How to Draw a Festive Gnome: Christmas Drawing with Colored Pencils

1. Introduction: It's nearly Christmas, and I absolutely love a seasonal drawing. With that in mind, how could I not draw this adorable little guy? A really fun Christmas gnome. Now, you may think that this is quite a tricky drawing, specifically because of the white bid. But actually, if we can focus on what is really here, what we can really see, it's not as hard as you might think. My name's Gemma Chambers, and I've been making online art tutorials since 2020. I've helped tens of thousands of people improve their art. But today I want to do something quite fun. I want to draw this little Christmas gnome. I will talk you through all of the materials that you'll need to create this drawing, and then we can start working through the process. And if we break this down into a series of small steps, it's not as difficult as you might expect. Let's start drawing. 2. Class Project - Drawing a Christmas Gnome: Now the class project is to draw this little gnome. I picked this for a couple of reasons. First up, it is a reasonably simple drawing. Although it might look quite complicated, particularly with the bid, the bulk of the drawing is just a series of light gradients. So it's going to be reasonably simple to create. I also particularly like it because it's got amazing contrast. It's got some really good light areas, some really good darks, and a good amount of midtones. Will show you everything you need to know to create this nome, including how to make this sketch. But if you want to use my sketch, I have included it in the class resources. Once you've finished drawing your nome, please do make sure you upload it into the class projects. I would love to see what you've done. Let's talk about the materials you'll need to create this nome. 3. Materials You'll Need for Drawing with Coloured Pencils: Let's talk about the materials you'll need to complete this drawing. And the most important material is a set of pencils. Now, I'll be drawing this with polychroms colored pencils. These are a professional grade of colored pencil, but you don't need pencils as expensive as these. It is more than possible to create this drawing with something much cheaper like Crayola, for example. Using the set of 60 polychromos. I would say it would be easiest to use at least a set of 36, just to give you a good choice of color. Next up, you will need the right kind of paper. In order to create this nome, we're going to need to build up the pencil in a series of light layers, and we need the type of paper that is going to be able to take those layers. So we won't be able to use something like sketch paper or printer paper. That's not going to work with this method. I like using something called bristle board. This is a very smooth and thick paper, almost thick like card, and that is able to take those layers. Next up, you will need a pencil sharpener. I use this hand crank pencil sharpener. I particularly like that I can change the blade when it gets blunt. But you don't need a pencil sharpener as fancy as this. As long as it makes a really nice and sharp point on the pencils, that's the most important thing. Next up, if you're creating your own sketch, you will need a pencil ruler and an eraser. The next material you'll need is actually not something you can buy. This is something you'll have to make. I'm talking about color swatches. For every set of pencils that I own, I swatch out all of the colors. I go from as light as I can go to as dark as I can go, and then I label each of the colors. And that shows me what they look like actually on the paper, rather than relying on the lead or the barrel of the pencil, which don't tend to be very accurate. I can then use these swatches to compare to my reference photo, and it's so much easier to find the right color. Now, this is quite a time consuming process, but it's not something that you need to do frequently. The swatches that I've got are at least 5-years-old. The final thing that you'll need is some way of looking at the reference photo. For every drawing that I create, I always work from a reference photo. Because I work realistically, I find this is the best way to draw. Now, I like looking at the reference photos on my iPad. I particularly like that I can zoom in to see all of the details. But you don't have to use this. You could always print out the reference photo. So you will need a set of colored pencils, the right kind of paper, a pencil sharpener. If you're creating your own sketch, you'll need a pencil ruler and an eraser. You'll need to make some color swatches and you'll need some way of looking at the reference photo. Let's think about creating this sketch. 4. Sketching the Outlines: Before we can put down any of the colored pencil, we first need to make our sketch. I like doing this with something called the grid method. This is where you put a grid on your drawing paper and a grid on your reference photo, and you only draw what's in each individual square. This not only helps to get your proportions much more accurate, but it means that rather than trying to draw a gnome, you're just drawing a series of shapes, and it ends up much more accurate. Like to work quite systematically working from the left towards the right. And once I've filled in every square, I then erase my grid lines. Now you'll notice here that my pencil is quite dark. In actuality, you want to be pressing as lightly as possible. You want to barely be able to see it so it doesn't show through at the end. Also, if you have a lighter grid, it'll be much easier to erase those grid lines. Now, if you want to go through the grid method in a lot more detail, check out my beginner's guide to colored pencils. And if you want to use my sketch outlines, they are in the class resources. Now before we move on to adding in some color, let's take a look at the reference photo. 