Drawing a Snowy Landscape with Figures

As many of you know, I absolutely hate the winter. I hate the cold. I hate the short days. I hate the gray days. I hate winter. But about the only thing that I can tolerate with winter is probably the snow. And fortunately, around here, we don’t get much snow. But when it does snow, it’s quite the event. And recently it snowed quite a bit here and that meant it was time for a fun snow day on our sledding hill. I wanted to capture that in a drawing and I’m going to share with you that process in this lesson.

Here’s a look at the completed drawing…

Materials and Surface

For this particular drawing, I use Prismacolor Premier colored pencils, which are wax-based pencils. You can use any brand that you wish and get similar results. I also used just a bit of PanPastel. This is not required, as I use the PanPastel material to basically create an underpainting or a base in which to apply colored pencils over the top.

This drawing is created on Stonehenge paper, which is a wonderful surface for colored pencils. It’s 100% cotton and very soft, but it does require the artist to apply multiple, layered applications with colored pencils. If you want to build up lots of depth in color, layering is very important and this paper encourages it and helps you do it.

Photo Reference and Composition

A photo reference is used to create the drawing. Here’s a look at the reference image…

When we’re dealing with composition, we’re talking about the way the elements are laid out within the picture plane. Composition influences the way a viewer interacts with your piece.

When I look at this image, my eye comes into the picture plane at the focal point and then moves its way to the back of the sledding hill and these distant houses. Part of that is because of the layout of the land and the way that we have these little hills that overlap each other. I wanted to accentuate that in the final drawing, or at least capture that in the final drawing, of course.

See also: Composition in Art

Sketching the Landscape

We’ll begin here on Stonehenge paper using a light graphite pencil. In this case, I’m using a 2H graphite pencil. This is light enough so that it doesn’t overpower the image, but I can still put a little bit of pressure on the pencil to make the marks dark enough so that I can see them.

Initially, I’m just finding where the horizon line is and drawing some basic shapes for some of the distant trees before drawing some shapes or each one of the individual houses.

Adding Color

With our loose pencil sketch in place, we’ll begin with PanPastel applications. A variety of blues and muted colors are added, before adding a bit of material for the snowy hill. These PanPastel applications provide a base for colored pencils.

With a bit of PanPastel on the surface, we can begin with colored pencils. I decide to start along the distant horizon line on the left side of the picture plane developing each house and the trees and bushes in between.

I found myself sharpening the pencil quite often. After just a few marks, the pencil becomes fairly dull. A variety of colors were used – but mainly Terracotta for the bricks of the house. An Espresso pencil, a dark warm gray, was used for the roofs and darker areas.

See also: How to Sharpen Any Pencil

I wanted to create a warmer light in the scene. I used a Yellow Ochre pencil for the sides or the planes of the houses that faced the light source, which is originating from the left side of the picture plane. For the shadowed side of the houses and for the shadows throughout the image, I chose to use a blue – somewhat of a cerulean blue.

This contrast between warm and cool helped to make the light feel warmer and the shadows, cooler.

When we work with colored pencils, we need to keep in mind that it does require a level of patience. One of the easiest areas that you can improve in your drawings, or I should say one of the areas where you can see improvement the quickest is to just increase your patience a little bit. For some of us that’s going to be a little bit harder to do, but of course, if you just focus on slowing down and not trying to be in a hurry to finish your art, I think that you’ll see improvement happen naturally.

As we move to the right side of the picture plane, I preserve some of the areas where we see trees that are in the middle ground. I’m using the indention tool to preserve these areas. The lines that are preserved are not evident until you start making marks with colored pencils over the top of those areas that you indented.

Small Figures within the Landscape

This landscape is covered with figures. And since these figures are located in the distant middle ground and the foreground, there’s quite a difference in the size that these figures should be rendered.

We have to be mindful of proportion. We want to make sure that – proportionally speaking, the shapes that we draw here make sense with the distant figures and, of course, the figures that we’re going to add in the foreground.

