How to Mix Colours with Coloured Pencils: A Guide for Beginners

1. Introduction: Mixing colors with colored pencils can feel like a confusing and complicated task, particularly if you're not sure where to start. I want to show you today the method that I use to select and mix colors together and show you that it's maybe not as tricky as you'd expect. My name's Gemma Chambers, and I've been making online art tutorial since 2020. I've helped tens of thousands of people on my YouTube channel, but today I want to cover a question that I get asked quite a bit. How do you select colors for a colored pencil drawing? Now, I will talk you through everything you need to know to select colors, including the specific materials that you'll need and the full technique that I use. I'll then show you this technique firstly by creating just a little colour swatch to a banana and then using this technique to draw a slice of watermelon. Let's get started. 2. Class Project - Creating the Watermelon: For the class project, we will be drawing a nice and vibrant slice of watermelon. Now, I've selected this for a few reasons. Firstly, it is such a fun and colorful drawing. I always love drawing anything colorful. But even more so, the colors, particularly in the flesh of the watermelon, I don't really have a color like that in my set. I have some kind of similar colors, but we're going to need to mix a lot of colors together to mix the sort of pinky peach tones that you can see within here. I will show you everything that you need to create this slice of watermelon, including how to make this sketch. But if you would like to use my sketch, I do have them available in the class resources. Now, don't forget when you finish your drawing to upload it to the class projects, I love seeing your drawings. So let's talk about the materials that you'll need to select colors. 3. The Materials You'll Need to use Coloured Pencils: Let's talk now about the materials that you'll need to select colors and generally the materials that are needed for all colored pencil drawings. And the first material you'll need is a set of colored pencils. Now, I like drawing with either polychroms colored pencils or prisma color colored pencils. These are both professional sets. I particularly like how vibrant the colors are in both of these sets and how easy they are to work with. That said, you don't need a set of really expensive colored pencils. You can create really beautiful art with something much cheaper like crayola. What's probably more important than the pencils is the paper. It is much easier to create a really vibrant drawing with cheaper pencils on the right kind of paper than the other way around. So for all of the drawings that I create, I use something called Bristol Board. This is a really thick paper that is going to enable us to mix the pencils together properly. It's also really lovely and smooth, so it's possible to have really good control over those pencils. Now, you'll also need a pencil sharpener. I use a hand crank pencil sharpener. I particularly like that I can change the blade when it gets blunt. But you don't need a really expensive pencil sharpener. Anything that creates a really sharp point on your pencils is what you need. Final material that you'll need for now is some way of looking at a reference photo. Because I draw realistically, every drawing that I create is working from a reference photo. I find this is the best way to get all of the details needed for a realistic drawing. Now, I like looking at reference photos on my iPad. I particularly like that I can zoom in to see all of the details. But you don't need an iPad, you can always print out the reference photo. Now, there is one more material that you'll need, but it's actually not something that you can buy. It's something you're going to need to make. Let's talk about that in the next section. 4. Colour Swatches: There is actually one other material that you will need before you can get started mixing these colors together. And it's not something that you can buy. It is something you'll need to make. This is a set of colour swatches. So for every set of pencils that I own, I have swatched out my colors. I go from as light as I can to as dark as I can with each of these colors, and then I label it. And what that does is shows me exactly what each color looks like on the paper. Specifically the type of paper that I'm going to draw on. It stops me from making assumptions from the color of the barrel or color of the lead. I can go into this with a lot more accuracy. Now, they are quite time consuming to make, but it's not something that needs to be done frequently. To give you an idea, the set of swatches that I own, I've had for at least five years. And you'll see in a short while specifically how I use these swatches. But let's first think about how colors are mixed with colored pencils. 5. How Colours are Mixed with Coloured Pencils: So let's think about how colors are mixed together when you work with colored pencils. And they're mixed through a process called layering. This is where you build up the pencil really lightly in a series of light layers rather than pressing hard. By building one color up on top of another, you can drastically change the color that's on the paper and quite easily make new colors. Now, the most important part of layering is that you do need to press light. Do this, generally speaking, I hold the pencil much further back than you might expect. So rather than holding it really close to the tip, if I hold it back here, it literally stops me from being able to press too hard. So let's make a very quick little swatch, and I'll show you what a huge difference it can make to the color, building up one color on top of another. So you can see me starting off by building up a light green really lightly. And then I can maybe add a darker green over the top of that still very lightly, and you can see what huge difference it makes, adding this other color over the top. I can then add a yellow over the top of just a tiny amount of the color really changes the green that we've got here. So, now you've seen how much a tiny amount of color can change what we've got on the paper. Let's talk about how I know which color to add. 6. Practicing Mixing Colours with a Banana: Now you understand the general process of mixing colored pencils together. Let's look at how this works in real time, and I'll show you how I know which colors next. So I've just taken a random object from around my house, a banana, and I want to try and mix the kind of main yellow color of this banana. So I've got my colour swatches, and I'm going to try and make a little square swatch of yellow. And I want to start off by looking for the most obvious color that is within the banana. We've got these few yellows along the top, and we've also got these couple of Naples ochres around here. So looking at it, I would say that all of these yellows are a bit too bright, whereas these ones are a little bit earthier and look like a better match to me, and I think that this one here, which is Naples yellow is probably the closest match to start with. So let's put down a covering of that. Okay, so now we've got some color to be working with. We want to work out where we are adjusting from here. Now, this looks way too light in comparison to this. So I think the first thing to think about is toning this down a little bit. So I'm thinking about what the difference is between this and I would say that we need to add a little bit of brown to tone this down. And probably the brown that is most similar to the brown in the banana is this brown here. This is raw umber. I kind of think of it as a generic light brown. So you can sort of see some of that brown in here. Obviously, there's all sorts of shadows, which makes it a little bit harder. I think if we add some of this, it will tone the yellow down, and we'll be able to see a bit clearer where we go from here. So that has toned the yellow down. Let's see where we go from here. Now, at this point, I would say that the banana probably looks, I don't know, a tiny bit greener than the swatch. It's not green by any stretch, but it just has this ever so slight green tone to it. And so I want to add a green here. Ideally, we would have an almost yellowish green, but there isn't really one in here. So I want to go for more of a subtle kind of earthy green, and I'm looking particularly at this one here. This one does actually say earth green, yellowish in the name, but I'm not really convinced. It looks like yellow. But this is what I think we need to add a very light covering. And then we'll see if that gets us a bit closer to the banana. Okay, so let's take another look. And that's a lot of the kind of underlying colors, I feel. But the main difference now between these two colors is this is yellower. I think we need to be adding some more yellow back to this to try and get it a bit closer to the banana. Now, looking at the different yellows here. So I would usually use this colour again because I've already used this color, and that's probably what I'll do. It kind of looks quite similar to this colour. These colours are very similar, but this one's a little bit more orange. Same with this color up here, this one. It looks like maybe reasonably similar, but I think this is closer. But I will use the color I've already used and go back over the top of this to add that yellow back in. I do try and use the same colors rather than flitting around and using all of the colors of the set. If I can try and use the same color more than once, that's generally what I prefer. Are getting closer. So once again, we want to be thinking about the most obvious differences between these two colors. And it's getting a little bit harder as we go as it gets closer. Now, I think from here, we want a bit more of a kind of earthy tone. I feel like this looks a bit it's just a different shade of yellow, more of a kind of orangy brown yellow, rather than a bright yellow green. So I want to be thinking out of the swatches, which color is probably going to change this to be closer to this yellow. Particularly looking at some of the lighter ends of the colors. I'm looking particularly at this color here, the burn ochre. This is a kind of orangy brown. It's obviously way too dark on this darker side, but looking at the lighter side of the color, I think that might just change this a little bit to make it sort of more muted yellow closer to this yellow. No, it's important to remember that you don't