Learn to draw a horse in colored pencil

1. Introduction: Welcome to the horse drawing class. This is going to be about how to draw horse for in particular, if you have a horse or you just love horses, this is definitely going to be very fun, a little bit challenging to draw. Now these are the colors that you are going to want to pick. And you can use whatever color pencils that you have as long as they are closely related to these, does not have to be these specifically. And now I use Karen Nash luminance as well as favorite Castile polychrome most pencils. And they can be a little bit expensive to purchase. So if you don't have those, just use whatever you have at home. I also provide the certain type of colors in the instructions that are not related to these specific colors, just colors that Our, that looked like those. So they aren't exactly those pencils. So that should help you figure out what kind of pencils you need to get. Now this video is sped up a little bit. So instead of three hours is about 40 minutes long. So if you need to pause to catch up, feel free to do so, or just keep going along as I am drawing because I do draw a little bit slower than usual. So if you feel like it's just the right speed, that great, go ahead and just watch the whole thing. So I hope you enjoy. So without further ado, let's go ahead and get started. 2. Eye and ear: Alright, so let's jump right into it. So we're going to start with the I, I always like to start with the eye first. It just makes the portrait look a little more complete. You want to make sure that you have a sharp colored pencil. First. You want to keep your pencils sharp as possible. And when we're drawing the eye, I started out with the outline, usually done in black and then sometimes I'll go over it with a nice brown or a cool tone, something that looks a little bit more matching to the portrait. Usually I don't always end up drawing straight black and just leaving up black alone. So I also have the type of colored pencil that I have in the bottom left-hand corner. So you can follow along and match the same color. Now I used a dark brown for the eye and then did a little bit of a highlight. You definitely want to leave room for highlight as much as possible. You want to make sure that it looks just like the portrait in terms of the highlight, so that the eye looks very realistic. If the eye doesn't look very realistic than the rest of the portrait is not going to look as lifelike and realistic as it should be. So just keep going with this. I do make a lot of adjustments and that's true. That's okay. You're gonna make a lot of adjustments as you go along. And you use the pale blue to create the highlighted effect, as well as using a little bit of the black in that highlight to show the reflection. Now that we're done with the eye here, we are moving on to the outer side and I used a dark sepia, which is like a dark grayish brown. And then using some pale blue in there as well, make sure that you kinda leave room in the eye for a little bit of the highlights. You can use the blue, light blue or pale blue to show a little bit more highlight on top of it. And what you wanna do is use a very, very light pressure when you're drawing the body and you draw your first layer with light pressure, I usually draw with a lighter color, but for this case, we're just drawing with a red brown and just applying a lighter pressure first. So you wanna get a good first layer down, at least in a larger chunk of the portrait. Since this is a smaller portrait, you can definitely get more of it done. And then you use a burnt orange or this is called a burnt ocher, I believe it is. And then apply that same amount of pressure over the top of the first layer that you did a little bit going out because you can see that there is that burnt orange tone going throughout the rest of the horse. Now, you do want to always draw in the same direction as the furthest you see. So in this case, the first kind of going up and down, but just add a little bit of an angle. And there's not much to this for in terms of texture, it's really pretty basic. So this is going to be pretty simple to draw, rather than drawing curly for something like that. And you can use the red brown and start to apply a little bit more pressure. Now, you can also use a dark brown starts to draw the other side of the eye. And it's really just the lip of the eye that you can see and leave room for that white part of the top of the head for the horse there. Now I know this is a quite of a lot of information going on here. So if you need to pause, feel free to do so. Just remember to take frequent breaks and come back with fresh eyes and just keep keep going at it. I know it's kind of a faster paced, but trust me, you will really enjoy the end results. Now the hair at the top does have more of a longer texture. So you want to draw a longer strokes and you want to use a lighter pressure at first and then start to get darker. You can also use the black color pencil once you're done with the hair at the top, and just really define that feature. Now with the ear here we're leaving some room for the highlight. You gotta make sure that you are blending as best as possible and still applying the same amount of pressure, but maybe a little bit heavier as you build up those layers. And then you can use the pale pink color and kinda go over the top of it, burnish that area. And that will really start to blend it all together. I hope that you were doing pretty well so far. I'm really enjoying the progress here. Now. You really want to make sure that your kitten in the detail as much as possible, especially since it is a smaller portrait. If you're drawing it a little bit larger, you can definitely work on the details even better, but it does take a little bit longer time. So as you can see, there's wrinkles above the eye there. So just really want to kind of show that in the portrait. So you can use that red brown color pencil to show that detail there. And we will do the same method for the muscles as well as the veins that pop up in the horse as well. So really it's not too complicated. You just really want to keep looking at your reference image as much as possible and trying to replicate that. And just follow along with this video here to give a good reference as to how to apply those and what colors to use. And I know it is