After developing the shapes of the figures with the dark Espresso pencil, bits of bright color are added over the top. These bits of color add life and make the figures make sense.

I gradually and patiently work my way to the houses, trees, and bushes in the foreground. Here we see a higher level of contrast in value due to the fact that these areas are closer to the viewer.

Drawing the Figures in the Foreground

From here, I continue to work down the picture plane to the larger figures. We’ve finally made it to the focal point. Since these figures are in the extreme foreground, we’ll notice the highest level of contrast in value. But even here, the color black is avoided. Instead, a layered combination of a dark brown and blue are used to develop the darkest tones.

After the figures are in place, it’s back to PanPastel applications, filling in the remaining spaces of snow.

Now for the part that I waited the longest for. And that was, of course, to add the footprints. I wanted this drawing to tell a story, and I wanted these three figures here in the foreground to be the first people to have gone over this snowy bank. That’s why I decided to leave out the other footprints and just focus on the footprints leading to the three individuals making their way to the sledding hill.

After burnishing some of those applications with a bit of the 10% Cool Gray, I went back to the figures and made some final adjustments here, making the contrast a little bit stronger and adding a few bits of shadow here and there to the backside of some of the clothing.

I decided to make the lower portion of the left side of the picture plane a little bit cooler. I did this with a bit of lighter blue on the snowy hill closest to the viewer.

Finishing Touches to the Winter Landscape Drawing

Then, of course, when the drawing is complete, it’s time to tear away the tape. This can be a nerve-wracking experience. You’ve spent all this time with the drawing and you don’t want the tape to tear, but if you pull it away at a 90 degree angle, usually you can pull that tape off without any tearing.

Here’s another look at the completed drawing…

Winter Landscape Drawing with Colored Pencils – Conclusion

Colored pencils provide us with exceptional precision. But there is a tradeoff. This tradeoff comes in the form of time and patience. Work slowly, build up colors gradually and watch your drawing come to life.

Drawing an Iguana with Pen and Ink

In this lesson, we’ll create a pen and ink drawing of an iguana on hot press watercolor paper. Now, why are we creating this drawing on watercolor paper? Well, it’s because we’re going to eventually add watercolor applications over the top – but in this lesson, we’re going to complete the pen and ink drawing.

Here’s a look at the completed pen and ink drawing…

Materials for Drawing an Iguana with Pen and Ink

We’ll work on Canson Heritage hot press watercolor paper which is a smoother watercolor paper. It’s different from cold press watercolor paper. This paper is suitable for pen and ink applications since it is so smooth.

See also: All About Drawing Papers

I’ll sketch the drawing with a 4H graphite pencil. From there, we’ll move on to the pen and ink applications. Two different pens, by different manufacturers are used – a Staedtler 0.1 pen (a fairly thin pen) and a 003 Micron pen, which is a super thin pen.

A photo reference is used for this drawing. This reference comes form Pixabay.com and has been edited for composition and color. Here’s a look at the photo reference…

Sketching the Iguana with Pencil

We’ll begin here using a 4H graphite pencil. I’m using this lighter pencil so that the graphite lines that I apply are easily erased and not noticeable in the final pen and ink drawing. I’m using a fairly light touch here to loosely sketch out the outer contours and the basic shapes of the iguana.

I’m using sketchier lines at first but as I become a bit more confident with the lines that I have in place, I’ll gradually apply more pressure to the pencil. When using a harder pencil like this 4H pencil it’s important not to press too hard because you can put grooves or indentations in the surface of the paper, which may be visible in the final image.

I’m just basically drawing lines here where I see contrast in value. When we see these folds overlap on top of other sections, a shadow is produced and this creates some contrast. I’m simplifying that contrast into easily understood lines.