necessarily need to get Perfect. And it doesn't matter. If you do something and it looks wrong, you can always put another color over the top to change the color again. And you can just keep changing it until it matches. And then that's changed the color quite nicely to be closer to the banana. I do feel like we're getting a lot closer. So from here, I once again want to be thinking about the main color that's missing. And I think, again, it is yellow. This still looks just a bit brighter yellow than this. So I'm going to once again use this colour and add more yellow on top of that orange brown. Okay, so let's again compare this to the banana. And I would say that I'm pretty happy with this. I would say that this is a pretty good match. So I would now say that this little colour swatch is the closest color I think I can reasonably get to this banana. It works exactly the same with a drawing, building up the colour gradually, adding one colour to another, but on a larger scale with more colors. So let's practice again and this time, I'm going to look at the watermelon reference photo instead. And we can try and generally match the colour to. 7. Practice Mixing Colour with the Watermelon: Let's do exactly the same thing as we did with the banana, but this time with the watermelon, this is slightly different, though, because the color range that is within the watermelon, there's a lot more choices. So I'm going to kind of pick a general mid to dark tone within the pink color, and let's try and mix this together now. So I want to be drawing in the main, as I said, mid tone color on some of this pink watermelon. I want to start off by looking for the lightest color that I can see within this watermelon. So I'm starting off by adding in a very light warm gray, and I'm just going to block this color over the area where I'm going to build up this swatch. Now, it's most important that we are pressing lightly. As I mentioned at the beginning, we want to be layering the pencil here. And in order for me to build a lot of pencil up in this area, I do need to make sure that I am pressing lightly. So you'll see that I'm holding the pencil further back here. I'm not holding it really close to the tip, and that literally stops me from being able to press too hard. Once I've blocked in this colour and I've got something down on the paper, I can then look for the most obvious color that's missing within my swatches. So the most obvious color that I'm missing is a kind of earthy pink. So what I can do is compare my swatches to my reference photo and find the closest match to that pink. So I think the closest match is the coral pencil, which is quite light earthy pink. So I'm going to block this color in over the whole of the swatch. You can see that that's given us a really nice and light pink patch, but it's not looking vibrant enough. It's not looking bold enough in comparison to the kind of mid tone color I can see in that reference photo. I want to add a slightly bolder color. So I can once again compare my drawing to the reference photo and think about what the most obvious color that I need to add here is. It doesn't need to be a perfect match. All I want to do is think about the most obvious color rather than the perfect color. All I really want to do at this point is make it a brighter red color. The watermelon is kind of a reddy orangy peach color. I don't really have a color like that in my set. What I do have is this pretty bright and vibrant red. This is kind of standard red, I would say. So I'm going to block that color in over the whole top. And you'll see that although this looks a bit too rich red, I guess, it doesn't really matter. We can build more colors over the top of this to adjust this color. So from here, I can once again pair this drawing and the reference photo to my colour swatches. And I want to think about the most obvious color that I want to be adding from here. So I now think that the reference photo is looking much more orange than the bright red color that I have at the moment. So I'm literally just going to take really what I think of as the only standard orange in my set, and I'm going to lightly add a layer of that over the top of the patch, and how much this is changing the whole color. The top half of this watch looks so different to the bottom half now. And as I say, really the only goal is every step to be making it that little bit closer. So now that is looking a closer color, but it's obviously still not quite right. So I once again want to think about the next most obvious color. Actually, I feel like particularly in some areas of the watermelon, it's still got a richer red than what I have at the moment. So let's use a darker red very lightly over the top. To just add a hint of this color, you can see how lightly I'm adding each color and how gradually it's building up. I think often people don't realize exactly how many layers it takes to build up and mix a color. Once I'm happy with this color, let's compare again. And from here, I think we should be adding more of that earthy pink color that I added before, so more of the coral pencil. I want it to become a bit more of a solid, bright color. I think here is, again, the most obvious color that I'm missing. I can't stress enough that I'm not trying to add in the perfect color. Just with every pencil that I add, I'm trying to make it that tiny bit closer to the reference photo. I can start going back to some of the same colors. So it's not a case of only using each color once. From here, I think it's now not looking bright enough. I have something that looks too light in comparison to what I'm trying to make on this swatch. So I can go back to that bright red that I use towards the beginning, build up more of this color. Or then going back to the orange and making it more of a kind of orange red again. So I can't stress enough how many times I go over an area and how many times I build up this same series of colors. It doesn't matter if I've already used the color. It is literally a case of comparing the drawing to the reference photo and thinking about the most obvious color that's missing. It's starting to get reasonably close to the kind of orangy pinky color on that reference, the main kind of watermelon color. But I think from here, it's maybe looking a bit too bright. So I can now use a really light layer of brown to tone it all down, make it a bit less vibrant and a bit more earthy before once again going back to that bright red and brightening it up. So I feel like it's looking a bit too pinky orange, and it needs to be a bit bolder at this point. So it doesn't matter if I've just toned something down. If I've toned it down, and then I think it needs brightening back up, I will still do that. And then I can also go back to that darker red and add some more of this color. So again, it's the same color that I've used before. I just want to keep building it up. So now it's got a really good rich red base, but I still don't think it's quite the right match for the color of the watermelon. So I can again compare to my swatches. And I think, again, it needs to be made a little bit more orange. It's looking a bit too deep red and not kind of orange, peachy colored enough. So let's add some more of that orange and then add some more of the coral pencil over the top of that to just smooth it all out and brighten it. I would say now that this watch generally matches the colors that I can see in that watermelon, more of the mid tone and darker colors. And that's how I go about building up those colors. So hopefully, that gives a pretty good guide on what it looks like to mix colors together and how generally I select each color. Let's now apply that to the watermelon. 8. Studying the Reference Photo: Before we get started with this watermelon, let's take a minute to have a really good look at the reference photo. I want to take a minute to look at the key things I need to bear in mind here. And let's start off by looking at the main section here, the inside of the watermelon. So to start with, I'm noticing that there's a kind of pink toned section in the middle for the flesh, and then there's this white area around the edge. It's important to note that this white area isn't really white. The background is a bright white. This is quite a bit darker than this background. Looks more like a kind of gray color, but maybe with a little bit of green, particularly towards the edge. Now, on the pink section, I'm also noticing here that it's not all solidly one color. There are some areas that are brighter like around here or around generally the seeds, it's both brighter and a bit darker. Also some lighter lines running through this section, and then darker areas around it. It's really if you squint, you can start to see how many darker or brighter patches there are. And some are really quite a bright or rich red like around here, around here, around this section up here. Some are lighter, more orangy kind of pink like around here. Now, I'm not going to want to build in absolutely every single minute detail that I can see of long hair because I'm not going to be able to see that from a normal distance, but I do want to generally get the main lights and darker areas all mapped. On the seeds, I'm noticing that they're not just solid blocks of black. Generally speaking, most of them have a little reflection running through the middle. So I want to draw in the black section whilst leaving that little light area. And some of the seeds have some pretty dark shading around them, like around here, around some of these seeds here. So I will need to draw that in as well. Looking at the skin of the watermelon, this is very patchy. So we've got some really quite bright green patches like around here, around here. All of these really bright. This is particularly bright green down here. But then there's also some much softer green patches, still light, but I'm noticing that this patch here is much less bright and vibrant than this patch here. Surrounding all of these patches, there's much darker areas. There's a dark green, but even around here, there's almost black green around here and particularly around the bottom. Now, down the bottom here, it does get extremely dark because of the shadow down here. I'm noticing that the black extends all around the edge down here as well. So those are the main things that I'm noticing initially, let's start drawing. 