5. Studying the Reference Photo: Whenever I'm drawing anything with colored pencils, I always like to take a really good look at the reference photo before I get started. This is a really good opportunity for me to look at the key colors and shapes and really get my bearings on what is where. So let me show you what I mean, and it'll make a lot more sense. And actually, this looks reasonably simple. Probably the most complicated part of the drawing is the bed. This is a white beard, but in actuality, it's not really made up of white hair. When you really look, although we think of this as white, there's some reasonably dark patches in here and it's kind of a cold gray, I would say. You can see that it's almost sorted in some sections into little clumps of hair, so I'm going to want to draw these and generally build up a kind of flicking motion texture going in the direction of the hair. And although it's generally going down, as I say, some of it's going this way, this bits going this way. This bit over here is going along and then down. So I want to be bearing that in mind, looking at the red sections of the gnome. Particularly looking at the hat, I'm noticing that it's got quite a prominent patch of light here and here. And actually, particularly here, this is so light that it doesn't really look red. This looks more like a pink to me. The hat around here looks more like a bright red, and in these sections, it gets really quite dark. Looks more like a reddish brown, I would say. Maybe even something like the walnut brown would be good for around here. And same on the gloves. There's really dark line going through here. And along the back here, this is so dark, I think, particularly because it's against the black body of the gnome, and it's got a very dark shadow underneath. So the last thing that I'm particularly noticing on this is that all of these gloves and feat shoes have a line running through them. So I again want to draw that. It's like a little bit of extra detail. There's not a huge amount of detail on the gnome. So I do want to get in the detail I can see. Those are the main things initially that I'm noticing about the reference photo. Let's start drawing. 6. Building up the Base Layers: As always, I want to begin here by putting down some very light base layers and generally marking out what I can see. I want to just get a framework that I can then build on in the next few chapters. So I want to begin by putting down the lightest color that I can see in each section. As I mentioned a second ago when we were looking at the reference photo, the lightest color on the hat on the red sections actually is more like a pink. So the closest pink that I can see in my swatches is probably the rose carmine. It's quite a bright and vibrant pink. I think it will be a good starting point that I can build the rest of the red sections on. So I am literally going to put this pink down anywhere where there is red. So you can see right now I'm putting it on the little glove. I'm not worrying about any of the details on the glove, so like that line going down the middle. I just want to block this and then move on to the hat itself. You'll see here that to make it nice and neat and tidy, I've worked around the edge first. I've just marked out where the edge of the hat will be, and then I can shade up to that point. I just think it makes it a bit easier, particularly because the sketch is so light. Now, as always, I particularly want you to notice how I'm putting the pencil down. So I'm lightly going around the edge, and then I want to shade. First off, want to be shading really, really lightly. We're going to need to build a lot of colors on top of this, not only a series of lighter reds, brighter reds, darker reds, but all of those browns that I mentioned. So I need to press lightly so that I am able to put all of these colors over the top. To help me press nice and lightly, you'll notice that I'm holding the pencil about halfway down the barrel. Holding the pencil back here stops me from being able to press too hard. Other thing I want to do is to get this down as smooth as possible. The hat doesn't have a huge amount of texture to it at all. So I do want to try and get this down in a really nice and consistent way. So the main way that I like to do this is by working in circular motion. So you can see here I'm kind of working in ovals, just very lightly with a nice and sharp pencil, and I find it goes down much smoother. It doesn't have to be absolutely perfect, but I do want to get a reasonably soft and even coverage. Now that I've done the hat, I can focus on the feet down the bottom. Once again, doing that in exactly the same way, going around the edge and then lightly shading in the middle to try and get it as smooth as possible. On this particular foot here, I'm noticing that some of the hair is going over the foot. So you'll see some of the beard hair is slightly going over the foot here. So I just want to avoid that half of the foot. So I've just drawn a line down the side, and we'll deal with that in a little while. And then let's do the same to the other foot over here. And then at least we've got something marked in for all of these red area. Now I want to get some color down on the nose. The nose is the only area in the drawing that is kind of skin color. So I want to be putting down a pink again, but I'm not going to put down the same pink. I want more of a kind of skin color pink that we can build on and adjust the color a little bit later. So I'm using the coral pencil here. This is the closest that I have to skin color. And once again, I'm just very lightly filling in the whole of the nose. You can see how lightly I'm working here. I'm really not wanting to put a lot of the pencil down at all. I do just want to get something on the paper that I can build off because I want to be getting some pencil down over the whole of the drawing, I want to have the lightest color in each section. I now want to look at the bid. So as I mentioned, the lightest color in the bid, actually, I wouldn't say is white. It's a very, very light cool gray. I'm literally going to block that in with this pencil here. This is the lightest cool gray I have in my set. It's cold gray too. And once again, I just want to shade this in really nice and lightly working in those circular motions. Although there is a lot of texture on the beard that I will want to build up because this is a base layer, for now, I just want to focus on getting something, a nice smooth base down that then I can build that texture on. I'm not worrying too much about where the beard ends, as long as I'm staying within where the gnome will be within the footprint of the gnome, then that's fine. Now I'm happy that I have something down on almost every area of the gnome, the black section of the body I will add to in a little while. I can start building up some of the other areas. So I'm going to