Pen and Ink Applications

Once we have our graphite drawing in place, we’re ready to start with the pen and ink applications. I’m going to start with the larger of the two pens – a 0.1 pen by Staedtler. This pen is going to make a slightly larger mark than what we see with the Micron pen that will follow. At this point, I’m basically more concerned with the contour lines or the outlines in the areas where I see some dark shadow or some of the larger shapes that we see on the iguana.

I am considering and thinking about the line quality, which I like to refer to as the thickness or thinness of a line. I’m starting with some of the larger lines here initially. Throughout the process, you’ll see that I also add smaller lines and go back and beef up some of the lines here and there, ensuring variety. Variety is one of the eight principles of art and it’s important to include in our work.

Developing Texture, Shadow, and Form with Pen and Ink

With much of the contour lines established, we’ll move on to the smaller Micron pen. This is a 003 pen with super tiny tip. This is a relatively small drawing anyway, and I’m going to be using this pen mostly for developing the shadow in this drawing. I begin with the eye, adding lines coming out from the center of the eye to create darker value.

I’ll continue to use the smaller pen to establish some of the texture and the upper lines on some of the scales. This creates variety in line quality.

One of the things we need to watch out for in a pen and ink drawing is that we don’t go too dark, too quickly. It’s very easy to do, so it’s always a good idea to go a little lighter than you think you might need. You can always add additional applications of ink to make the value a darker, if needed.

The hatching marks that I make are going to change direction slightly. ‘m just trying to follow the plane that’s created in three dimensional space. This will not only help to develop the shading, obviously, but also help to communicate the form of the lizard as well.

I also want to point out that my lines are not perfect. I’m not really overthinking the lines as I’m adding them. I’m not putting too much pressure on the pen as well and my lines are a little sketchier than you might expect. The drawing will still look sharp and controlled in the end, but you can allow yourself a little bit of freedom with your mark making and not get too overly obsessed with making the perfect mark.

Texture is very important in the drawing and there are a variety of different textures in this particular subject. You can see here the way I’m handling this is basically just repeating a pattern that I see. This pattern is mostly made up of the scales on the body of the lizard.

What’s important to note here is that this pattern is made up of irregular shapes and sizes. I’m just basically using my photo reference as a guide as to determine where the shapes are larger or smaller. I’m not getting obsessed with matching everything exactly. Instead, I’m just focusing on the patterns that I see, and I’m trying to replicate that pattern as best as I can.

As we work down the body of the iguana, the pattern changes and values become darker in areas. When you’re creating a pen and ink drawing, you’re interpreting what you see in reality into lines. We’re all going to interpret what we see a little bit differently. As a result, the marks and patterns that we make on the drawing surface may be different from one artist to the next. And this is perfectly acceptable. Don’t think that you have to interpret things exactly the way another artist might interpret them in order to be successful. We all have our own artistic vision and we interpret things differently.

Finishing Touches to the Drawing

We’ll move on down to the leg and the body of the iguana, which is pretty much what we’ve got left here. You can see that the hatching marks I’ve used here curve slightly to communicate the form of the leg because it curves as well. You can see the methodology I used to create a lot of the patterning on the body of the iguana. I basically just drew guidelines and then filled in those guidelines with the repeating shapes.

After the ink is dry, a kneaded eraser is used to erase away any remaining graphite lines, revealing only a pen and ink drawing…

Drawing an Iguana with Pen and Ink – Conclusion

After we’ve covered the graphite drawing with pen and ink and we’re happy with the relationships of value, our drawing is complete. In this case, our pen and ink drawing of an iguana could stand on its own as a completed piece of art. However, I later add watercolor to this drawing to add color and interest. We’ll cover this process in the next lesson.

Drawing Fabric with Pastel Pencils

In this lesson, we’re going to take a look at drawing a classical subject matter – folds of fabric or cloth. Pastel pencils are used for this demonstration, but you can use any drawing or painting media that you wish because the concepts that we cover can be applied to any drawing or painting media.