9. Creating the Sketch Outlines: Now before we can get started with drawing the watermelon, we first need to create our sketch. I always use the same method to create my sketch. I like using something called the grid method. This is where I draw a grid on my drawing paper and I put a grid on my reference photo, and I just draw what's in each individual square. So rather than trying to draw the sketch as a whole, I'm just drawing it in as a series of shapes. Can look at where the outline of the shape crosses the grid lines, and it gives me an idea on where those lines need to be. Now, if I'm drawing something that is really complicated, I can use a much smaller grid. And if it's a particularly simple object, I can use a much larger grid. Once I've drawn in my whole object, I can then erase those grid lines. Now, the key thing here is that you need to press nice and lightly for the sketch. I've pressed quite hard here simply because I want you to be able to see it on the camera. What I actually want is to have a really light grid that's going to erase really easily. I want to have really light sketch lines at the end so that it doesn't show through the colored pencil. Now, if you don't want to create your own sketch lines, you can use mine. They're available in the class resources. Let's start adding in some colour. 10. Building up the Main Shapes: I want to start this drawing in the way I usually would by starting with the lightest colors and working gradually towards the darker colors. So I want to be looking for the lightest color that you can see in each area on the drawing. And by the end of this chapter, my goal is to have everything roughly mapped in, have a good idea of what's going to go where. So I'm starting off by looking for the lightest color I can see in the white area. Now, as I mentioned when we were looking at the reference photo, the white area of the watermelon isn't actually white. It's more like a very light gray. Going to use this warm gray pencil. This is the lightest warm gray that I have in my set to block in this color, not only on the white section, but actually on all of the pink section as well. Now, I would say on some areas of the pink. Like around here, for example, around here. A few of these lighter spots, it looks to me more like the very light gray. It looks closer to this color than a pink. So that's why I want to be putting this color over the whole of the pink section as well. In terms of how I'm putting the pencil down, I want to be firstly pressing really nice and lightly. So you'll see that I am holding the pencil a little bit further back than maybe you would initially expect. I'm not holding it really close to the tip, and what that does is literally stops me from being able to press too hard. I'm also generally working in kind of secular or oval motions rather than just scribbling back and forth with the pencil, and I find that this helps the pencil go down more consistent. Finally, I'm making sure that I am working with a really nice and sharp pencil. Again, I find that the pencil goes down more consistently if it is nice and sharp. And that's all I'm doing for this first color. I'm just blocking in this gray over the whole of the pink and white section. You can see it's not perfectly smooth, but I do have something I can work. Now I want to look for the lightest color that I can see in the next section. So the lightest color I can see on the green area is a really bright and vibrant green. So I'm going to use this pencil. This is the light green, and once again, I want to go about this in exactly the same way as I did for the rest of the watermelon. So I want to be blocking in this color over the whole of the green section, still holding the pencil a little bit further back. This is a slightly shorter pencil, so I'm not holding it as far back as I otherwise would simply because it would be very uncomfortable. I'm still working in circular motions and working with a really nice and sharp pencil. And once I've gone all around that area on the left, I can then start adding a very thin line of this pencil around the general edge of the watermelon. You can see that the light green area does blend a little bit into the white or gray area. So I want to be adding that green all around here. So now that I've got something down in each area of the drawing, what I now want to do is be gradually working from the lighter colors towards the darker colour. My main goal here is to be marking in the main shapes and colors that I can see. So let's now put down the next lightest color that I can see on the pink section on the flesh of the watermelon. I now want to be putting down a very light and earthy pink. That is, I would say, the next darkest color I can see. So I'm using here the coral pencil. I haven't got a huge amount of very light pinks in my set. So what I'm doing with this pencil is just pressing really nice and lightly, and I'm pretty much blocking this in in exactly the same way as I did a second. Now I am only going over the pink section rather than going over the pink and the white area. But also, I'm making sure that I avoid any areas on the drawing that do need to stay very light. So I think the only area that's extremely light is this, I think it's a seed here. I think the rest of it, it looks like a kind of pinky gray. It looks like this similar color, but maybe slightly more on the pink side on all of these lightest areas around here. So let's just block this oral pencil in over the whole of the watermelon, but you can see that I have subtly left that white seed out. This is where it's good that I've marked in all of these areas with my sketch, and you can still lightly see the sketch lines. It makes it easier for me to see where I need to add areas like this. But once again, I'm still working in the same way. I'm still working really nice and lightly. Holding the pencil further back, working with a sharp pencil, and still working in those circular motions. You can see that it's not perfectly smooth, but I have a decent base layer that I can be building. From here, I want to be looking for the next darkest color in the area. And now I want to move on to a brighter red. So I'm looking at some of the darker areas on the watermelon and how this looks more like a light red, I guess, a bright but light red, not a really rich red, rather than a pink. I'm going to use the deep scarlet red pencil really nice and lightly. And I'm going to use this to get a bit of an idea for all of the patchiness that's on the watermelon. Now, this is probably the most time consuming part in this first chapter, but it is so important to really take your time to get all of these patches marked. Now, first up, you'll see that I am working in the same way as I have done already. I'm still working with a really nice and sharp pencil, and I'm still holding the pencil quite far back. And that is still helping the pencil go down more consistently. You'll see here that I am working with a pencil extender. This is something I screw onto the end of my pencil, which just makes it more comfortable to hold when it gets to a certain length. You'll see me using this throughout the drawing. They're a really good tool to have. So let's look at this section up the top here. I'm starting off by marking in this area here. So I want to avoid this light shape here, but kind of work around the top of it and generally block in this whole patch. I think it often helps to squint when looking at the reference photo, and it helps you look past some of the really fine details that are on here and see a bit more what's actually here. But I can use the sketch lines where I've marked in this seed, for example, help me see where this patch needs to end. So I can work around that seed, so around my sketch lines and then keep drawing in some of the other shapes that I can see here. And this is definitely a slow and steady section. Now, I'm actually going to use the seed markings a lot throughout this section. Because really the markings for the seeds are the only reference point that I have within this pink section. So I want to use where those seeds are to work out where all of these light and dark patches need to go. And I cannot stress enough that I expect this to look a little bit odd and a little bit patchy by the end of this section. As I said earlier, my only goal here really in this first chapter is to mark in where everything's going to go and really just get my bearings. I want to mark in these light and dark patches, even if they look a little bit too much or they look a bit too harsh. That's okay. I get a good idea by the end of this on where they need to go, and it will make my life much easier as I build on these colors. So let's look at some of the other shapes that I can see around I can see these very prominent lines that I've mentioned before coming along here. Underneath this line, there's much darker red. So I want to make sure that I fill in all of this and add shading here and on this line under this lighter little section. I want to add in darker red all around here. Around this lighter patch, I want to work around here, but generally add in the red around this section, as well as there's almost a darker line running along here with bright red on the tops of all of these seeds. As you can see, as I fill in all of these patches, I'm working around where those seeds need to be so that I can keep them that lighter gray. As I mentioned, a lot of the seeds have a light gray, little glint running through them. But also, as you can see, it looks a little bit patchy. It looks a bit peculiar, but that's okay. That's what we expect at this point. I can't stress enough how this is literally about getting my bearings using the marks that I've added from the sketch lines for those seeds as a guide to work out where all of these marks need to go for all of the flesh of the watermelon. So you can see that I've marked in where that light line needs to go, and I've marked in the darker section underneath it. Let's keep looking at what we've got here. So I can still see how bright it gets all around this bottom section really mostly it's by the seeds. So all along here, also along this top section along the seeds up the top. And then there's odd little patchy areas where there's lighter almost zigzags running through. So I want to avoid adding in those zigzags, but add the darker y sections around it, as well as building up some of this bright red on some of these bright red spots along here. As I get over to the right hand side, I'm noting that on this dip at the top, it's got a bright red line coming down here. It's also pretty bright around