Hello, in this lesson, I'm going to give you the introduction to color theory. In this lesson, you'll see a different approach to coloring that goes beyond general information. In this lesson, you'll discover how to use a few colored pencils efficiently and getting great results. I'm also going to explain a different color system called the man cell color system. To begin by the artists color wheel at an art supply store and become aware of basic definitions and color harmonies in the wheel. This information is widely available online and on my blog.
But the color wheel helps you study color theory visually. So you don't have to be confused by all the colors and it refers yourself to the color wheel. If you forget about something, when you work in colored pencil, you must learn the terminology behind that. So I'm going to explain the difference between colors you value tones, color, intensity, and so on. hue is the color itself such as red, yellow, or blue. Any color that you see, you can say instead of a color you can use the word hue.
Chroma is the purity of a color such as pure red or pure blue. Local color is the natural color of an object as it appears in normal light. For instance, it's red have the time either or green of the grass. Beginners often see only local colors in objects rather than the color combinations that happen due to various lighting conditions. color intensity is the saturation and purity of a color. neutralized color is the color of is less intensity that is either gray down or mixed the visit compliment.
Red is the pure color. But when I need some red is a different color, violet or some gray it loses its color intensity. So there is a range of rounds. And when you add color to it, you make it last color intense values the lightness or darkness of a color. Every color has its own value range going from The dark is dark to the lightest light. darker colors have a wider value range as opposed to light ones.
This is the value scale showing a range of tones. Going from viewers black to the darks to the middle tones to the light and finishing up this though widest wide. Every image you draw in power corresponds to this value scale that you pick colors based on the values you see in the image. This picture has light values in the flower itself but has very dark values in its background. To see my image in grayscale format. I opened my picture in Photoshop and then I click on background.
Choose Duplicate Layer, and then I say it's a gray scale. Choose okay. I have this image and then I click on image adjustments and choose black and white. And click on OK. And that shows me the color image that becomes black and white. So I can click on this layer, and then I see my color image. And if I click on my black and white image, I can see it in black and white.
Value means the lightness or darkness of a color value could go from the purest black to the middle tones to the light to the white itself. Every color that you have, is going to match particular values or tones. Depending on your color box, you're going to have different variety of colored pencils. So for instance, over here, I have an Dark green that that matches the value one and two. Basically, it's like a that between the two values because this is the purest black, then I have this color grass green, then I have a variety of lighter greens. And they have different values.
You can create values by overlapping with different colors. But you also choose colors based on the values that you see in the picture. Every color has its own value range. If it's difficult for you to remember what it means to have different values. Then you can substitute that word for tones and think of black and white or lightness or darkness of a color. So primary colors are red, yellow, and blue.
They're called primary because they cannot be mixed by any other colors. secondary colors are orange, green and violet. They are called secondary because they can be mixed with primary colors. For instance, violet can be mixed with blue and red is red and you get violet. The same way you can mix red and yellow and you'll get orange or you mix blue and yellow and you get green. So these are the secondary colors.
The tertiary colors are the colors that you can get by mixing these two together, and you get a color in between those colors. This is the color field that shows to you. primary colors red, yellow, and blue, secondary colors to violet, orange and green tercer colors, the yellow, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, red, violet, and so on. In theory, when you mix those colors, you end up having grace. But it's just the theory colored pencils don't mix to gray. That's the reason why the manufacturer produces a variety of Gray's and they're divided into two groups warm and cold grace.
So depending on your picture your use either way. or cooler grade. And they also have different percentages of gray. It's useful to have a few grades in your colored pencil box because you can play this color and make a statement using, for instance, Arad as you're in your primary subject and then grade down the rest of the picture to bring those rats forward even further. monochromatic harmonious colors compose the variations of the same hue, but different than value and intensity. For instance, red is the hue and that's monochromatic harmonies are red beings and Maroons.
These colored pencils are all variations of cooler and they differ in value and chrome complimentary harmonies are colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel. complements intensify each other analogous colors are the colors that are adjacent to each other on the color wheel. They harmonize very well. Since is the addition of white to be your hue to create light variations of color. Because colored pencils are premix you simply find the lighter version of the pure color in your box is serious of tins of the pure color vary in intensity from full strength to pay less tint. Shade is the addition of black to pure hue to create darker variations of color.