Here’s a look at the completed drawing…

Materials and Surface

This drawing is created on Pastelmat paper, which has a very fine, but heavy tooth. A dark gray surface is chosen for this particular demonstration.

The drawing is completed with CarbOthello pastel pencils. These pencils are a little bit harder than some of the pastel pencils out there, but they keep a nice sharp tip and give you lots of control. We’re only going to be using a few colors.

See also: Pastel Drawing Lessons

Here are the general colors that are used. Note that these are not the specific names of the colors, but a general description…

• A couple of Red-Oranges
• Peach
• Cream
• Dark Cool Gray
• Black
• Golden Yellow-Orange
• Dark Red-Purple

Keys to Success When Drawing Fabric Folds

Drawing folded fabric is a classical subject that may seem very difficult at first impression. We’re going to take a structured approach that makes the process easier.

A photo reference is used to create the drawing. Here’s a look at the reference image…

The first step is to find the contour lines. These contour lines aren’t very obvious, but we can look for them by looking at areas of contrast in value. These are areas where we see a dark value nestled right next to a lighter value. We’re going to start by making these initial marks on our drawing paper.

After the contour lines are roughly in place, we’ll begin analyzing the relationships of the values. The lighter values are going to be found where the fold comes towards the viewer. Any area that protrudes is generally going to be lighter in value. The opposite of this is true. Any area that recedes is clearly going to be darker in value.

The relationships of light and dark values and the transition areas that happen between will eventually lead to the illusion of folds. If you have trouble seeing these values, you might try squinting your eyes. When you squint your eyes, you remove all those edges of strong contrast and instead only see the shapes of value.

As we develop the values, we’ll also consider the directional stroke-making or the direction that we pull the pencil when we’re making marks. Directional strokes help to create the illusion of form and texture as well.

Drawing Fabric Folds Step by Step

We’ll begin by sketching the contour lines on gray Pastelmat paper using a light cool gray pastel pencil. I’m using this pencil simply because it provides enough contrast against the darker gray background so that I can see the marks. I know that when I apply pastel applications over the top, these marks will dissolve and disappear. At this point, I’m just concentrating on the contrast and value. You can see that these lines are loose and sketchy.

Now we’re ready to start applying the actual colors and develop the value. I’ll start here by trying to figure out a formula or a process that I can go through by layering my pencils that’s repeatable. I’ve started with one of the red-oranges that we’re using. This is the red-orange that’s a little bit more red. Over the top, a peach pastel pencil is used to define some of the areas of highlight.

A cream pencil is used to add a little bit of warmth to these highlighted areas. A dark cool gray is then used for the shadowed areas.

Black is also layered with a very light touch. Black on its own is much too dark, so red-orange is applied over the top to create a darker value that doesn’t look unnatural.

To create a warmer highlight, a golden yellow-orange is layered over the highlighted areas.

And to add a bit of color, a touch of dark red-purple is applied to the middle shadows.

Formulaic Pastel Applications

At this point, I have my process down. I know what order of colors that I want to add to create the desired effect. Now it’s simply a process of repetition, taking each section at a time.

All we need to do is continue working our way across the picture plane. And in this case, I’m working my way down and to the right, trying to keep the palm of my hand out of the way. I’m doing this because I’m right-handed. If you’re left-handed, you might consider working from the upper right hand corner, progressively working your way down the picture plane and slowly to the lower left hand corner.

I should point out that you should be patient in this process. Of course, you should be patient with any drawing or painting that you create.

Often, inexperienced artists believe that works of art are easily created by people who have developed their drawing and painting skills. And this isn’t necessarily true. Nothing comes easy, no matter how skilled you are as an artist. It does require your full attention. And there are challenges inherent in every subject, no matter what your skill level.

After we’ve patiently worked our way down the picture plane, carefully layering our progression of colors, our drawing of folded fabric is now complete.