the top up here and around here and around here. And I'm just working in quite a organized way. I'm working from the left towards the right, building up all of these patches. Probably the most important few things from marking in all these shapes is, as I keep saying, but it is so important. You need to be working with a nice and sharp pencil, which is so it's possible to really control where this pencils going. And it's also so important to be pressing lightly. I don't expect to be getting everything perfect and mapped out exactly as it should be. So if I can work nice and lightly, it means it's far more forgiving. I can work out a bit easier where I need to ease up with the pencil. I've worked over the whole of the flesh of the watermelon, I'm left with something that looks a bit patchy like this. But I've worked around those seeds, and I've generally looked at the shapes I can see here. Now, before I move on from this pencil, I'm actually going to go back to the left and start working my way from the left to the right again, but just now putting the pencil little bit more over any of the areas that need to be a brighter red. So you can see I'm still working in the same way. I'm still working in circular motions. I'm still pressing really nice and lightly. I'm just building up more of the color over, for example, this bright red area at the top. And some of the areas by those light lines as well, where I know it needs to be a brighter red. And once again looking at my reference photo and squinting whilst I do it to really get an idea on where those bright areas need to be. And then I would say, at this point, I'm generally happy with the pink area of the watermelon. Start marking in some of the more prominent shapes on the skin now. So I want to start off by using a slightly darker green than the green I've got down already. So I've got this really bright and vibrant green, and it is going to take a few greens to build up the colors I can see in this section. I want to add in now the earth green yellowish. This is a kind of earthy green. I want to use this to look at my sketch lines and mark in any area that doesn't want to be very bright and light. So once again, this is a case of me getting my bearings and working out where all of those patchy sections need to go. And I want to shade around these sections. So this is made much simpler in that I already marked in a lot of these light areas. So I'm really just going around my sketch lines, working out which patches need to be lighter and which patches need to be the darker generally, you'll see I mark a line around the patch and then shade up to that line. I find that is the easiest way to do this. And quite quickly, I'm going to get a really good idea on what the skin of the watermelon will roughly need to look like. But as I say, here, really, I can still see my sketch lines, so I'm just working around those sketch lines and marking this. Once again, you'll see that I am pressing lightly and working in circular motions to try and make this as light and as smooth as I can. And I'm being very careful as I go around the edge of the watermelon because I don't want to have any sort of messy lines around this edge. I want it to be really nice and crisp. So once I've gone around all of those patches, I'm also going to add a very thin line with this pencil, once again, making sure it's a really nice and sharp pencil. I want to be going along this edge and just adding a very thin line like I did with the light green pencil, but I'm being more precise because this is a slightly darker then from here, I want to keep working from the lighter colors towards the darker colors. So the next darkest color I want to use is a darker green. So now that I've got a good idea on where all of these light and dark patches need to go, let's start refining that a little bit more with this pencil. This is the juniper green. I'm just building up a very small amount of the pencil anywhere that needs to be this color or darker. So I'm going around the patches of the watermelon. But I'm noticing, for example, it's a little bit lighter towards the middle of the patch, so I can ease up with how much of this pencil I'm using along here. Although most of the darker patches, I do think need to have at least some of this green. So you can see I am building up the pencil, particularly over where I put this last green. I'm adding a bit more generally around the edges of the light patches, I'm noticing that those edges are a little bit darker. So if I want the pencil to be darker, rather than pressing firma with the pencil, I'm going over the area more times, and that's going to build up a softer and more consistent color. And then once I've built up this green, I've got a real good idea on what this area needs to look like. It obviously needs a lot more color building on here. It needs a lot more contrast building up. But I have an idea on where all of these patches and lights and darks need to go. I can now move on to the next section. Now going to move on to a darker, cold gray. So I have two cold grays in my set, a lighter and a darker. And I want to use this pencil to mark in roughly where that shadow needs to go. The watermelon has a pretty prominent shadow, and right now I have nothing marked in for it at all. I want to be marking in where this quite crisp really line needs to go. I'm noting that the darkest area is from around here all the way along the bottom, and then to here. But even in the lighter area, you can still see a decent amount of shadow. It's still pretty prominent. So let's use this gray pencil to just nice and lightly mark in where that shadow needs to go. It will need to be a lot darker than this, but for now, I am, as I say, just wanting to get my bearings on what's going to go. But it's so important to note how lightly I'm pressing with this pencil. I don't want to press hard because I want to make sure this shadow does look really nice and soft and we can build more up later. So now I'm happy with the shadow. Let's move on to the next darkest color. And actually, I would say from here, I want to use the black pencil. Now, there are definitely some brown areas on the watermelon, particularly on the flesh of the watermelon. But I think the whole process is going to be so much easier if I have the seeds really clearly marked in now. So I'm actually using the black pencil. I'm going to use the sketch lines that I can still very lightly see and use what I've marked in for the pink section as a bit of a guide to mark in all of these watermelon seeds. So I'm really looking at the shapes that I can see on each of these seeds because we're not really drawing a series of seed shape. Noticing that this first seed has the lighter gray running through the middle, but it's got a much thicker and darker black section on the left hand side down here. I'm noticing that on this side, it's generally got the black going around the top edge, but it's a bit thicker on this left hand side. Whereas the next seed is much more sort of standard seed shape, I guess, but with that lighter section in the middle. I just working through these seeds one at a time, working out where they need to go within the drawing, but also looking at the shapes of the seeds to help work out where they need to go. Now, as I mentioned, I think that there are quite a few other darker areas around these seeds. But for now, I think it's just so much easier to mark in where they need to go. And then I'll be able to mark in those darker areas around them a bit later, maybe in the next chapter. Once I'm happy that I've got all of the seeds marked in, that's really helped me get my bearings on where everything else needs to go. Let's think about if there's any other areas where I need to be building up some of this black. So let's start off by focusing on the green section of the watermelon. And as I mentioned earlier, this whole area down the bottom needs to be so much darker than it is at the moment. It has a very dark shadow down the bottom down here with really some very crisp lines around the edge. So let's build up a little bit of the black down here on any area that needs to be really dark. Just adding a little bit of the black all along the edges of some of these lighter sections. So I'm noticing how dark the green is along here, along here. But also a little bit up here. So let's add these few darker areas up the top up here as well. You can see I'm not adding a huge amount at this point. And then I can really start building up some of the black on that darkest area of the shadow. And that is all I want to do in this s chapter. You can see that I have started from the lighter colors work towards the darker colors. It's not a case of needing to add in absolutely every color along the way. It is really a case of just trying to put something down on the paper and trying to get all of the main shapes and colors marked in. Then from here, it's going to be so much easier to start refining things better, brightening everything up, and adding in any other details. By the end of this first section, you should have a slice of watermelon reasonably clearly marked in. And as I say, we can start building on it a lot more in the next section. Let's just tidy up the edge of the watermelon one more time and add a bit more black into that shadow underneath. And then that is the end of this first chapter. 