Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hi everyone. My name is centered Curtis, and I'll be your teacher today. I've been drawing with
colored pencils on black paper for 15 years. And it's time for me
to share what I've learned and the
techniques that I use. If you're brand
new here, welcome. But if you've watched
the previous classes, you'll see that today's class is a combination of two of them. The first one was a basic class where we drew
a crow with a white pencil. Class number three. The previous class
was about drawing cats eyes and built upon
our class number two, where we learned how
to layer the colors. Today we're going back
to the basics and we'll draw a black cat
with a white pencil. And we'll be adding a touch
of color for the eye. It will be a simple,
easy to draw, not like one of
the detailed ones we drew in the previous class. This class mostly includes real-time step-by-step
videos so that you can see the full process and speed when I apply the
pencil on the paper. I hope you'll join me in this
class where you can follow the easiest step-by-step
instructions at your own pace. And please feel free to
share your progress with the other students and ask questions whenever you need to. I'll see you in class.
2. Supplies: For this class, we're going
to use some colored pencils. I use prismacolor
premier colored pencils. If you don't have those, use whatever you have. And then we're going
to pick one of these. Whatever you have. I'll be using the dura went drawing pencil
in ivory black. But instead of that, if
you do not have one, you can use either
a black soft pastel or a black pen pesto. For the paper. We have a five by seven piece
of black Stonehenge paper. This is my favorite paper for colored pencils because
it's nice and thick. And also, even
though it's smooth, it has enough teeth to
take a lot of layers. To transfer our sketch
onto our black paper. We will need some tracing paper. You can also use some white transfer
paper if you want to. And then to keep
everything nice and clean. Either a kneaded eraser
or some poster potty. And do not erase the conventional way by rubbing just dab on your paper
to remove the pigments. Can also use a soft brush. I have a drafting brush to just remove the
pigments like that. You can just use a new watercolor soft brush
or any other brush you have. I will put a list of
all the colors that we need with the class materials along with the reference photo. Alright, let's get started.
3. Sketch Transfer: As I've mentioned in
my previous classes, I do not like to
sketch straight on the black paper when I'm
gonna do a final drying. Because if I need
to erase the lines, if I make mistake, then it might damage the
surface of the paper. So always transfer my line
drawing onto my black paper, there are different
ways of doing it, and I found the most efficient
one for me is to use a white pencil to trace either my sketch or
trace the photo, whichever one you're
more comfortable with. And once those white
lines are done, I flip it over against
my black paper and I use either mechanical pencil or a regular graphite pencil. And I go over those lines
on the other side of the paper and I try not to
apply too much pressure. I want to apply
just enough so that the white pigments transfer
onto the black paper. If the pencil I use is too hard or if I push
too hard on it, then am I create some
grooves on my paper. And later on when I draw
over those grooves, the pigments from
my pencils will not go into groups and they will leave some
marks and it will show that the paper was damaged. So use some firm
but gentle strokes to transfer the drawing. You can tape your paper
down if you want to make sure that you do not
move your tracing paper. I'm so used to it and
there's so few lines for this particular drawing
that I think it's okay for me to
just hold onto it. But from time to time, I make sure that I
lived the tracing paper to make sure that the
transfer is done properly. Once this is done, I remove my tracing paper and
with a soft brush, I removed the residue
from the paper.