Here’s another look at the completed drawing…

Drawing Fabric Folds – Conclusion

Drawing folded fabric like this is really not that dissimilar from drawing anything else that you might draw from observation obviously. It’s clearly about understanding the relationships of values because value, the darkness or lightness of a color, is how we understand the form of objects. It’s how we understand the light within the scene, the texture. Value is so incredibly important.

Sharpening Pencils

Does a nicely sharpened pencil give you an artistic advantage? You bet it does. In this lesson, we’re going to take a look at how you can sharpen your pencil like a pro.

We’re all familiar with all of the pencil sharpeners out there. There are electric pencil sharpeners, handheld pencil sharpeners, and of course, those that are stuck to the wall. All these options work great, but how do artists get those really long tips that allow them such precision and a variety of different mark making options? Well, let’s take a look at a few options.

See Also: All About Drawing Papers

Exposing More Medium at the Tip

Ordinary pencil sharpeners do a fine job sharpening a pencil, but the tip that’s produced is better for writing. It’s adequate for drawing, but we can do better. The secret to getting those long tips on an artist’s pencil is simply to expose more of the medium at the tip of the pencil.

Sharpening a Pencil with a Knife

One way to expose more of the medium at the tip of the pencil is to use a knife. This approach does have a few risks. You clearly can cut yourself. So if you are a younger artist, perhaps it’s a good idea to get some adult help with this.

Holding the pencil firmly, simply use a sharp knife and patiently cut the wood away from the pencil, pushing the knife away from your body. Once you’ve exposed enough of the medium, use a sandpaper pad to finish the job.

While rotating the shaft, slide the pencil tip back and forth over the sandpaper, producing a super sharp tip. This technique does require a bit of patience and clearly some attention to what you’re doing but it does work for nearly every drawing medium. Graphite pencils, charcoal pencils, pastel pencils, and colored pencils can all be sharpened this way.

There are a couple of drawbacks to this approach of sharpening your pencil. The first drawback is obvious – you could cut yourself. The second drawback is that some pencils have extremely soft cores. With a rigid wood casing, breaking the core with a knife is super easy. And if you sharpen and break the core often, then your pencil will be gone in no time.

Sharpening a Pencil with a Specialized Sharpener

Thankfully, there are some alternatives to sharpening your pencil with a knife that still produces a nice long tip. Some manufacturers make pencil sharpeners specifically for artists. These sharpeners still produce the long tips that we’re after, but with less danger to our bodies and our pencils.

This first option features several different sized openings and a container to catch the shavings. What makes this sharpener different from a regular handheld pencil sharpener is that the core of the pencil is allowed to extend out beyond the tip of the blade. This produces a long tip.

This sharpener also has a small bit of sandpaper inside of the catch that you can use to make the tip even sharper, but I found that using the sandpaper pad works a lot better. Due to all of the different sized openings, you can sharpen all kinds of pencils with this one sharpener.

(This sharpener worked great for a while but quickly fell apart. I would recommend the Blackwing, which follows.)

Another option is the long tip pencil sharpener by Blackwing. This sharpener features two openings and you might think that each opening is for a different type of pencil, but that’s not the case.

Sharpening is actually a two step process. The first opening is for sharpening back of the wood. The second opening is for sharpening the graphite. Once you go through the process of inserting the pencil in the first opening and then the second opening, the result is a super sharp, long tip – perfect for drawing.

Buy the Blackwing Pencil Sharpener (This link is an affiliate link which means I make a small commission if you purchase at no additional cost to you.)

This sharpener is specifically designed for graphite, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work for other mediums like colored pencils.

Pencil Sharpening for Artists – Conclusion

So there you have it – a quick look at some options for sharpening your pencil like a professional artist. Now obviously, the advantage of sharpening your pencil with a longer tip is that you have more options for creating more variety in your mark making, but also that extra precision you get with a super sharp pencil.