draw my attention back to the red section. Now I want to be moving on to a brighter red. Maybe not the bright red that I would usually use, but I do think it's probably a closer match to what I see in the reference photo. And I am literally going to go over all of these sections again. So I want to go over the whole of the hat, and there are just a couple of areas that I'm going to want to avoid. On the most part, I'm doing exactly the same as I did with that pink at the very beginning. So holding the pencil further back with a nice and sharp pencil and pressing really lightly so that I build up this really nice, smooth and even cover. I want to be doing is avoiding any areas that look a bit more pink. So, for example, this line along here looks pretty pink to me. Up here, looks very pink, and maybe along the end here as well. So I'm just going to ease up as I get towards the end here, put a lot less color on, particularly the top of the hat in this section so you can see how lightly I'm doing then I can focus on adding a little bit more detail along the edge of the hat. So along here, I just want to build up a bit more of the color along the seam, and then I can start to focus on these bottom sections. But really on the gloves and the feet, I am just doing exactly the same as I was before, very lightly filling these areas in. Again, I'm reasonably happy with how the red sections are looking for now. I will build them up more in a second. But what I really want to focus on now is the bid. So the bid is going to take quite a lot of building up. There's a lot of texture that we need to add, and I think it would be good to get that started now. So I'm actually going to use the same cold gray as I did a second ago for putting down the base layer. But I'm going to use it slightly differently. My goal here is to just mark in where these most prominent sections are, as well as building up a little bit of texture. So the absolute most important thing here is that I have a really sharp pencil. I have sharpened it to a really good point, and I will every time it looks a little bit blunt or feels a little bit blunt, I will resharpen it. All I'm doing here is flicking my pencil, gently brushing it back and forth against the paper. So I just want to be making some very, very soft marks. You don't expect it to look really prominent at this point and with this pencil. And the main things I'm thinking about is the length of the hair, as well as the direction of the hair. So as I mentioned when we looked at the reference photos together, the hair isn't all going in the same direction. It's going in similar directions but not the same. For example, this hair here is kind of going straight down. This hair here has a bit of a kink and then comes round. This hair is going a little bit more to the side, pointing towards the bottom left. Whereas there's another kind of clump of hair here that's coming more straight down. And then this hair here has a little bit of a bend and a flick. This hair here is coming straight down, whereas this hair is going more towards the right hand side. Because all of their hair is very, very long, I need to be making really long flicks with the pencil. But on the most part, in terms of direction, that is what I'm noticing and what I'm trying to build in. Now, there are some areas that are much darker than others. I'm kind of roughly marking them in by going over the area a few more times, but I will need to mark them in with a darker pencil than this. It's not going to be enough with this light gray. But we can build that up with a darker cool gray in a minute and maybe even the black. Again, let's go over this with that darker gray pencil. This is cold gray four. And you can maybe see a little bit clearer what I'm doing here. So again, I'm gently brushing my pencil against the paper. But I am having more of a focus now on the darker areas. So, for example, here around here and here, down here, down here, as well as around here and in many ways, I think it's a little bit easier to see where you need to add this if you look at the reference from a little bit further away because then it's just a bit easier to see where those darker areas are. So I can again build up all of these flicking motions, and it's starting to look a bit more like a bid, and at least we've got a bit of a clearer template to work on. From here, I want to think about putting some color down on the body of the gnome. His body looks like a black, maybe a very dark brown, but I'm going to put this in as black for now. The thing I want to be really careful about is because the beard is against the background. I don't want to have really abrupt lines around the bid. What I'm going to do, I can start off by just marking the edge of the body here going along the line that I marked in from my sketch. Then what I want to do is find a way to create a really soft line between the bid and the background or the body. So you'll notice that I'm making flicks once again, but this time I'm making reasonably small flicks going up and into the bid. And then once I have done that around the edge, I can then use circular motions to block the area in. And that's just going to give the bid a really nice soft edge, again, that we can build on. You can see me making light flicks going up and into the bid, and I can work sort of one clump of hair, I guess, at a time. And then once I've made all of those flicking motions up into there, I can use the circular motions to block it in. Now, I am noticing as I go around here, particularly the kind of shape and those again, sections of hair of the bid. So, for example, I'm noticing that there's a slightly darker line up here, a slightly darker line Here as well as here and here, for example. So if I use my pencil to make flicking motions going up a bit higher in these areas, it's again going to be all part of me mapping in the shape of the bid and making my life a little bit easier as we go here. So, along the bottom, you can see that I've made flicking motions all the way along here, and then there's quite a lot that I can shade in because there's quite a lot of the black that's visible down the bottom here. Now, the most important thing, as I've said, is you want to be working really lightly with a sharp pencil. That is absolutely the key to making this look as soft as we need it to. Once I've worked my whole way around the bottom of the