4. White Layer: Once I'm done transferring the line drawing on
the black paper, I pick up my white pencil again and make sure
it's nice and sharp. And it's time to add
the first layer. That first layer is essentially to establish all the
details of the drawing. I start with the
eyes and I look at where the lightest lights are. And I go very gently on the paper blocking in
all those light areas. So you see that there are reflections on the
eyes themselves, those very, very bright whites, but there's also some lighter
areas within the colors. So I'm coloring
those spots as well. I take my time and I always keep my eyes on the
reference photo to make sure that I apply the
pencil in the right place. Then I start working
on the farm. And I always try to go in the direction of the for that I see on the
reference photo. And I add vary lightly,
some wispy hair. When I see little pieces
of pencil on my paper, I take my poster potty and lightly dab on them
to remove them because I don't want my hand to crush them and end up making unwanted
marks on the paper. So I keep on working around the eyes and trying to
establish the hair. It's an area that's a pretty light because of
where the light's coming from. Then I start working
around the right ear. And on the reference photo, you'll see that the
hair that sticks out against the
background is black. However, our background
here is black. And if we left that hair black, we wouldn't see
it or there's not really a way to show it. So what I usually do
is I draw that hair white as if the light
was shining on it. We need to keep in mind
that we are not drawing your white cat differ is black and the white
hair that we're drawing is actually black. We're only showing
the reflection of the light on the hair. So we don't want that
hair to be super white. We don't want to make it
seem like the black cat has some white spots on its fur. And that's another reason why we need to be light
on our pencil. We need the black paper to
show through the white. On this particular photo, the edges of the ears are pretty wide because it catches
the light a lot. So I'm going to make
sure that at some point, those edges really sure why, especially on the outside of the ear where all the folds are. So on the neck I'm doing
the same as on the ear, where the fur that's
showing against the background will be
white, not too bright. On that little piece
of fold there, I see that it's
almost a solid color and we'll add colors
to it later on. But for now, I'm only
coloring it with the white and I'm hardly pushing
at all on my pencil. I'm only adding a very
light wash. Why tonic? Trying to keep it even so that there is no
pencil marks showing. I'm gonna do the same on the
inside of the ear as well, trying to avoid
the shadowy areas only coloring the
brightest areas. So make sure that
I keep on looking at the reference
picture all the time. I know I've said it
many times already, but it's very important
so that I know where to add the pigment. Once again, I tried to keep the paper clean when the
residue and the papers in pretty loose and I
use myself brush when they seem to be sticking a little bit more to the paper, I use my poster party on the forehead. I'm doing
the exact same thing as I did on the neck and
the edge of the ears. Adding some hair against the dark background that is white as if the light
is shining on it. And then you don't see it
very much on the photo. But if you look closely, you can't really
see the left eye, but you see the hair. I think it's probably the
cheekbone or something, but you can see some
white hair struck by the light sticking
out quite a lot. The nose is one of
the wildest areas. So we can push on the
pencil a little bit more, not too much because we'll add another layer of white later on. But we don't need
to be as light on the pencil as we
are in other areas. The fur on the nose
is quite tricky. It goes in different directions. So make sure you observe
the reference photo. Also when you draw the hair, make sure that the lines
aren't all the same. Make sure that they overlap, makes sure that the
nut the same length, that there are not strictly
parallel to each other. Otherwise they will
not look natural. On the tip of the nose, the hair is so short
that you don't really see each individual hair. So you can get by with just coloring it rather
than adding lines. In some area, the
work is quite minute, so make sure that you keep
your pencil nice and sharp. You can get by with not
sharpening it as often if you rotate your pencil from
time to time so that you draw on all different
sides of your tip. Any kind of sharpens
by itself in a way, but it doesn't last very long, so make sure you keep
on sharpening it around the mouth. There's also a lot of whiskers, a lot more than we think, especially if you look
at the black catch, you don't always see
all the whiskers. I have a black cat
and I'd never noticed that they have those tiny
whiskers on their chins, but also have a tuxedo
cat with white whiskers. And on her we can see very well all those little
whiskers on the chin. So make sure you observe
the reference photo well and don't miss all those
little whiskers, Oliver. You don't have to draw
them all, of course, but it's going to make
it look more natural if you do draw some
sticking out of the chin. The hair on the cheek there, on the side of the nose, also goes in quite
a few directions. So make sure you
use a variety of strokes that your
hair looks natural. And then for those
long whiskers, it can be tricky at
first to draw them. Maybe you can practice on
a separate piece of paper. It's a long flick basically. And you just do it
with your wrist. If you go too slow
and you hesitate, your lines will be crooked. So don't be shy. Maybe can also practice over your drawing without
putting your pencil down. Try to just flick your wrist. And then once
you're comfortable, you've shown your hand
which direction to go, then put your pencil
down and just go for it. It's not gonna be
perfect right away, but as you keep on doing it, they'll get better and better. Also, your whiskers
do not have to be exactly at the same spot as
on your reference photo. It's not going to
distort the cat's face. So don't be too hard on yourself when you draw the whiskers. And some cats have
cricket whiskers as well. One of my cats do. So this part is one of the most important
part of the drawing. Now we're going to start
working on the eye.