11. Brighten up the Pink Section: Now this chapter, I just want to focus on the pink section of the watermelon and trying to make it look brighter, more vibrant and more accurate to the reference photo. So I'm going to start off by adding in some of the more prominent shadows to this section. So I'm starting off here with the darkest brown that I've got in my set. This is the walnut brown. I'm using this around the seeds. So I'm looking at how dark the shading is around this seed. The seed itself, I would say is black, but this is a very dark, reddy brown all around here, coming around here. You can see, particularly the dark brown around this line around here. You can see some of it around here. Just on all of these seeds, they're all surrounded by these very dark shadowed areas all around here. Particularly, you can see how dark brown this area. I want to do is use this brown to add those sections to add the areas that need to be darker. So because I've already marked in all of the seeds, this is a little bit easier than it otherwise would be. I can work around one seed at a time, looking at where those darker areas are and adding in lightly any of those darker areas. Also look at adding the dark areas between the seeds. So again, it's easier for me to work out where these dark patches need to go because I can use those seeds as a bit of a guide on what is going where. Now, just like we did in the last chapter, I still want to be pressing nice and lightly here. I'm going to need to build up a lot of color on this flesh section. So I want to be pressing lightly so I'm able to build all of the colors. I am just working through one seed at a time. There is the odd area, which is a bit darker away from the seeds, but generally speaking, actually, it's usually towards the top of the seed like I'm doing here. That's where the darker area generally needs to go. Now you'll notice here that even though I'm pressing lightly, I am holding the pencil much closer to the tip. Because I need to be really accurate about where this pencil is going, I don't want to hold it far back like I usually am holding it closer to the tip so that I really have a good amount of control over where it's going. Now, I can still press lightly when I'm doing this. I just need to have a bit more pencil control. I'm really focusing on pressing lightly, whereas if I hold it further back. It literally stops me from being able to press too hard. Also see I'm still generally working in those little circular motions. These are much smaller circular motions because I'm filling in much smaller areas now. But I'm still wanting to focus on putting down the pencil lightly and making it nice and smooth. And just like before, I am also making sure I'm working with a sharp pencil. Now, because I'm using polychromos in this drawing, I do find that the pencil doesn't wear down too fast, but I still need to sharpen it frequently. If it gets a little bit blunt, I tend to sharpen it. Once I've gone my whole way along the drawing, you'll see, once again, I'm working from the left and going towards the right side. I think it's just easiest to work along these seeds one at a time. What I can then do is compare my drawing to my reference photo and once again, think about the most obvious color that's missing from here. So what I particularly want to do at this point is start brightening up some of the red areas. So I'm using a darker red here. This is the middle cadmium red, and I'm going to use this to go over all areas that need to be darker, richer or brighter. Let's have a look at the reference photo, and I'll show you what I'm seeing here. I'm looking at all areas that are that rich red. So I can see some of this rich red around the outside of the seed, where I made it darker with the walnut brown. It does need to be darker, but it also needs to be, as I say, rich red. I'm also seeing this same kind of red around this shape here, around all of the walnut brown areas, really. You can see the same dark red all along. Can also see it in a lot of places like along the side up here, there's a particularly dark line around this shape. All of these lines down the bottom around here are all that rich red, like around here. So what I want to do is once again work one section at a time, starting from the left and working towards the right, still looking at where these seeds are and where all of the other shapes are that I've added in to work out where I need to add some of this pencil. So I want to go along this particularly prominent line down the bottom down here. And I'm generally looking at any area that needs to be this brighter red. So you'll see that I'm not really putting this color anywhere that needs to be more vibrant red. We can add that in a short while. For now, I only want to be adding this to the darker spots, so I'm just looking at one section at a time, using all of the marks I've already added in, already marked in all of those main shapes to see where these darker lines need to go. And then I'm just adding them in working from the left towards the right. See, I'm really not adding a huge amount. I'm adding mostly the red around the seeds or very close to the seeds. I don't really need to add anything in the very top section of this. That's generally speaking, much lighter than this color. So on this section here, for example, I'm adding in some of the particularly prominent dark lines. So I'm looking at the main lines along here. There's all of these little shapes and lines going around and in some cases, sort of circular shape. As I always say, I can't stress enough that I don't expect this to be perfect and I don't expect it to perfectly copy the reference photo. I am trying to make it as accurate as I can to what I can see in that reference photo, simply because it needs to be a series of random shapes, really. It's going to look more natural if I can try and follow those shapes, but I really don't need this to be perfect. Once I'm happy I've got all of these darker red areas marked in. What I can then do is once again compare my drawing to the reference photo and think about the most obvious color that's missing from now. So I'm going to move on to the red that I've used before. This is the more kind of standard red. This is the deep scarlet red. And I'm going to use this pencil now to go over any area that needs brightening. I'm doing a mixture of adding in some little dots and little patches like I've done before. But also in some areas, I want to lightly shade and generally make the area much brighter. So I'm starting off with this patch at the top that I've talked about before, working in circular motions along this section. Ing, again, at the shapes that are here, looking at the shapes that I've already got marked in, and I can adjust those shapes if I need to. But you can see how I'm still working in the same way as I did before, still working lightly and in circular motions to just gradually build up the brightness of the color here. So I'm going through this one section at a time, and I'm essentially wanting to put this color anywhere that does need to be this color or darker. So I'm still looking at what I've already marked in and looking at what I need to make darker. And I'm adding to that, so you can see me going along this section along here. Go over where I added that last red a second ago, as well to brighten that up a little bit. It still keeps the darkness that I've already added in there. It just makes it a more vibrant color. I think this is making some of the lighter areas look a little bit too light, but that's okay. We can adjust that in a second. As I always say, I think when I add in a color, it makes the next color that I need to add more obvious. So let's have a look at some of the shapes on the watermelon, again, and hopefully you'll see a bit easier what I'm looking at. I'm seeing some of the brighter red areas around here. I'm seeing that there's this lighter zigzag running through here. I don't want to go on the lighter section, but I'm seeing how bright it is around both the bottom and the top of this zigzag. Looking at how bright the red is all around the seeds and how it's brighter around here, but also around the very edge of some of these dark patches. Now, as I said before, I sometimes think it helps when you're looking at reference photo. If you're wanting to easily find these brighter areas, it helps sometimes to squint when looking. It really helps you to stop seeing all of the details and start focusing on where these brighter areas need to go. You'll see that I am still adding a mixture of some of the finer details, some of those little lines that you can see over the watermelon, but I'm also blocking in and adding in full sections to generally make an area darker. And this will gradually start building up this section of the watermelon. It's important to remember that we don't expect it to go from looking like this to suddenly looking finished. So adding in these areas is going to look a little bit peculiar, particularly at this point, but it's part of building up the color that can be seen here. Now I'm happy with the bright red. I've got most of those bright red areas marked in. Let's now move on to this earthy pink pencil that I used towards the very beginning of the drawing. So this is the oral pencil. And what I want to do with this pencil is generally make almost all of this section darker. So I have a lot of dark red and bright red areas, but the lighter areas are just looking too light now in comparison to those other sections. So I'm really looking at my reference photo, really looking for any area that does need to stay lighter, making sure that I avoid those areas, but for the most part, I am blocking this color in over almost the whole of the watermelon. You can see what a huge difference that's making. Now, once again, note that I am working in circular motions, and I'd say I'm using a medium to light pressure now. I'm pressing maybe a little bit harder than I was before, simply because I want to make sure that I get a good amount of coverage from this pencil. But I'm just working one section at a time to tone all of this down. You can see how I'm avoiding those lighter sections. If I'm unsure on if I need to add this to an area, then I tend to avoid it rather than adding it in. So let's look at some of those lighter areas that I do want to avoid with this pencil. Actually, when you really look, there are loads of lighter areas. There's this line coming along here. There's a few squiggles around here. There's all of these lines along here, this zig zag that I've mentioned a few times. Quite a few light areas around the top and along here as well. And this little, is it a seed? And here, as well as these lighter dots. To avoid all of those sections whilst building up a good amount of this pencil in all of the other areas. And you can see that's making quite a big difference to the pink section of the watermelon. It's still got quite a way to go so that it looks more accurate, but it's certainly looking closer to the reference photo. And my only goal at this point is to gradually get closer to the reference. You see, once again, I am working through this in a nice and methodical way. I'm starting from the left and working towards the right, and just gradually building up some of this color. Do you once again note that I am frequently sharpening my pencil throughout this section. And although it doesn't look as patchy as it did a second ago, it still looks pretty patchy and that is fine. Every single step, we just need to make it little bit closer to the reference photo and make it little bit more accurate. I've worked my whole way along. Let's