Unlike paint colored pencils upper mix so you find dark versions of a color or bring the color down to darkness by layering black or the complement decides various values that colors could have. Also colors differ in color temperature. Every color has a warm and cool version of it. For instance, Apple green is the warm green because it leans towards yellow more true green is the cooler version of green because it leans towards blue more. If I take the family of reds, period is the warm around because it leans towards the yellow more and I take processor ad So cooler, because it leans towards losing wireless more. So as you can see, these have similar values, but they are different in color temperature.
These two are warm and these two are cool colors. Sometimes it takes time to learn and separate between those colors. But eventually, you learn to see the difference in color temperature by practicing. If it's hard for you to remember the relationships between colors, I find it very helpful to buy the color wheel and use it to your advantage. For instance, if you want to decide what background to use, based on the color of your subject, you can do so by using the color wheel. So for instance, if your subject is blue, it gives you complements and split complements that she can use in your background.
As I roll, warmer colors come forward more and cooler colors receive in space. Here you can see a blade of warm and cool colors as well. If you want your subject to come forward and be in front of the viewer, you use warmer colored pencils. And if you want your bare ground to receive more in space, you use cooler colored pencils also great helped a lot to cool down the background. For instance, in this image, I applied greens first and then I say that with lighter gray over the background. If you're not sure about your color choices, make sure that you test your colors on a separate piece of paper.
Usually I keep it right next to my drawing. When I look at the image and I want to match the color, I start shading on a separate piece of paper for us, and maybe even use a combination of stencils to understand if it's the right color combination, the drawing must stay clean at all times. Color means that it's the dominant color in the color scheme. Color transparency is the ability of any given color to show through if applied with a light or medium pencil pressure. Because colors are semi transparent, you're able to lighten or darken the colors in progression, building the correct value and color intensity. All of this information is easy to understand visually by moving the slider on the artist gallery and learning about The color harmonies.
You don't have to remember the entire theory at once. You can also plan out your color schemes using the color wheel, or observe the colors you see in your reference picture and see if you can enhance the color harmony already present in your reference. For instance, take a single trial of colors make one key color the strongest and the other two less color intense. When you blend your color schemes in terms of shading, it doesn't mean that you say this just three colored pencils. Measuring three colors of the triad. Every colored pencil has variations in value and color temperature from one view or color.
Created by Albert Marcel. The Munsell color system, helps you visualize color relationships. in three dimensions, which leads to a much better understanding of color, because all artists think of color in three dimensions, which include hue, Chroma, and value, which is color itself, color purity, and relative lightness or darkness. These three parameters affect the color choices and layering at all times. If you research the system further in the Munsell book of color, you don't need to dwell on its complex numbers, rather understand the basic concept that connects all three elements in one chart. And this information is also important to artists who plan on becoming representational painters.
Because color mixing these few pigments becomes skimpy. But the value scale column in the center, it ranges from pure black at the bottom to pure white at the top, and then five principal colors sit in the circle around the value column, which is the red, yellow, green, blue and purple. The five intermediate hues are yellow red, red, purple, purple, blue, blue, green and green, yellow. Chroma or the color purity scale for each principal heel goes outward on the value scale radially and becomes stronger located further away from the value column and grave and close to it. The closer a color to the value column, the lower the Chroma is getting grade down incrementally until it reaches neutral gray in the value scale. The strongest or the purest colors sit on the outer edge of each color being father's away from the value column.
Different colors have different maximal Chroma. For instance, deep reds would have a much wider Chroma range, as opposed to light purples. That's why you see varying lengths of the color strings. Unlike an oil painting, your colored pencils come pre mixed. The more colored pencils you've got in your box, the more variations or strings of the same hue you have. The Munsell color system gives you an understanding of how to pick your colored pencils based on Chroma, value and heal These are examples of Munsell color swatches where you can see how colors relate to each other in terms of value and Chroma.