gnome, again, I think it's looking much better. It's looking like it's going to be a bit easier to work with. We kind of are really starting to get our bearings now what needs to go where. Before I move on from the black, I also want to use this to just mark in where those absolute darkest areas are going to be. So a lot of them, I've already pointed out, where there's kind of shadows in and amongst the beard hairs. Now, as I say, it is so important to press lightly. I don't want really harsh, thick lines here that's just going to end up ruining the whole look of the bid. I'm pretty happy with how the beards marked in. I want to be thinking about any other main shapes that I want to be marking in. So actually, looking at the nose of the gnome, you'll notice that there's quite a bit darker shadow around the bottom here. It's generally lighter at the top. So actually, before I move on to the next color, I'm just going to go back to that. And I would say that this is a cold gray very similar to the color of the bid. So actually, before I move on to mapping out the next color, I'm just going to go back to that cold gray and shade in this area here a little bit, just to mark in where that shadow is going to go. The last thing I'm going to do in this chapter to really help me mark out these last few shapes so that I know exactly what needs to go where. I'm going to move on to a particularly dark red. This is the darkest red that I'll use in this drawing before we get to the darker browns that need to be added into the hat, for example. I want to use this red for now to mark out those very dark areas. Mark out, for example, the line that's going through the glove. Line going through the glove. There's a lighter patch just underneath the line. Note that the line goes straight and then up. And then there's also a very dark shadow underneath that kind of meets up with the line, and then a little bit round here, but not a lot. That's what I want to be adding in on this glove, getting that marked in, it's going to make my life a lot easier before we move on to the darker colors in the next section. Want to be doing exactly the same on the hat. I want to be particularly looking at where those darkest areas are. Now, as far as how I'm putting this down, you'll see that it's particularly dark. There's a dark crease along here, a dark shape here. There's a dark shadow here as well. And generally, it's pretty dark where the hat is meeting the head or the face. There's also some darker sections along here and up here. So that's what I want to be doing in this section. Now, as far as how I'm putting this down, I once again want you to notice that I'm holding the pencil further back and pressing really lightly. I still want to be doing that in the same way. Although we are now starting to map in some of the actual shapes, I still want to be pressing lightly. I don't want to be going in really hard with this pencil. Worry that it all looks so light and it's not looking particularly vibrant red. We will increase the vibrancy a little bit later on. So as I work my way up, I would say that there gets to be a few more details. So, for example, there's a kind of crease here goes this way and up here. And then there's all of these creases along here. Now, I did mark these in in the sketch, so I can still just about see it. And I want to be going over these, so marking in each of the lines and then shading around the top, marking in the line, and then shading around the top. As I get round here, there's this kind of zigzaggy shape up the top, so I can mark that in and then shade around it. I also want to be drawing this line along here, adding a bit of extra shading around the end, a bit of extra shading around here and here, and adding some more shading around this section all along the bottom to around here. But I don't want to shade all the way up to the line because it's much lighter and brighter red here. Though it's not looking amazing, it looks a little bit kind of harsh and the sections aren't massively clear. That's okay. This is really a case of trying to get the bearings so that as we work towards the darker colors, we know what needs to go where. So looking at the feet now, once again, this has got a line running through it. You'll remember before, I didn't really shade in and add any base layers by where the bed is on the right hand side of this but using the same method as I did where we would put in the black down as a base color around the body. I just want to be making flicks up into the beard section so that, again, it's not a really harsh line around here. And then I can add some light shading. So most of the shading on both of the feet need to be down the bottom, and they've both got lines running through kind of the center. And then this hand here, this glove, actually doesn't have a line running through it, but it's generally darker on the left hand side and at the bottom and lighter at the top. By the end of this chapter, you should have a gnome drawn out that actually looks reasonably like a gnome, really, really pale without a huge amount of detail to it. What we want to be doing in the next chapter is really starting to build up some of those darker colors and brightening everything up a little bit. But that is it for this chapter. 7. Adding in the Darkest Values: Chapter, I really want to focus on getting the darkest colors in. Getting all of those marked out. 'Cause right now we've got something that is a little bit muted. So I'm going to start off here. I really want to focus on the darker reds. And a really good color to use for a dark red is the burnt sienna. It's kind of a reddish brown. And generally speaking, I do like to use it as if it's a really dark red. So I'm starting off working through this in a similar way to what I have before. So starting off on this hand on the left side and just shading in all of those darker parts. So particularly shading along the bottom, shading along that line. Leaving two lighter patches which are going to be a brighter red. Now, I would say here I'm using kind of light to medium pressure. I'm certainly not pressing full force, but I'm also not pressing really, really lightly. I want to build up a reasonable amount of the color, and what I want to be doing is just particularly marking in and going over these darker spots. So I can start out by going around the edge of the hat here. And then I can start focusing