just go over some of the lighter areas if I want to tone it down a little bit. So you can see me just very lightly going over some of these lighter sections to make them a little bit less bright. And then I once again want to compare my drawing to the reference photo and think about the most obvious color that's missing now. So now I'm really noticing the watermelon seeds. Although I did before fill these in with a black pencil, the black pencil has slightly got lost because I've built up a lot of other areas over the top, but also it was never a particularly bright black. So I'm using the black pencil once again to go over all of these seeds and really build up the contrast in this area. So you can see I'm going over them in exactly the same way as I did before, just working through them one at a time, once again, working from the left towards the right. If there is an area on a seed that needs to be a bit lighter, I just won't go over that area. But on the most part, I want the seeds to be really nice and jet. Once I've gone over all of the seeds, and they're all standing out a lot more, I then want to go over the darker shadowed areas above each seed and just make the shadows that little bit more prominent. But you can see how I'm pressing much, much lighter with the pencil. I want to build up a lot less of the black on these areas. Feel like once I've added in this black and made it more prominent, it makes it once again, more obvious what I need to add from here. So let's switch back to the deep scarlet red and really builds up more of that red again. So go over the red section towards the top up here, working in circular motions and just gradually making it a more vibrant color rather than pressing hard. I'm once again starting towards the left and working towards the right. So obviously, very recently, we did just use this pencil, but now that the black is marked more prominently and the pink, the coral pencil is also standing out much better. I think it becomes more obvious that I need to add more of this color and I want it to become a brighter color. And note that I'm not building up a huge amount. I'm not spending a really long time adding tons of this colour. Only adding a little bit on top of what I've already got here with these circular motions, and it's making a really big difference really quickly. It's ending up quite fast, looking closer to that reference photo. We're getting a closer match in color. I do think particularly this section of the watermelon is particularly tricky because it is so detailed and it is so patchy. And it's just a kind of slightly tricky color. It's kind of pinky ready orange, which needs mixing pretty precisely. Actually, now that I've added in this red and the whole thing is looking brighter, I do think it looks more vibrant and closer to that reference, but I also think it really shows that in some areas, we need more of an orange. I'm seeing this reasonably vibrant orange, particularly around the edge all around here. I also can see an ever so slight hint of kind of it's more of an orangy red around here, for example, around here, it just doesn't really look like a bright and vibrant red. It looks more like a reddy orangy pink. So let's add a little bit of this bright orange. This is kind of what I think of. Again, as my standard orange. This is the dark cadmium orange. And I'm adding a little bit around the edge to brighten that up. So all around here going over some of that red to make it more on the orange side. I'm also going to add some of this orange to some of the places where I added that deep scarlet red a second ago. Now, once again, note that I am pressing lightly and working in circular motions, and I'm really only adding this color over anywhere that is quite prominently that bright red, just to make it more on the orange side of things. I don't think that it's completely changing the color, but it is slightly tweaking it to make it a more orange. I'm just working from the left towards the right. I don't have to go from the left towards the right and then not add in anything else. If I then realize that there's other areas where I want to add the orange, I can always go back. But I think it just is a bit easier to focus when you work in this kind of way. So once I've added in this orange and I've really brightened up and adjusted the color on some of these red areas, for the final time in this chapter, I want to compare my drawing to my reference photo and think about the most obvious color that's missing now. Now I want to go back to the coral pencil. So some of the lighter areas on this drawing are now once again looking way too light. I'm looking at some of the lighter strips throughout this pink section. But also, some of the dark areas are just it all looks quite white next to the much more vibrant color that I've just added. You can see that I am working in circular motions, gradually building up some of this color. I would again say that I'm using a light to medium pressure rather than just pressing really lightly. And it's just toning down all of those light spots and generally blending a lot of the colors together that I've added in here. I still don't think that this is an absolutely perfect match to the reference photo, but I certainly think it's much better and much more vibrant than it was at the beginning of this section. By the end of this chapter, you should have a reasonably clear pink area of the watermelon. In the next section, we can focus on the green section and generally finishing everything off and tidying everything up. But that is the end of this section. 12. Brighten up the Skin: Now that the pink section of the watermelon is looking a lot brighter and more vibrant, let's do the same with the green section. I want to really increase the color and increase the contrast in this area as well. So what I want to do is be looking at the colors I have within here and shapes and thinking about adding the most obvious color that's missing, just like we did in the pink section. So, first off, the most obvious color that I think I need to add is to add more green, more of a light green to the lighter patches on the watermelon. Actually using the exact same color that I used at the very beginning. This is the light green pencil, and I'm using it to not only go over all of those patches, but also slightly go around the edge of the area. So I want to generally make the line where the green meets the white section. This all needs to be made a brighter green along here. Just very lightly adding some of this color. This is, as I say, the same that I did at the very beginning. But now that I've built up some of the other colors, I can see that it just needs a little bit more. But I'm very lightly adding this color. I don't want to be adding tons of it, and it's always important to notice that a small amount does go a long way. So once I'm happy with that light green, let's once again compare the drawing to the reference photo and think about the next most obvious color that needs adding. I'm now looking at the darker green areas on the watermelon skin, and I feel like they are nowhere near dark enough. So what I want to do is select the closest color in my set to the color I can see here. So just like we did before, this is the juniper green, and I'm going to lightly add this color over the top of all of the areas that I added this before. So I'm working around all of those lighter patches. And I'm going over where I added some of that darker shading like I'm going over here just to make it more like a very dark green. In terms of how I'm putting the pencil down, I'm doing this in exactly the same way as I usually would. I am pressing lightly working in circular motions and just gradually building up a small amount of the pencil. Now you'll notice here that I am holding the pencil reasonably close to the tip. Usually, when I press lightly, I hold the pencil much further back. I actually want to hold the pencil closer to the tip at this point, simply so that I can have more control over where the pencils going. I'm looking at the shapes that I've already marked in here and I'm working around those and just lightly building up more of this color. As I say, it's always amazing to me how just adding a little bit makes a huge difference. I do want to approach this watermelon skin in the same way that I did for the other section. So for every color that I add, I just want to try and make it that little bit closer to the reference photo. I don't expect to make it exactly perfectly the same. I'm just trying to get it closer. And when I keep doing that over and over again, eventually it will become a nice match for that reference. I'm going to keep going around the bottom. You can see I'm generally still working from the left to the right, as I have done throughout this drawing. And as I make it to the end of this section here, I am going to add a small amount of this green just around the very outside line along here as well. I just want to add a really nice and thin line. So just give it that little bit of it's almost got an outline, I suppose, on the watermelon. So you can see this very thin, dark line all around here. I'm going to add that in for now with this pencil. And so I'm happy with that. Let's once again compare the drawing to the reference photo and think about the next most obvious color that's missing from here. So I'm going to go back to the kind of earthy green color that I used towards the very beginning because I think right now the green of the lighter patches are looking firstly a little bit too light, but they're also looking a bit almost too unnatural in their color. It looks almost like a kind of cartoon. I think that I need a more earthy green added on top. So I'm just going to add a small amount of this color over a lot of the patches. Now I'm not just smoothly adding this color over the whole of the patch necessarily. I'm noticing some of the main darker areas that are within each of these lighter patches. Noticing how there's a darker line running up here. There's a darker kind of patch around here and up the top up here and at the top around here and how it's darker in this bottom right corner on this patch. And I'm just generally working over these patches one at a time to try and get those lights and darks marked in maybe a little bit better. I do think they're quite subtle on the patches. They're not really obvious areas that I want to be adding this to, but I just want to try and again, make this a bit closer to these