a little bit faster pace, but like I said, you can pause it and fix anything that you need to fix or simply just catch up. Now we are using the red brown quite a lot. And that one is the burnt sienna in the favorite Castillo colored pencil. And I absolutely love using this one for a lot of my reddish orange portraits that I draw, whether that be dogs, cats, farm animals, wildlife, anything like that. I love to use that color the most because it's a really good foundation, as well as really good for shadows and highlights even in the ear here you can see there's a little bit of the lines. And you just want to emphasize that a little bit and use the burnt the red brown as well as load with orange. And definitely for the highlights, you really want to leave for highlights as much as possible. Then you can use that pink dot, pale pink color to burnish and certain areas. Once you've gotten quite a few layers build up. So it'll help blend and what you already have. And then you can apply more detail on top of that. And there'll be even sharper than before because the tooth of the paper is not going to show up nearly as much. And you have that good waxy coating to be able to add the detail on. Now you do want to be careful when you're doing that because you do not want to create too many layers to the point that it will damage the paper. But as long as you are building your layers with lighter pressure and then using a little bit of a heavier pressure, and then you should be just fine. So you can see I did leave room for some of the highlights. Now I'm just using a pale blue to adjust some of the features. Sure that it's not too much of a warm tone and just cooling it down a little bit there. And you can still see that some of those lines need to be emphasized a little bit more. That's really, really important is to make sure that you are adding the detailed lines and leaving the highlights as well. Now, I am going to use the pale pink to apply the second layer basically on top of that orange color. And what that'll do is really start to make this fleshy tone color appear. And you really want to think about the undertones first and then see what's on top of that. So you're undertones is kinda that flashy, orangey color. And you can build on top of that. And that's really what is going to give you that more realistic effect. Now, do remember to still draw on the same direction as the first, since it's kinda going down at an angle there. And you can still draw in a different direction as it did with that pale pink. And then a little bit with the pale blue. But you want to use a lighter pressure for those if you are going to draw an, a different direction. And the same applies for this red brown here. So I'm basically drawing down at that angle, but I'm also trying to draw in that same direction as much as possible because each of your layers are going to show up at the end and you want to make sure they are as consistent as possible. And you can really start to see here where those lines are going. And if you have those consistent than your portrait will look even more realistic. 3. Begin the head: And using that red brown color, we are drawing a little bit of the muscle here, as well as a little bit of the veins coming through. And if these are not quite accurate for you, that's completely okay. It's really just about practicing and trial and error. And I'm sure mine aren't quite exactly 100%, but it still looks pretty realistic because I applied those other tactics, those other methods, drawing in the same direction, trying to keep your your blending as, even as possible. Those two things will really get you far. And then the rest goes along with it. So those muscles that I'm not really applying too much detail in it just yet, until I've built up more layers. And as you can see, I'm using the pale pink again to try to create a more, more of a smoother, waxy coating, smoother texture so that I can add even more detail. And it'll be easier to add those details and blend it all together without having so much of the texture on top. So using the dark brown here, I'm adding a little bit more detail in the darker side of the face because it does get a little bit lighter as you're going in towards the jaw. And the like I said, those lines and those muscles, it just really takes practice seeing where they are in reference to one another is just trial and error really. And once you get a good handle on it, it almost becomes second nature drawing proportionally. Using a pale yellow. I know it looks more like a white color, but it's a very, very pastel looking yellow. You can also use that to burnish as well, and that'll really help to blend those features and as much as possible. Now you want to make sure that you do have a good type of paper that allows you to build up those layers. So you wanna make sure you have something like a Bristol board, smooth paper or a hot press watercolor paper. I know they can be a little bit more expensive, but for when you're drawing small, you do want to make sure that you have less tooth and you'll be able to apply more layers without damaging that paper. And now we can add a little bit more detail to the muscles and the veins there. And once you've kinda gotten a little bit darker, you can also use the pelt blow to start to blend it certain features and cool down some areas too, There's quite a bit of areas that aren't nearly as orange or red. And using that cool tone really, really helps to create realistic highlighted areas or realistic. For that needs to be a little bit more blended. Better blended essentially, use that pale pink. It's almost like a fleshy tone as well. And really just get in there and blend those areas as well. And you want to make sure that you're not drawing too heavy of a pressure, at least not yet. You can apply heavier pressure once you've built up more layers. So now that we're defining this area, I am using a dark brown instead of the red brown. There is just a little bit of a texture going on. So use that dark brown and apply a little bit of some furry texture and that same direction. So you can see that you're able to see the little bit of a curvature in the muscle and the veins there because you drew a little bit of the angle of the fur. And then using that same pale yellow, we can blend a little bit better. Then we can start to apply even more layers using