on some of the darker areas. So, for example, just above the nose, that's a particularly dark patch, as well as along the edge here where that kind of seam is meeting the hat. Can really mark out the shape over the nose here before moving on to some of the more prominent shapes on the right hand side. A lot of these I have already marked out. I'm just wanting to go over exactly the same thing again, but a little bit darker with a little bit of a darker color. Now, in terms of generally how I'm doing this is the same as we were doing in the last chapter. I am holding the pencil generally a little bit closer to the tip just because I want to be really precise with where the pencils going. I'm trying to mark this out much clearer and now much more accurately. Along here, for example, I have to be pretty precise with where the pencils going. I go onto an area like this where I can see that I want the area to be a little bit darker, but I don't need to be as precise. I can hold the pencil a little bit further back. Now you'll notice that here I'm using something on the end of my pencil. This is called a pencil extender. This is I find it far more comfortable when the pencils get even about halfway down, far more comfortable to hold them. And it enables me to hold the pencil further back, which I wouldn't be able to do if I just had the length of the pencil. Work my way over all of these bumps along here. You can see already it's given the hat a lot more depth, a lot more color, and I can work my way over here. So do you remember that towards the end of this section, there is quite a light patch. So, particularly around here, there's also this light patch around here. I need to make sure that I'm avoiding those areas because I'm going to want to put that brighter pink on them in a little while, make sure that I keep it nice and light. On the most part, there's not a huge amount to do on the end of the hat. The very tip of the hat is quite dark, but beyond that, it's mostly that mob top section. So from here, I can move on to the feet. Again, it's the same as I was doing before. I do want to be careful as I work around where this hair is because I don't want to again, have any really abrupt lines. I can just kind of use the flicking motions that I already put in here and just be careful around those. I can move on to the other hand and the foot. Once again, I'm going over a lot of the same areas where I put that dark red in the last chapter. Now, before I move on from this pencil, I want to do something about where this gnome is sitting. So right now, there's nothing underneath it. It's just a plain piece of paper. Actually, when you look at the reference photo, he has got quite a prominent shadow down here. In fact, you can't really tell where the body ends and the shadow starts. And I'm noticing that the shadow does have some kind of burnt sienna edges to it. So I'm going to use this pencil to just mark out where that shadow will be going. Now, it's not massively clear. I'm sorry, it is a little bit off camera, but I am literally going in a straight line along the bottom and then just fading it out underneath so that it's a nice kind of gradient down here, really lightly is the key. Once I've done this, what I want to think about is moving on to the next darkest pencil. From here, the next darkest pencil I'm going to want to use is the walnut brown. This is the darkest brown that's in my set. I'm pretty much going to use this to go over all of the darkest areas, the darkest areas being either the black area, as you can see I'm doing here, or a lot of the areas where we put the burnt sienna does actually need to be a lot darker than what it is right now. It's just a case of looking at the reference photo and seeing where those darkest areas are and then building it up in the same way as I did before, so nice and gradually. So I'm noticing that this area looks more of a dark brown. A lot of the areas around here, as well as these dark shaded sections all up here, and along here, this line, along here, this little patch, and at the end here. Those are the main areas on the hat on around here, I would. Does still look a little bit faded, even as I'm doing this. But that's just because it hasn't got the brighter red. Right now, we're not worrying about brightening things. I just want to focus on the contrast, getting the darkest values in. So that's why it kind of looks a little bit muted. Now, on the most part, what we need to do with this pencil, as I said, is a lot of the same as we've already done because I want to be building up the colors, building up, the reds and the browns on top of each other. It is a case of doing the same process. Fact that is still the case, I would say, as we get round to the hand around here. All the way, I'm going to add a little bit of extra detail beyond what we've already done around here by just adding in some small lines for the stitching that you can see on this little band that's going through. So this because it's on a glove, it's got these kind of lines of the stitches. As I'm working my way around the foot on this side here, I'm once again going to make flicking motions going up and into the beard hair. So very similar to what we did before in the last chapter, I just want to start doing it with a darker pencil. Now, as always, do remember that it looks much better. It works much, much better if you have a sharp pencil. Actually, I do pause the recording when I sharpen my pencil, but I am doing it a lot, every time that I feel like the lines are thicker than I would like them to be. So I'm just going to outline where the feet end and the body begins because I think it's going to make a more subtle line as we fade from the foot until the black body. I'm also going to use this pencil to just go back over the shadow along the bottom. So this shadow all along here, I want to go back over it in the same way as I did before. I want to make it darker towards the top and gradually fade out towards the bottom. Will make it a little bit darker beyond this, but I want to, as I say, gradually build up the color so I don't want to jump straight to black is the only color that I've got that's darker than this. Now, before I move on from this pencil, I am also going to use the brown to go over all of the black areas and make that a little bit darker. Now, again, this is exactly what I did with the black pencil in the last