Drawing with Colored Pencils on Toned Paper

In this lesson, we’re going to take a look at creating a drawing of a koi fish using colored pencils on toned drawing paper. You’ll see how easy it is to ensure accuracy in your drawing, using a transfer process. And we’ll also take a look at how abstract shapes of color and value often lead to the illusion of realism in a drawing.

Here’s a look at the completed drawing…

Materials and Surface

In this lesson, we’re using Prismacolor Premier colored pencils on Canson Mi-Teintes pastel paper. Canson Mi-Teintes paper features two distinct sides. One side of the paper is heavily textured, while the other side is less textured. We’ll be working on the less textured side of the paper. (The following links are affiliate links which means I make a small commission if you purchase at no additional cost to you.)

• Prismacolor Premier Colored Pencils
• Canson Mi-Teintes Pastel Paper

Transferring the Image

A photo reference is used to create the drawing. Here’s a look at the reference image…

We’re going to start out by using a transfer process to ensure that we get the contour lines of our fish in place on our drawing surface. We’ll use a bit of PanPastel and apply it to the back of the photo reference. I’ve printed out the photo reference on just regular typing paper and I’m using the white PanPastel and applying it fairly liberally to the back of the photo reference.

I’ll take my drawing paper, which I’ve already prepared and tape it down in place so it doesn’t move. Then we’re going to carefully place our photo reference over the top and tape it down very gently with a few pieces of masking tape. Now, we’ll need to use a sharp tool in order to place pressure on all the contour lines to basically transfer the PanPastel material onto the drawing surface.

Using a lead holder with sharpened lead, I trace over all of the contour lines I wish to transfer. I’m careful not to place too much pressure on the pencil though because I don’t want to create grooves in the finished surface. When we remove the photo reference, we can see that we have a contour line drawing in place of our koi fish.

See also: Is It OK to Trace in Art?

Formulaic Colored Pencil Applications

Now we’re ready to begin with colored pencil applications. I’ll start with the eye, building up a natural black. I’m not going to use the color black at all. Instead, I’m using a combination of indigo blue and dark umber. This creates a more natural looking black that gives me full control over the color temperature. If I want my black to appear a little cooler, I’ll add a little bit more of the indigo blue. If I want it to be warmer, I’ll just add more of the dark umber.

From this eye, I’m going to start working outward, layering different varieties or different versions of oranges, yellow-oranges, and red-oranges – a bit of white and gray as well.

As I work, I’m trying to come up with a formula for how I’m going to layer my colored pencil applications. You can see I’ve got a broad range of value in this small little section. For the most part, I start with just a standard orange colored pencil. Over the top, I’m adding a little bit more of an earthier red-orange. This color is terra cotta and it does make the value darker, but not quite dark enough. I switch over to a 70% warm gray. This makes the value darker, but a little bit too cool. So add a little bit of dark umber over the top.

This is typically how I like to work with a colored pencil drawing. I’ll start in a small area and come up with a formula of how I’m going to layer my pencils to build up the color and value.

The values on the head of the fish are much lighter. I’ll layer some lighter yellow-oranges, including yellowed orange and a bit of cream. Now, there are some reds here too and I don’t want to lose those. So in this case, I’ll layer a bit of poppy red over the top in some of the areas.

Remember, we want to create variety in the color. Orange is mixed by combining yellows and reds, so it makes sense to use yellows and reds in orange areas. Now that I have my formula in place, I’ll simply work my way out from this location.

As we work each area, we’ll adjust the formulation that we use appropriately.

Working Up the Body of the Koi Fish

This process is slow and tedious. Make sure to take your time and patiently layer your colored pencil applications. Colored pencils are at their best when they’re layered. This layering adds to the complexity of the color, making your drawing look more natural.

I’m applying the colored pencils in a way that the application appears solid – so that none of the color of the paper is showing through. This is another mistake people often make with colored pencils. They draw very, very light. Instead, you should try to build up to a heavy application. This doesn’t mean that you start with a heavy application, it just means that you will slowly and gradually build up a heavy application.