areas and generally tone down the patches. I think that they're just too light in comparison once we've added the darker areas surrounding them. Do you once again note that I'm still working in these circular motions? I would say that I'm using a light to medium pressure. I don't think I'm using an extremely light pressure here because the more pencil you build up, you need to start pressing a little bit harder to get it to go on the paper. Once I'm happy with those lighter green areas, I then want to start going over some of the darker areas again. I've used that dark green. I think that's the darkest green I'll be using in this drawing, but I think the dark areas are still not looking dark enough. So what I'm going to do is go over all of the darker areas of the skin with the walnut brown pencil. This is the darkest brown that I have. Then what I'll be able to do is go over this dark brown with a green to make it look more like a very dark green. So I can mix these colors together to adjust what I've got here. So let's go over these darker areas in exactly the same way. Just gradually defining the shapes a bit better, and I think that's already looking so much better, having that extra bit of contrast. Always say this. I think it is so true that you need to make sure that you get the contrast looking right. If we can get the contrast right, it doesn't matter too much about the main colors. But you'll see that I'm back to nice and light pressure. I don't want to press really hard with this pencil. I want to just gradually build up the color that we can then add some green over the top and other colors to mix together to make this whole section darker and more accurate to that reference. Don't assume that adding brown over the top of an area like this is going to lead to a really prominent brown because the colors we've already got here do mix with what we're adding. So let's just add this brown pencil around the outside of the watermelon, as well. And then once I'm happy with the brown, let's once again think about the most obvious color that's missing. So here I'm going to switch to the black pencil. As I've mentioned before, some of the areas, particularly around the bottom of the watermelon are extremely dark. So I'm particularly looking at this shadow at the bottom here, the very dark line that's coming around here. And generally, it kind of fades and blends in with that shadow down the bottom. So it's blending to a pretty dark green, a very dark green down the bottom. Let's start off with the black pencil drawing in that prominent line down the bottom, and then I'm going to fade out that black line into the green section above. So I just want to kind of gently smooth out this color whilst keeping a more prominent line over to the left hand side. I'm also in some areas, adding a little bit of extra black to any area that I think needs to be darker than the walnut brown. So you can see I'm not only going in that bottom area, but I'm also going around some of these lighter patches, just really nice and lightly with the pencil to generally tone them down and make it little bit darker. I think black can look quite harsh, particularly on natural objects like this. But we will be able to use other colors over the top of this. If it is looking too harsh, we could add green, for example, over the top of the black, and it would give us just a really nice and dark green at the end. So I want to use this black pencil to go over all of the areas that need to be darker. It's just the odd patch here and there. So I'm looking at how this little area here is quite a lot darker all around the edge here, but particularly up the top here and particularly around this patch here, for example, and generally near the bottom. Let's go over that darker area up here before then going over the shadow at the bottom. So we've already got this shadow marked in, but it's looking a bit grainy and it's also looking too light. So let's go over this a number of times with circular motions, gradually building it up. And you can see I'm focusing on trying to make this as smooth as possible once again, but also making sure that I do fade out the lines around the edges of the section. Don't want to have really harsh lines around this patch. It needs to look like a natural shadow. So I can focus on making the area in the middle really nice and dark, not necessarily by pressing harder, but by going over the area multiple times. And then I can smooth out and fade out the area at the edge so that it's not looking harsh. And I can do the same on this side, as well, because that's quite an abrupt end at this point. Let's use the darker cold gray here to further smooth out where that black ends. So let's just fade that out. Again, I'm trying to make this shadow look as natural as possible, and having a really harsh edge to the shadow isn't going to help with making it look natural. I need to build up a good amount, actually, of the gray along this end section here because I do want it to fade out as cleanly as possible. So this skin's already looking a lot better. Let's once again think about the color that we need to add from here. Actually going to move on now to a different darker green. So I kind of think of it as a more natural earthy green. This is the chromium green, opaque. I think of it as the darker version, the kind of matching green for the earth green, yellowish that we used earlier. And what I want to do is use this pencil to go over all of the brown that I built up and all of the black, which is going to generally make the area look more natural. So I'm going once again around all of these lighter patches. You can see again, I'm using a medium to firm pressure here. As I said a second ago, the more of the pencil that it builds up, the more that I need to start using firmer pressure to get the color to show up properly. And I'm just going over the whole of the area, and you can see what a big difference that is making. Even adding some of this color over the black just tones it down that little bit. I am also adding some of this color over the lighter areas to tone those down too. Now let's move on to a very bright yellow. So I feel like the light patches on the watermelon are looking not yellow enough. They're not looking vibrant or bright enough. So let's use some of this bright yellow to just adjust the color. And again, I can't stress enough how I'm only adding a very small amount, and it's making a huge difference to this area. It's really only a small amount that we need to be adding. Going over all of these patches one at a time, building this color up, going around the edge of the watermelon, as well, because that's where that more yellowy green is. So I'm going all around anywhere where I used the light green pencil before, really. And that has mixed really nicely with the rest of the green that's it hasn't made the area a really bright yellow. It's just adjusted the color a little bit. I've added a small amount with that earthy green that we used a second ago, and then I'm going to move on here to the darker cool gray to add a very small amount to some of the patches, particularly to the left. So some of these patches here are a little bit in kind of reflection, I think, from the bottom, but they don't look green. They have an ever so slight gray tone to them, particularly these ones here. Let's add a very small amount of this gray to these areas. And anywhere else where I can see a little hint of gray. So it's just on the occasional area of the light patches. And it's kind of a good way to tone down the green a little bit and make it a bit less vibrant on any areas that I think should be a bit more tone down or have a little hint of gray. So let's now focus on the white area, the white area that's between the red or pink of the watermelon and the outside. So right now we do have a very small amount of gray in this area, but I think it's not enough. It's all looking too light right now. So I'm moving on to the lighter warm gray in my set at this point, and I want to just build some more of this color around the edge. So we did add this color right at the very beginning to put something down on the white area of the watermelon. Now that some of the green and pink areas are added in, I think it's a bit clearer to see exactly how much darker this area needs to be. Now, it doesn't need to be a really dark color. It just needs to be a darker version of this gray, particularly around the edge of the pink area, I would say. Very close to the green edge, as well. I want to make basically both outlines of this area much darker, but keep it lighter towards the middle. But I think some of the key areas are around the edges. If I can get those that little bit darker, it helps the watermelon stand out from the background a bit better and helps make it look more realistic from that point of view. And then I'm building up some of this color all around. Going into the last few colors for this chapter now. Once I've added in this color, let's take a step back and once again, think about the most obvious color that's missing now, particularly on the green section. So I'm going to go back to the walnut brown to try and make some of the areas that should be darker, that little bit darker. I think some areas, particularly now in comparison to where I put the black, they're looking too light and I want to tone things down a bit more. So I'm going back and adding more of the brown in a very similar way to what I did before. Just going over the top of the green that I've already got here. Over all of the areas that need to be a darker color, particularly those dark green areas, and I think it's making a massive difference. But it's very much exactly the same as what I did before. I just want to make what I've got here darker. And then once I'm happy with the brown, once I'm happy that the general contrast of the area, I think is looking pretty accurate. Let's switch one more time to that lighter earthy green color, the earth green, yellowish to tone down some of the lighter areas a little bit more and generally blend a number of these areas together. So you can see how I'm just going over the top of these lighter patches, making them stand out a little bit less, be a little bit less prominent. And at this point, I think the skin of the watermelon is looking so much better. In fact, I think the drawing as a whole isn't too far away from being finished. Last thing I want to do from this point is add in any final details, particularly on the pink area one more time. Now that the green area is finished, I think the pink area maybe looks a little bit too muted. But that is it for this section. 