the red brown. Like I said, we're definitely going to use the red brown a lot. And this is, I have quite a few pencils that are like stubs Now, this bread brown and that you will find that the more you use a certain color, the more you'd like, like using a certain color, you blow through them pretty fast. And really that's all. You do want to keep your pencils sharp as possible so the sharpener will end up eating away some of your pencils over time. But that's okay. That's just a part of being an artist really. So we're still using those not a huge variety of colors. Luckily, this one does not have like ten plus colors in it. So it's pretty easy to hold all of those pencils in one hand if you need to. And switch from back-and-forth between all of them. Let's define underneath the eye here a little bit more using the dark brown. There's just a little bit more of a lip underneath the eye there and then it kinda going out onto the right side of the eye there. You could just see that there's quite a bit of texture going on with the muscles and veins and really applying those and then blending in to the rest of the face is just, it's really going to make your portrait look even more realistic. Now, we haven't used dark sepia whole lot, but I like to use dark sepia almost as much as the red brown color. This one is really great for all, for honestly author. It's a good color to use instead of black for certain areas, because black can show up a little bit too much of a cool tone. So if you want something that's warm but really dark, use that dark sepia and apply that. 4. Cheek and nose: Often times the face tends to take the longest to draw. And then the rest seems to go by pretty fast. And I do believe it is because there's so much detail that goes into the face. And then the rest of the body really is just more about drawing the direction of the fur on the texture and drawing the highlights and low lights. But the face really has a lot of detail in it. And the more detail that you can apply to it. Like I always say, the more detailed, the more realistic it's going to look. So you really just want to consider that and make sure that you are spending as much time as you can on the face more than the body. Now, the white here, there is a little bit of a red brown that bleeds into it. So draw that just a little bit. And then I use the light yellow and blue to draw over the top of it to blend in. And then we'll get into. Now I like to draw a nice stroke first as much as possible just so I can get that dark, dark black going in, but I am using the dark sepia first. The reason why I'm doing this is because most of the nose tends to be a little bit more of a brownish tone rather than just a straight up black color. And some nostrils to have just the straight up black color. So that's what I usually do. But for this one, we're just drawing the outlined areas and trying to draw the angle of the mouth and the nose as much as possible. Now before all of this, I hope that you had traced it beforehand. Easier just to trace it. You are still technically free handing, but tracing it does help to see where all of the features are in reference to one another as much as possible. Another is gonna be a lot of dark sepia and the nose will be using that quite a bit. There's a little bit of pink as well. So I'm just kinda blending that color, a little bit of pink in it and just really starting to apply more of the texture. And then a little bit more of the odd features or details that you really like, just kinda forget about. And you can see there's a little bit of a highlight on the right-hand side of the nostrils. So you want to leave that alone and just draw the same curve and then use the, I'm using a different dark sepia. This one, you don't have to use it. You use the same one, but it's just a different type of pencil, so it has a different way of blending. It's a little bit more of a smoother blend. And then you can use the pale blue to go back in. And we'll lend those areas together like in that highlight or next to the nostril and then around the mouth. Well, using the pale blue and the dark sepia. And those will really go far for this nostril because there's not a whole lot of different colors in it, but there is definitely a brown tone to it and you really want to make sure that you are getting that in there. And then using the pale yellow to blend it. Those features together. Blending from the mouth to the rest of the body that'll really help get that blended. And using, you can use the dark sepia here a little bit more. And then we'll use black a little bit, but not a whole lot. Just use the dark CPI to really get in the rest of the features there. The mouth is a little bit hard to draw. So if you struggle with that, That's okay. I did struggle with that a little bit here too. I believe I ended up erasing some of it and adjusting it. So if it doesn't look quite right, you can fix that. You can use erasers. I use this electric eraser that has a sharp, not a sharp, but a very small point. And you can use that to erase, but just be careful when you are erasing because it does not erase fully. And the more you erase, the more you're damaging the paper. So you won't be able to draw much better after you have erased in that section. So using this pale pink, just blending the areas and making it, warming it up even more so make it look like it's a little bit more of a fleshy tone underneath. And then using that black there to really define those certain features such as the mouth and then the nostril area as well. So doing this instead of doing the block straight on Austro, it does help for this like I just said. But in some nostrils that is just straight up black. So when you have something that is straight up black like the eye or an astral, you can use the black first. And build up your layers the same way, basically, where it's a light to heavy pressure, but you can actually draw a little bit faster pace building up to a heavier pressure. So it is a little bit faster pace for the mouth as well. So feel free to pause if you need to or take a break, anything like that. It does take some time. This one did take about three hours to do. So. If you are faster than you'll definitely get this done before that. But I am a little bit of a slower drawer and I like to get really good details in and make sure that it looks to perfect. So