chapter. I want to be making flicks with the pencil going up into the bid, and this is made ten times easier because I've already marked this out roughly. Can kind of see all of the sections of the bid and see what needs to go where. And exactly the same as before. Once I have built up all of the flicking motions for a section, I can think about using circular motions and just blocking in the remainder of it. Now, the reason that I want to do this with brown, and I will go back over it in a second with black is I think it's just going to help make the edges a little bit softer. I only do black at the edges, I think it's going to end up looking a little bit wiry and a little bit harsh, and I want it to look much smoother than that. So by adding little flicks with the brown and then doing the same with the black in a second, the flicks won't all be at the same point, and it'll end up looking a bit more feathery. Now, I would say that I'm pressing reasonably firmly now as I am using the circular motions to block in a section. Just want to have a really nice and solid color. You can see that doing this is making his nose, for example, look a lot more muted, but that's okay. It makes it clear what we need to brighten up from here. In fact, when I look at the reference photo, you'll see that where the beard meets the body, there is quite a lot of dark brown. So particularly around here, you can see a lot of dark brown in these areas. So by building up all of the brown and building up these flicking motions in this section, it is going to show through at the end. So what I want to now think about is getting the nose looking a little bit brighter. As I say, it just looks way too pale at the moment. So we want to focus on building up a skin color, but also building up the shadow that I mentioned before that's kind of on the bottom of the nose. Before I do that, I am going to use the same brown, the walnut brown to just add a really mild, really slight shadow under the nose here. I'm going to go back to the coral pencil. This is the pencil, the only color so far, I think that I've used on the nose. I once again want to block this in using circular motions. Although I am now more focusing on the bottom half of the nose. As I say, you'll notice that it is darker around this bottom half and it's very, very light along the top. That's what I want to be making here. I do want to keep it nice and light at the top, but build up quite a lot of color, actually, towards the bottom. The most important thing though is that I have a really smooth gradient between the top and the bottom. I don't want to have any harsh lines. So now the nose is looking a little bit better, I would say, at this point. I think I'm going to build up the rest of the colors a bit more in the next chapter. What is really standing out to me now as is the main difference between the drawing and the reference is the bid. It looks way too light as it is at the moment, and there isn't really a huge amount of detail. So let's go back to that darker, cold gray, and I want to build up a lot more of the pencil. So I'm once again using this with the flicking motion. I want to be creating a really soft and textured look to the bid. And you'll see I am building up a lot of the pencil. So particularly where the bid is meeting the body, I don't want that to be really light. Generally speaking, you'll notice in the reference photo that it is quite dark in most places around the edge there, and I think it's going to help to blend the two areas a bit better. I'm also noticing that some areas are darker than others. So this little patch here is particularly dark, is really quite dark gray. There are a lot of streaks. I obviously want to be, again, looking at the direction of all of the hair here and building that up. But in a lot of places, as I say, particularly where the body meets the hair, it is really quite dark. So let's build this up with these flicks. Do make sure, as I've said a number of times, you have a really sharp pencil, that you are frequently sharpening your pencil. It makes such a huge difference on making it look realistic. And I am literally going through looking at the reference photo, seeing the direction of all of that hair, making flicks in that direction. It doesn't need to be perfect, but I do want to certainly use that as a strong guide. And once I've done this, I think it looks a little bit scratchy. I've only built up flicks with the pencil on really quite a light background. It does just look like it needs blending. So I'm going to do is go over the top of the bid now with circular motions, very, very lightly, and it is just smoothing this out. And I'm only going over the areas that are a little bit darker. So I like the areas that I pointed out a second ago. At this point, I want to be adding in the darkest color that I'm using in the drawing and really making that stand out. So I'm going back to the black. This is obviously the darkest color that I'll be using in this chapter, and it is also the last color I'll be using in this chapter. And this is a reasonably quick process now. It's quite clear the bits that need the black adding to. So I want to go back around here again, adding all those flicking motions, and you can see because we built up so much of the gray. It looks so much softer where the body is meeting the bid. I think it's made a huge difference where we built up the gray and from having the brown on there. So I can go round here in exactly the same way as I did before, and I do think it's really this section and the bid that makes this. If you do want to watch exactly what I'm doing, remember, you can watch on the real time section. But as I said, it is exactly the same as I've done before. I do think it is worth taking your time on this. I think that particularly where the bid meets the body is the most important part of the whole drawing. As I'm working my way from the left to the right, here I am also going over this section at the bottom. I want to go back over that shadow, making it a little bit darker. I don't really want to see where the gnome ends, where the body ends and the shadow begins because generally speaking, it just looks very dark at the bottom of the photo to me. I think it's going to look more effective like this. I can keep working my way around the beard. And once I've done this, I want to look for any other areas that needs the black. So