than the halftone surrounding it. So I'll make sure to preserve that difference. The form and the chains and slowly, this is the keys because that part of the fees is soft and smooth. Ergo, the edges between these plane changes must be solved. The challenge here is to find the middle ground between specificity and softness and our value transitions. They process with necessitates a certain amount of trial and error. As I progress into the eye sockets, I stopped by bringing up the value in the dark is half-tones there to match what I see in the lower portion of the face. You can think about the form and the eye sockets as a kind of sphere with a center, the most convex parts catching the most light, and the rest of it slowly losing lights as it becomes progressively more concrete. It's always a good idea to keep an attitude of symmetry in your drawing. So when you're done rendering the values in the left eye socket, it's logical to go to the right eye sockets and do the same. As I work on the white eye sockets. I can see that there is very little variation in the value of the light shape. I have to make sure my dog has half-tones here. Don't get very dark, and we mean lighter than the values in the lower third of the face. In this moment, I'm returning to the nose to darken some of the shadows in the creases of the wing of the nose, as well as the nostril. Still at this point, keeping an eye for where my outline might be. A little wonky. Leaning my values in the glabella, I can see that it's slightly lighter than the dark is halftones and the eye sockets. It's also a downward facing plane relative to the forehead. And so should be darker than anything accepting the side planes around the hair. Doing the linings of the key of the portraits and decided to leave the white of the paper as the mean sends a lights. It's kind of a stylistic choice, but I feel it allows the picture to go. That concludes the first part of filling in the features. I'll see you guys in the next one. 7. Shading the features Pt.2: The mouth: Alright, welcome back. Picking up where we left off, we'll continue to build up those medium and small forms in the face and adding some thicker and darker contours around the hair, as well as the intersections between the different forms. This is one of the many ways that variety to join and enhance the overall visual impression. Returning to the lower third of the face, I'm attempting to build on those values here, slightly darkening them, smoothing out the tone. I'm also noticed some darker half-tones around the chin requires some softening along your inches. The lower lip continues within a two main value shapes with harder edges on the top of border and softer edges in the lower half to manage the complexity, first aim at creating the correct value shape will lead to concern about how light or dark it is. From there, I darken or lighten that shape to the correct value. And only then do I begin to fixate on the edges. So on in it. In this moment is I'm gradually building up the value on the side of the face on darkening the minor planes around the philtrum. The variations in value in this segment of the portraits are very subtle. So stepping back as often as I can, I'm constantly asking how well does that value shape relate to everything else? Am I staying true to the overall light effects on my smaller form subordinate to the larger forms. What kind of edges intermediate these two planes and so on and so forth. You can see here I'm using my brush or bits, the brush from the functions in a similar capacity to the blending stump. I use it to push the pigment deeper into the tooth of the paper and smooth. And some of the value transition is usually you want to have a couple of layers of pigment on the paper already before you use it. And it doesn't require much force and its application either. As you build up these light planes of value along the side of the face and the cheek. Careful consideration must also be given to the edges wanting the nose, eyes, mouth. And here you can see that both the nose and mouth have relatively soft edges compared to the eye. That these types of cost comparisons are key in elevating your portrait to high degree of realism. To further accentuate this point destroyed by American artist John Singer Sargent massively highlight the kind of variation in edge faulty we often find in the drawing. As for the rest of the portraits in the nose, I begin with the darkest value in the light shape, which is the side plane of the nose. This value shape is ever so slightly darker than the center lights on the cheek. A common beginner mistake is to exaggerate that difference. So to avoid this, draw your eyes to the band of hot zones around the chin. Remember that this side plane should be significantly lighter than that. Alright, again, so the final stretch, one more video on be done with this lesson. I hope you all are having a good time. We've got some more work on the nose and a few finishing touches. I'll be just about done with alcohol pencil, portrait. 8. Shading the features Pt. 3: Nose & Hair: Without bottom and most of our side planes family established, I proceed to darken the planes in the front of the nose and the lower portion of the side plane. Wasn't the edges around this region a soft with the exception of the outside border of the nostril. From a simplified perspective, you can think about having di mean value groups. The shadow in the bottom plane, the side plane of the nose, and the fun thing of the values in each dimension compressed or identical transitions between valid moves soft and continuous. What's the value of stablished on the nose? I take my time to refine the edges. He called the inconsistencies and the tone and scan my eyes through the portraits looking for areas that might now be incongruous with the most in the hair at my goal is not to copy exactly what I see in the reference, but to suggest the appearance of here, I still have them. Yes, I can. I will attempt to do this first by separating shadows and lights and working on the half-tones in-between. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The shadow, the values can be further broken down into a core shadow and reflected light. I am exaggerating this difference to increase the sense of volume and keen down my heart tones to increase contrast. With most of the heavy lifting done. All that is left consists of the micro adjustments to aspects of the picture that call-out attention. This points most of all mark making sure consists of small refinements to our shapes, values, and edges. This is a crucial part of the process, one which enables us to meet the micro adjustments and incrementally improve how join ability. We have finally reached the end of this lesson. I hope this was much fun for you as it was for me with a joint concluded. Now's a good time to analyze your likes and dislikes within the portraits. Pat yourself on the back for making it through the lesson and charting cause of action to remediate your present shortcomings. That's all for now. See you guys soon. 9. Class project : I hope having gone through this lesson, you've acquired the knowledge and techniques to make the kind of portraits you've always wanted. Before. We part ways, we have a class projects, one in which you have the opportunity to show just how much you've learned and put theory into practice. For this project, I'd like you to start and finish if fully rendered portraits in colored pencil, working from a photo reference or from life, and following the steps outlined in this lesson. You can find the photo reference I use in the project and resources tab, along with other equally good pictures to work from. Before you begin your projects. It's a good idea to warm up with a few practice sketches, developing the concepts and ideas in a corporate way, and preparing your mind and body for the rigors of the final drawing. Once you've completed your projects, feel free to share with the community along with the reference you work from. I think we can all learn from each other. And the more you put ourselves out there, the feedback we can receive, and the more encouragement can go around. Just some final thoughts before I leave you. I just like to say, first of all, I commend you for making the effort to challenge yourself and improve your drawing abilities. Drawn as a whole is difficult. And portrait drawing especially difficult. You will inevitably encounter obstacles and how many walls and your path towards mastery. That's okay. We all do deliberate practice and constant repetition, or your greatest allies to pushing past these petals. To be patient with yourself. If you've enjoyed this class, don't forget to hit the Follow button. I really smart glasses in the coming weeks. Anyway. That's all for now. Thanks for watching. Bye bye.