now that we have the mouth down here, let's go ahead and move on to the neck. So we really started to see a good horse. And there it really does look like a horse. And if you are struggling with proportions and whatnot, I do have more videos on that. But really it's just about practicing practice. Does not make perfection, but perfect practicing does make perfection. And you really want to practice with the intention of improving. And this is, this is how you do it. Keep practicing and in seeing what techniques work for you and what does it. Like I said before, the body is going to be a lot shorter amount of time. So this is really just about building up your layers and paying attention to the highlights and low lights and the shaded areas. So you can see here that I am drawing a little bit darker color at the top of the neck there. And now we're not drawing the first Jest yet at the top. We're just drawing the body. The longer hair that comes out. We're gonna do that last. But for now, we're drawing darker color at the top of the body. And then you can see right in the middle It's almost like this U-shape of a highlight. So definitely want to pay attention to that and make sure that you are leaving room for the highlight. And just build up your layers as you go and try to stick with the same direction. 5. Finishing the body: So you can see here that there is still a little bit of tooth of the paper showing through. So we're going to use that pale yellow and start to blend it all together. This is called burnishing, where you're creating this boxy coding and you can really start to see the difference there. And there's not nearly as much of the tooth coming through. So now you can apply a little bit more detail on top of it. You just want to be careful not to draw too much heavy pressure or because you will damage the paper, damage those layers. And you can also use the pale pink to do the same thing. Do the burnishing. It just doesn't apply nearly as much as those lighter colors do. If you don't have any light colors, you can also use a white and just make sure that you are drawing over the top of it afterwards to make sure that it's not too light of a color in those areas that you are drawing. Because it can lighten up a little bit too much in certain areas. It really does help to do that. And then you can also use the pale blue to do the same thing. And areas that look like it. It does need a little bit more of a cool tone, but trust me, it will look really cool applying the warm and cool tones together. Now at this point, really I'm just making adjustments, fixing anything that needs to be fixed or if it's not going enough out to the paper. I will adjust that too. Sometimes. I don't like to draw all the way out to the paper just because. When you are framing it or putting it in a map board, it will cut off a little bit. So just be aware of that too. All right, and then let's get started on the main there with the longer, you're going to use, longer strokes. And of course you want to start out with lighter layers and both them up over time using a variety of colors. Basically all the same colors, as well as the rest of the body. So you do want to keep a consistent color scheme. The, throughout your whole portrait, you don't want to switch from one color palette, another one. And the same subject matter that would not look very cohesive. So you basically leaving room for the highlighted areas a little bit closer in to the hair, closer into the neck there. And then as you are building up those layers basically transitioning between those couple of colors. And then you could do use the dark brown to really start to darken those features and enhance the realistic look of the the main there. And I am leaving room for highlights still once again, even at the top, leaving room for the little breaks where there's a little bit of a lighter fur or lighter hair on the main. And then you'll get to go back over it a little bit more and define it a little bit better through using different colors, as well as the red brown, which is, of course, like I said, this one is being used quite a lot for this horse. Once you've got a good foundation going up for the main there you can also use a dark sepia to define the darker parts of it even more. And the dark sepia, like I said earlier, it is not necessarily black, but it's a very dark defined grayish brown color. So it's great for replacing instead of black because black can turn out to be a little bit more of a cooler tone, then using the dark sepia or something like that. So just be mindful of that. And if you have to use black, I will wait until closer until you've completed your section. And then you can use a black on top and it won't be pure black for that case. So really we're just transitioning between all these colors and just trying to get it to look a little more realistic and trying to get the outer part of the main together a little bit more. I know it looks a little bit weird. That is also a part of the portrait. It does look a little bit different in terms of most mains. So the, the light just kinda catches it at that weird angle. So that's kinda where we're at. There is just trying to make it look as realistic as possible and not trying to have too many scraggly hair is coming out, try to keep it a little more cohesive there. We're basically done here just fixing anything that needs to be adjusted. Or if you feel like there's not there's a certain spot that just doesn't look quite finished. You can still see the tooth of the paper showing through. Then go ahead and make those adjustments. But I hope that you really enjoyed this video. Now, this is also a sliced horse is optional. You do not have to use it, but it does help to create highlighted features. You can also use an exact knife if you have that as well. And all you do is just basically scratch away some of the layers. Now you can't use it for all paper or all methods. You have to have enough layers bumped up for it to work. So that will be something that I will explain in another video. But we're basically done here. And I really, really hope that you've enjoyed this video drawing this horse. It was absolutely fine. It's very challenging, but I think it was well worth it. If you have your results, please send them to me. I would absolutely love to hear your opinions and how your portrait turned out.