5. The Eye: Now we're going to
work on the eye is the most colorful
area of this drawing, which is not saying much. But I picked this
reference photo, particularly because the
I was not very detailed. And to make it easier, is just a reminder from the previous lesson in my
class that cat's eyes, I showed you different
ways to draw eyes. Some are very detailed
and take quite awhile to draw and some
aren't very detailed. But it's not because you don't
add all the little lines inside the eyes that they
don't look pretty good too. So this one is not very detailed and we're
going to just basically block all the colors we see and pay attention to the values, because that's the values
that will help us make the eyes stand out as
we build the layers, we're gonna go from the lightest
color to the darker one. We're not going to add too
much pressure on the pencils, will be able to add
more colors on top. And we should be able to add some lighter colors on
top of the darker ones. But for now we're just going
to go from light to dark. And we'll start with a cream and apply a light wash
over the iris. We could have used the white, but I just wanted
to start adding a hint of color with the cream. In the brightest areas, we can actually push a
little harder on the pencil, but not too, too much. Then we're going to
use the bronze and this will stay in
the darker areas. So that's the base
for our shadows. Again, we're applying a light
wash where the shadows are. Now with the sand. We're going to go back onto
the lighter areas and we're going to apply a light
wash over the cream layer, blending between the
edge of the cream and the bronze to make a nice
transition between the two. So that we don't lose
the shape of the pupil. As we keep on adding the layers, we can just define it right
now with a black pencil. With a white pencil, I went over the lighter areas again to make sure that I
didn't lose those also. And then with a black pencil, I'm going to start working
on the shadows again. I use a very light pressure. I'm barely touching the paper, just grazing it to add a tint of black because I want the color underneath
to show through. There is a distinct shadow
line right across the eye. So we're not going to blend it. We're going to make
sure that it stays nice and straight like that. With my pencil, I go over
the lighter areas again. At this point I notice
that I added too much black at that border between
the light and the black, that particular line
that crosses the eye. It's too dark, too much. So I used my poster potty and adapt to try to remove as much of the
pigments as I could. And that's how you can erase your mistakes on black paper. You can do that on the
white paper as well. It's not always easy to
erase colored pencils, but with postal potty, you can dab on it and it really helps removing
those pigments. Once that's done, then
you can add more layers in that area without
damaging the paper at all. I worked on my shadow again
with the bronze pencil. And I also added some at
the bottom of the pupil. And then with the yellow ocher, I added another wash on
top of my lighter area. I'm really just building the colors where I see them
on the reference photo. Again with the white. I am re-establishing
the highlights. I wanted to make sure that
I do not lose them with all the layers of colors
that I keep on adding. At this point, I can start
pushing a little bit harder on my pencil because I won't be
adding too many more layers. And it's time to just
push and pull really and adjust the colors according to what I see on my
reference photo. Hi, all the details with my
very sharp black pencil, I tried to define the contour of the eye as well as to the pupil. And once more I'll
work on my highlights. And the summer I'm really
pushing hard on my pencil. I'm adding more color
with the yellow ocher. And this eyes you can see is not the most colorful
because it's very lit. So it's kind of washed out. But you still want to
give it some color. And the brightest color is that you'll be using will
be the bronze for the shadow and the yellow ocher for the actual color of the eye. Once you satisfied with it, and it's time to add more details to the
rest of the head.
6. Final Touches: Now that we're done with the I, and by the way, if you want to, you can just draw the eye
with a white pencil just to keep the drawing black
and white. It's up to you. I thought that adding a touch
of color was pretty nice. But anyway, now that
we're done with the eye, we're going to add
another layer of white. We're going to define
the details a bit more and make that
white pop more. So it's basically
the exact same thing that we did for the first layer, the white layer, except that now we can push
harder on our pencil. We draw an animal with
colors, with colored fur. We have to be careful and
really build all the colors, kind of like what we
did with the eye. So we start with very
light pressure on the pencil and slowly
build the layers. But for our cat, we're only using a couple of
layers with a white pencil. So the first layer was to
establish where everything was. The second layer that
we're doing now is to really work more
on our values. And we can apply more
pressure on the pencil. So the wash on the inner ear right now
is kind of a gradient. There's one side that's a little bit brighter
than the others. So I pushed a little bit
harder on that side and I made it fade towards
the inside of the ear. It's going to be in color and we'll add it in a little while. And same with the
folds of the ear. We're just establishing
a barrier with that white against
the black paper. It's kind of like putting
Jeff So on a canvas to be able to use it with
acrylic, for instance, if we don't put that
white on the paper, we won't have that
opaque layer to prevent the black of the paper to
show through the colors. For the long hair again with long wispy lines and more
pressure on the pencil. As I said earlier, that area of the nose and
the left cheek there, some of the brightest. So the white really, even though it's not white fur, the white really needs to
stand out right there. So don't hesitate to push
harder on your pencil. Now on the edge of the nose, you don't need to show
any further line. But on the bridge of the nose, do draw some hair. Defining the hair a little