I'm particularly looking at the corner by each side of the nose along here. I'm also going to add some very light flicks around here. I just want to make particularly by the nose, a little bit darker. As I've mentioned a few times, there is quite a shadow under here. You also want to add some very light flicks again, anywhere that needs to be a bit dark. I think I did do this on the last chapter as well. I'm just building that up a little bit further. And then they can start moving on to any other areas that need to be made darker. Particularly around the edge of the hat and on this section up here. As I mentioned, a few times, it is very dark up here, although there's a lot that I can do shading wise with the worn up brown. I do think it just needs to be taken that little bit further in this section. Again, I want to be focusing at the end here. So those are, I would say, the key darkest areas. I want to just go over this part of the glove again. And then at this point, what I want to do from here is work from these darker colors back down towards the lighter colors. So really, going back to those reds and pinks that I used at the very beginning, brightening up the whole thing. I think the main area that needs adding to now is the hat particularly needs brightening. By the end of this chapter, you should have a gnome that is reasonably detailed, but also still looks quite muted, certainly on the red front. But that is it for this chapter. 8. Brightening up the Colours: So in this chapter, I really want to focus on brightening everything up, particularly, getting those red patches really popping. But before we do that, I want to take a minute to focus on the nose. So the nose at the moment is looking too pale. What I want to do is build up a few different colours, just to try and get it looking a bit more vibrant. So, first off, around the bottom of the nose, particularly, it is a darker color than what I've got at the moment. So what I'm using is the burnt sienna. I just want to add a little bit, not a lot of this color just to make the bottom section of the nose darker. So when you look at the bottom of the nose, you'll see that all around here it is a lot darker. Up here, it's almost white or like a very light skin color. So I particularly I want to focus on building up this brown around here. And there even looks like there's some grays around here as well. Now, in the same way that I have done before, I'm working in circular motions, and I'm just very lightly building this up. You'll notice that I'm holding the pencil pretty far back. I've got a pencil extender on this pencil because it is quite short just to enable me to hold it quite far back. I can very lightly work in circular motions once again because I do want to get this as smooth as possible. So once I've built up this first color and really got the sort of gradient between the top and bottom section of the nose, nice and smooth. You can see I'm just very lightly going over this transition. I want to start thinking about the next color I'm going to build up. So I'm moving on to that lighter cold gray now. As I mentioned, I can see a lot of gray down the bottom here. Once again, with circular motions, building this up, going over that brown. I think the brown looks a little bit too kind of warm on its own, so I want to cool it down and kind of tone down that more reddish brown. And I can go up a little bit higher here. And I don't want to forget to go around the edge so it kind of blends a bit better into the beard. Now I'm going to move on to a very light yellow. This is the cream pencil. I just want to slightly adjust the color that I've got here. I think it needs a little bit of a yellow hint to it. I'm always comparing my drawing to the reference photo to try and figure out what the main color is that's missing. Now I'm generally happy with the nose. I'm happy with that skin color. I'm going to start focusing on all of the red sections. So what I want to be doing is starting from the darker colors, and I want to gradually be working my way down towards the lighter colors. So kind of the opposite of what we've done up until now. So I'm starting off here with the darkest color that I'm using on the bulk of the gnome. This is the walnut brown pencil. Just going over all of those same particularly dark areas that I have before. Just building them up a little bit more if I see an area that I think needs to be a little bit darker. Now is a good time for me to start layering a bit more of this color because I'm not going to be going back to it after I've completed this section. So I'm going around the edge of the foot where the foot is meeting the body of the gnome. I want to be going around some of the detailed lines on here. I also want to be looking for some of the darker areas on the hat itself. So, again, it's the same as what we've done up until now. I want to be going over, for example, these areas around here. This area around here is all a lot darker around this shadow here and these few shadows along here. And then there's all of these sections up the top up here, as well as this part here and here. You can see that I am now in some areas starting to press a bit firmer. So in the really dark areas where I know that I want it to be as dark as possible, I can press a bit firmer, but as I'm blending it into the surrounding areas, I'm pressing much, much lighter. I always want to make sure that I've got a smooth, blend smooth transition when I'm going from one color to another. Once I'm happy with all of these darkest areas, I want to move on to a slightly lighter color. So going through those same colors that I used earlier, I'm now moving on to that reddish brown, the burnt sienna again. And I'm going over a lot of the areas where I just put the walnut brown, maybe a little bit firmer, but also anywhere that just generally needs to be a little bit darker. So I'm going around the edges of the feet once again so that I can get a really smooth transition around the edge here. Can go around the bottom down here, around the bottom of the glove. Then I can go back over all of these really dark areas, maybe slightly extending out, as you can see I'm doing here. I'm just taking that dark color a little bit further. And generally seeing if there's an area that needs to be made a little bit darker, building up the color just bit by bit. I think it all becomes a lot clearer at this point