Incorporating a Color Scheme

You can see here in the shadowed area of the first fin that we are addressing that I’ve decided to add a little bit of purple to the mix. This color is appropriately dark purple and you might be wondering why purple?

And that’s a great question.

Purple is used because I’m trying to exploit a specific color scheme. A color scheme is a defined arrangement of colors usually based on their positioning on the color wheel.

The color scheme I’m trying to exploit here is called a secondary color scheme. This scheme is made up of the colors of purple, orange and green. These colors are equidistant from each other on the color wheel, making them a color triad. I’m going to put hints of purple here and there because the paper we’re working on is green and the bulk of the fish is orange. If we add bits of purple here and there, that will keep us in line with the secondary color scheme. The secondary color scheme will create additional pop and color contrast which will make our drawing look a bit more interesting.

See also: Warm vs. Cool Grays

Shapes of Color and Value

I’m carefully paying special attention to the relationships of the shapes of color and value that I see and I’m trying to mimic those as closely as possible.

Instead of thinking of drawing a fish, I am thinking of only shapes, colors and values. The fish will emerge from the paper as long as I get these right.

In this image, we have the challenge of creating the illusion of this fish being in water. There is some distortion that happens because of this. To create this illusion, we have to pay close attention to the relationships of colors, or more specifically the shapes of colors and values that we’re trying to replicate in our drawing. This is basic to drawing and painting.

We see that we have a collection of dark shapes right next to light shapes and these are all distorted because of the water. What we actually see is a collection of shapes of values and colors. If we can replicate these shapes of color and value on our drawing surface, then we’ll create a convincing illusion that will look realistic. And that’s how abstraction leads to realism.

Even as we work up to the tail end of the fish, we’re sticking with the same colors – just the values will change from section to section. This means we’ll have to have some darker sections and some lighter sections as well. We want to make sure that we continue to create that variety in the oranges by adding bits of red and yellow-orange. I’m bringing in some jade green up here at the end of the fish as well.

I’m going to add hints of the water around the edges of the fish so that we can see a bit of movement and to make the drawing a bit more interesting. You could fill out the rest of the picture plane if you wish, or just add a little bit more of this information.

I’m allowing more of the paper color to show through because the color is a dark green and makes sense for this particular subject. I’m using a bit of slate gray to add a little bit more variety in the ripples. We’ll simply pull out a few strokes that mimic what we see in the reference.

We’ll do the same on the left side of the picture plane with the slate gray. Now we have some lighter values and some middle values for our water ripples. We need to add some darker values and we’ll start with a bit of dark green. This green is cooler so it makes sense to add it in some of the water areas, but we need to make the values darker. To do this, we’ll add a bit of indigo blue.

Finishing Touches to the Drawing

Let’s add another green – a yellow-green. Lime peel is used to add more variety to our water areas and it still makes sense with our secondary color scheme. Then we’ll just continue working out the areas that we want to include in our drawing. It’s completely up to you how much you want to add or how much you want to leave out.

Lastly, we need to add some strong highlights on top so the water actually looks wet. Obviously, we’ll start with a white colored pencil and put heavy pressure so that it covers up the colored pencil applications underneath.

The white colored pencil does a fairly good job of creating these highlights, but there might be a couple of areas that you want to make a bit stronger. To address these areas, we can turn to a material called gouache. Gouache is opaque watercolor and we can apply it directly over the top of a colored pencil drawing. A very fine-tipped brush is used to apply pure white gouache to a couple of selected areas to make the highlights quite a bit stronger. After these highlights are added, our colored pencil drawing of a koi fish on toned green paper is now complete.

Here’s another look at the completed drawing…

Koi Fish Drawing with Colored Pencils – Conclusion

Drawing with colored pencils requires patience, but it’s worth it. Work slowly and concentrate on the shapes of color and value that you see. Match what you see as best as you can and a realistic image will appear. Layer your colored pencil applications to develop depth in the color and enjoy every step of the process.