bit more around the eyes, but it's not very bright there. So don't push too
much on the pencil. And on the cheek, which
is the busiest area, I make sure that I
follow the direction of the hair that I keep my eyes
on the reference photo. And it's another chance for
me to make sure that I get it right if I made some mistakes earlier than
I can correct it now, the edge of the mouth
and the chin are also areas that catches
the light a lot. So I pushed hard on my pencil. At some point on the chin, I realized that I put some
white where I shouldn't have. So I use my black pencil to draw black hair back
into the highlights. If that makes sense, the black pencil is very useful
to help correct mistakes. Now for the whiskers, I noticed that they
catch the light in some areas and they're a bit darker and some other
areas like on their tips. So I'm only adding highlights. What are the cashflow
light the most? Now it's time for the final
details with my black pencil. And I really need to
keep it nice and sharp. So I'm basically pushing the black hair back
into the highlights. Some drawing again,
some wispy lines, but going into the
white area that I drew, and that creates
a nice gradation between the all-black area
and the highlighted hair. I hope this makes sense. In any case, it just, it shows some black lines as black hair and you can see
better maybe with the ear. I'm also defining
the shadow areas a little bit more were added. Too much of a glaze of
the white inside the ear. I'm covering it a little bit to very lightly with a black. I'm going through my whole
drawing trying to make sure that my highlights
are nice and bright and that the details were defined with
my black pencil. Alright, so now it's time to add some slight color to
the inside of the ear. I started with the
clay rose and add a very light wash over the white layer that
I already put down. And I'm only trying to tint it, not to color it. So it's a very,
very light touch. And I'm adding this
color on the inside of the ear as well
as on the folds. Now with the French
gray, 50 per cent, I'm going over the Clare
Rose lightly just to mix the colors together
because I do not want the ear to be too pink. I wanted to tone it
down a little bit. And again, I use a
very light pressure with my light umber pencil. I did the exact same thing
but only on the folds, So only on the
outside of the ear, still with light pressure. I'm back with my French
gray 50 per cent. I go over the light umber
to tone it down again. I just want the inside
and the outside of the ears to be a
slightly different color. Now this time I wanted
to try something new, but before I get started, I just realized that there
were a few details that I forgot to add with my
regular black pencil. So once again, I made sure
that it was nice and sharp. And I added the black hair over the colors that I just added
on the inside of the ear. Now with the Darwin's
lead drawing pencil, instead of using it
directly on my drawing, I decided to apply
it on a sheet of paper and I'm only
using printer paper right now and rub it with a paper towel so that the pigments will transfer
onto the paper towel. And I could transfer
it onto my drawing. And by doing that, I can actually add some softer shadow effects in some areas on my
drawing and soften, soften the edges
of the highlights. Now at some point
I realized that printer paper was not very good. It's just to smooth. So I used a scrap piece
of Stonehenge paper and I scribbled on it again with
my black drawing pencil. And this time I was able to
lift a lot more pigments. So play that on the
edges of the highlights. And it really gives
a much softer look. But because it's not very
accurate and precise, I ended up using my white
pencil again to add more highlights the
exact same way as I've been doing since the
beginning of the drawing. If you don't have a door
went black drawing pencil, you can always use charcoal
or what would work really nicely actually would
be a black soft pastel. Either stick if you have a
pen tester will be awesome. If you don't just
irregular stick, you can just rub
your paper towel on the stick itself
and then apply that, that pigment on your paper. I think it would look very good. Just don't overdo it
because you don't want to cover all
your white lines. So now it's time
to simply work on those last highlights
on the eye, around the eye to the tear duct and those
little areas that I covered a bit with the pigments
from the drawing pencil. Now you might notice that especially the long
hair inside the ear, by covering some of it
with the black pigment, you've created a mid
tone that you have some black lines that you did with your black
pencil earlier. You have some white lines, the original white
lines that were covered with the black pigment, they are more like grayish now. And then you have your brand
new white lines over it. So you have three
different colors. And that gives it a
lot of dimension, a lot of volume, and it makes it look
a lot more realistic. Now I'm using my prismacolor, black pencil very lightly
to soften the tip of the line at the base of the ear so that it doesn't
stop abruptly. And the same for the whisker
on the side of the head. It kind of shows that whiskers
coming from the black fur. So you don't see the
root of it because it's softened by the
black of the firm. Here I realized that adding
those white highlights, the shape of the skull
was not quite right. So I added a little bit more of the black pigment
to shape it, and then a few white lines to
round it a little bit more, a little bit of cleaning up with a soft brush and maybe a little bit of dabbing
with the postal potty. And our drawing is all done.
7. Last Thoughts: This was our fourth class of colored pencils
on black paper. I hope you enjoyed
combining two classes together to experiment
on a full drawing. It's been a lot of fonts in your progress with
the previous classes, and thank you all for
sharing your drawing so far. You guys are doing a fantastic
job and I can't wait to see the artwork you create
with this class as usual, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate.
I'm here to help. Thank you all very much
for joining me again today and I'll see you
soon with another class.
Sandrine Curtiss, Artist, explorer.