13. Add in the Final Details: In this chapter, I want to finish brightening everything up and generally finish the drawing. So let's focus particularly once again on the pink section. I think now that I've added in the skin much more clearly, it really shows that the pink section of the watermelon is just looking a little bit too muted. So let's start off with the most obvious color that's missing right now. I want to add in the burnt sienna pencil, which is kind of reddish brown to really make that contrast better. Throughout the whole drawing, I've talked a lot about contrast and how if we can get the contrast looking right, then the whole drawing will look right. I still don't think the contrast is looking exactly right on this pink section. So I'm focusing on adding this color, particularly around the seeds and any of the darker areas. Looking at once again, the area around the seed all around here. This is a dark, reddish brown, I would say. And then there's a few other areas, as well, like this little line here. A lot of the lines generally underneath this seed, I think, have a real brown tone to them. And again, you can see brown around some of the areas around here, around here. I essentially want to be using this color on any area that I think needs to be made darker. I'm once again working from the left towards the right, just bit by bit going over any odd area. So here, for example, needs to be darker from that shadow above the seed. There's a few little dips underneath in between some of the lighter areas down here as well. I think, actually, one of the main things that probably needs adding to the pink section is the lighter and more mid tone colors brightening up a bit further. But before I do that, I really want to make sure that I have these darker areas marked in as clearly as possible. Actually, I think on the most part, the darker areas, they're not that dark. So this burnt sienna is a really good dark place to start with where it is a dark, reddish brown, rather than going in with something extremely dark, like a really dark brown or a black. So you can see I'm just slowly working my way through one little section at a time. And I already think even though I'm just adding odd little bits here and there, it looks so much better. The dark areas look so much more defined. Now I'm really only using this pencil surrounding the seeds or on little details like here that are very close to the as I work towards the right hand side, once I am happy that I've added in all of these very prominent details, which has made so much easier because a lot of these areas have already been marked in with previous colors. I'm just refining and adding to what's already here. I then once again want to add in the most obvious color that's missing and the main color that needs adding from here. So I'm now thinking I want to brighten up some of the more prominent red areas. So I'm using the middle cadmium red for this. This is the darker red out of the few reds I've used before. Particularly noticing how dark the red is around this area, all around these seeds around here and generally around this area towards the bottom. That's the main area, I would say I want to add this in. Now, I do feel like there's quite a lot of detail really within the pink section of the watermelon. If you want to generally see the area that needs more bright color adding or where we should add this colour, often think it helps to squint when looking at the reference photo. That helps stop you from seeing all of the details, and you can see more the underlying colors, which is more what I want to focus on from this point. I now want to be building up those underlying colors and generally making the main colors here a bit more accurate. So you'll notice that what I'm doing here is pressing lightly and working in circular motions. And I can build up this color over everything that I've already added in these areas, particularly on this strip down the bottom. Doesn't take away all of that detail that I've already added. You can still see the Sienna Brown, for example, that I added in a second ago. It's just generally making the area that a little bit darker. Let's also add a little bit of this red towards the bottom around here. This area down here I think is just looking extremely light at this point. But actually, if we look at it, it's not as bright as what we have right now. There's actually some pretty dark areas, some darker reddish, not really bright red like we're adding in here, but I can very lightly add this color around the edge. Kind of patchy texture, I guess. So you can see I'm kind of filling in little blobs to add in some of that texture. And by adding it in lightly, it's not creating that really bright red, but it is adding in some of the detail that I can see around this area. So I'm working all the way around, and then I want to start thinking about any areas around this left side that needs to have more of this color. So I talk about it a lot, but I think generally this patch up the top needs to be quite a bit darker. So let's add more of this color to this area. Let's add a few areas around here. But you can see, generally speaking, the contrast in this area is starting to look much better. It's starting to look more accurate to that reference. Let's now think about the next most obvious color that's missing. I'm actually here going to move on to the darker cool gray. I've mentioned before that, particularly around here, look at how gray this patch here, for example, is. And generally around the bottom of some of these seeds all around here, it has a real gray tone to. What I've got on the drawing isn't looking gray enough. So even though you wouldn't think there would be gray in the pink section of watermelon, as is always the rule, if I can see it, I will draw it. So I'm going to add a little bit of this color in just a few areas on the watermelon, anywhere where I can see some of this color, even subtly, I want to add in a little bit. And that's going to really make a difference to this seed area. I do think the watermelon surrounding those seeds is the key area to get right because it is the main area with all of the contrast. Let's also go over all of the seeds. All of the seeds have this gray kind of shine to them. Right now, the gray isn't really prominent enough. It's all looking a little bit too light. So let's just go over the top of some of these watermelon seeds. Before then using the coral pencil to smooth everything out. So as I said a little bit earlier on, I one of the main differences between the drawing and the reference photo is that the light and mid tone areas are just looking too light at the moment. So I want to use this oral pencil using, I would say light to medium pressure to really smooth everything out and generally tone everything down. Now, there are some areas where I want to keep it a little bit lighter. Some of the very light strips that I've mentioned a few times running through the watermelon. But generally speaking, the whole thing, I think, should be darker than it is right now. Want to work through this in exactly the same way as I would do before. I am not holding the pencil as far back as I would have before because I need to press a little bit firmer. But I am still working in circular motions, and I'm still working with a nice and sharp pencil. Once I've gone around this whole bottom section, then start working around the top, which is where I think most of this color does need building up. You can really see where I'm adding more of this color, what a difference it makes and how much more vibrant it looks from adding that over the top. It's not making the whole area much, much darker. It is giving it that little bit more vibrancy of color. But as I say, I don't want to go over absolutely every section. I want to leave the areas that need to be lighter. Like, for example, some of these lighter areas around here, around here. All of these areas I've spoken about before. I wouldn't say really that I'm doing anything different at this point of the drawing. It's very much going through the same steps. But with this pencil, for example, I just want to do more. So let's tone down some of these areas that are very light. These are looking a little bit too light. But you can see that I've eased up on my pressure so that I'm not just making the whole area really dark. Then let's just very briefly switch back to the burnt sienna to add a thin line along the top. There's quite a prominent thin line along the very top of here that I want to subtly add in and also maybe shade down a little bit from that line into any area that needs to be a bit darker. The last color that I want to add to this drawing to finish everything off and generally brighten everything up for one last time is the deep scarlet red. This is that very bright red. It's kind of what I think of as the standard red in the set. I want to add this one final time over any area that needs to be brighter. So again, all of the areas where I added the middle cadmium red, the darker red a second ago, I want to add some of this color over the top to really brighten everything up. But I won't be using any other colors after this. So what I do at this point, this is how it will I want to go all along these red sections up the top around the seeds. All of the shadows here, I've mentioned before, have a slightly red tinge to them. And I want to go over this bright red area surrounding the seeds towards the bottom, as well. And then we are left with a nice and vibrant watermelon with still a good amount of texture. I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial, and I look forward to seeing you in the next. 14. Summary: Alright, and that is the end of the drawing. Now, I hope that you found this helpful. Hopefully, mixing and selecting colors isn't feeling as complicated as it did before. It's always important to remember that I don't think any of the process is about trying to make the color a perfect match. At every step, you just want to be trying to take that color a little bit closer. Just look for the most obvious color that needs to be added, and bit by bit, it will start to match that reference photo. If you enjoy this class, please do leave a review, and don't forget to upload your drawings into the class projects. I would love to see what you've done. Happy drawing, guys, and I'll see you in the next.