where needs to be darker, where needs to be lighter because I've marked it out so thoroughly now. So I can go back over all of these shaded sections along here. I'm back along the edge here, and I am shading in more along here now than I did previously, particularly higher up on this section. Just below where I am now does get a lot lighter, but higher up, I need to build up a lot of those darker colors. Then I can move on to that darker red, and I'm really needing to put a lot of this color down. So I'm putting this in all of the areas that need to be darker, sort of rich red. Once again, I want to be doing this nice and lightly. I want to be gradually building up the color because most of this, I'm going to need to put the lighter red over the top as well. You can see that I have built up this red over where I put the walnut brown and the sienna brown to slightly change the color of those areas, make it more like a really dark red. On the most part, this red needs building up on the kind bottom half of the hat. Although I have deliberately left this lighter patch here because I'm going to do that with the brighter red. I'm also really going to ease up in this area. I want to make sure that I don't go over this little section here because this is more of a pink. I can once again go around the edges of the boots and the gloves, just to add a little hint of that red. Notice that each time I come a little bit more towards the middle so that hopefully at the end, we have a really nice smooth gradient on the area. It looks nice and soft. So now let's move on to the brightest red that I'm using throughout this drawing. This is that pale geranium. I'm once again focusing a little bit more around the outside of the boot, for example, but I am putting a light covering towards the center where I want it to be a lot lighter, suppressing firmer. I would say that I'm using quite a firm pressure now because I'm really wanting to create a blocked in smooth color, and I'm very confident with where this needs to go. So I can go particularly around the edge, but building up some light layers towards the middle of the shoe here. Want to be doing the same with the glove at the top. I just want to be looking for the lighter patch on each of these areas. So a lighter patch on the glove would be around here. This looks a bit lighter here. Probably looks a little bit lighter around here, more towards the middle, and it generally looks lighter around the stitching on this glove. So that's where I want to be easing up the amount of pressure I'm using so that it makes the glove or the shoe look a bit more three D. I'm pretty much just blocking in the whole of the hat section now, except for those few areas that I mentioned which are more of a pink. You can see that I'm still building this up on the bulk of the hat lightly and with circular motions, but I just want to keep building it up more and more. On the boots and the gloves, I did press a bit firmer towards the edge, but this is such a large area. And actually, the texture of the hat, the whole texture of, I think it's felt. I think it's going to look more realistic. If I build it up gently. This looks kind of slightly textured from the way that the color pencil builds up. I don't necessarily want to just go in really hard with the pencil on that section on the hat section. I've gone over a whole hat and also the feet. I want to keep working my way through those lighter colors. And the lightest color that I want to be using in this section is the pink pencil. See that I'm just blocking in this section exactly the same way as I have done before with circular motions, and it's creating a nice kind of light patch. It looks like the light is hitting that area. So now that I've filled in the pink, I'm just going to go over all of the other light patches on the feet that I mentioned a second ago in the gloves. I want to be thinking about if there's anything else I want to add, if there's anything else that I think is missing. So first up, I want to add a little bit of color just on these few strips down here. It's just a very small section. I think the main thing that's missing is the red isn't looking bright enough. So I'm going to work my way back through those last few reds. I think it all gets a lot easier that it's all marked in and I can really see what needs to go where. I'm going to start off by going back to that darker red, and you can see I'm working reasonably quickly, just going back over what we've already done and just building up that red a little bit more, still nice and lightly. But you can see that that's brightening it up a little bit extra. Just working my way up, going over it in the same way that I did. I want to make sure that I'm avoiding that pink section where the light is hitting. I'm also generally trying to ease up on the light patch, this patch here, for example, I don't want to lose all of these different sections that I marked in, all of those different light patches. So I can go back over this with that darker red, going over the gloves as well and the feet. Actually, once I've gone over the gloves and feet, I'm going to go back over the hat again, really building up quite a lot of this color, particularly on the right hand side, which is generally the more shadowed side. And you can see here I am now starting to press firma, specifically just on the odd few patches. I don't want to do it over the whole of the hat because I think that would be too much, and we would again lose everything that we've already marked in. But I can go over these darker areas much firmer on the right hand side where I do want it to be so dark. I'm just going to keep going until the hat looks right. I am happy with the gloves and the feet. I just want the hat to match the gloves a little bit better. But then that is it. 9. Summary: That is the end of this course. I hope you've enjoyed it and you found it helpful. The absolute number one thing to take away from this drawing is about white areas. They're not really white. In actuality, on some areas of the bid is really quite dark gray. The key is to draw what you can actually see rather than what you think you can see. Now, I hope you've enjoyed this course. If you have, please do leave a review and don't forget to upload your drawings into the class projects. I would love to see them. Happy drawing, guys, and Merry Christmas. I'll see you in the next course.