The left column shows the grade down colors, while the fathers on the right has the strongest colors. If you have large boxes of colored pencils you have a wide variety of colored pencils that differ in value, Chroma and hue. But if you have limited resources, you can achieve similar results by mixing and layering colors. This is a string of gray down red that I'm using single red to shade all color chips and then I agree every chip down with a gray colored pencil, adjusting pencil pressure gradually. And here you can see how different red looks going from gray on the left to the highest Chroma read on the right. Be aware that colored pencils don't mix to gray.
Therefore companies have developed their strings of grace that are often sold as open stock and are not included in boxes. It means that you gray down the colors because I either grace or the complements. First learn to see the colors in terms of value. In the reference image you can see how colored pencils very enlightening and darkness. Let's imagine you were to draw red borders begin your color analysis by determining the basic view which has arrived. Then you determine how light or dark there are others which is value and look at your colored pencils.
See that specific value in color, determine how bright or dark it is, which is Chroma. And the last step is to take a note of color temperature warm or cool. Bring you two very few choices left and peaking reds. colored pencil is a very forgiving medium because you can develop both value and Chroma in subsequent layers, unlike in paint, where you mix color matching for all three parameters at once to make a single stroke. Just like all the other demonstrations shown here, you can start developing your first layer in a single college scene in the deepest shadow that you see on the object. You say this this single color is very pencil pressure throughout the drawing by layering one color at a time.
Throughout your picture you'll learn to control hue value and Chroma graduate As opposed to layering all the colors from start to finish in a given area to help you read color and value in your pictures if you find a difficult to read color in any given area of your picture, this simple tool might help you see the color and value by isolating the color from its surroundings. Take a white small card and just punch a hole in the middle and place this card against the image and look at the color seen through the punched dot. The value scale helps you read the values in your image. Just place it against the error in your reference or next to your colored pencils to determine the correct value. To read the values you can also convert your drawing to black and white image in Photoshop and compare two The grayscale photo to see the difference.
Usually beginners don't push the shadows dark enough to create volume, or they color the highlights while they must stay white if you're their own white paper. Also screen looking at your art from a distance. This method forces you to focus on value rather than color or details. color temperature greatly contributes to color harmony in your art. In general yellows and reds are associated with the sun and that are warm colors, while blues and greens associated with water and are cool colors. The earth stones like browns and grays are considered to be neutral.
Each hue however has a warm and cool counterpart. This image gives you an example of warm and cold here. Use present in every basic category of colors. The left column consists of use that leant over the yellow, and thus are warm colors, and the right column has cool colors that lean towards the blue. It takes some time to see the shifts in color temperature, but the more you practice, the easier it gets. And this image you can see some warm and cool colors in the Prismacolor premier line of brown so I can see that neutral chocolate leans over it's yellow and dark brown may be a slightly cooler next to other colors.
As an action step, you can take your colored pencils out and begin grouping them by either color, temperature or value or hue. You can also analyze call it in your reference based on live and time of the day. If it's a sunny day, you'll see warmer colors in the light. And if it's a gray day you'll see cooler gray and more neutral colors. Why is it important because cooler colors recede in space. For instance, when you look at the mountains, they have pale bluish tones, and warmer colors like yellow threads and worn brands in the ones into the foreground.
Picking the right colored pencil helps you to create a believable atmosphere and to control the color of your focal point, which should be the maximum Chroma. Take a look at the reference image to see what colors advance in the received. screen to see the difference in color intensity between the hues. pure black and white don't exist in nature. They represent the colors value There's no actual color in it. There are lots of colors than area so objects that look either black or white.
It happens because every surface absorbs in reflects the surrounding colors. You don't see subtle shifts in color in heavily photoshopped images. While images that are more true to nature always have hints of color that you as an artist must learn to see in the reflected light and shadows to bring into your drawing. If you don't have enough color in the shadows, black and white, your pictures will look lifeless. In this picture the background to be is black. However, if you look closely, you'll notice a lot of blue in the black.
The reflection at the bottom also has a lots of colors that reflect the colors from the object, but have much lower Chroma. This reference for the show scholars Registering in the white. The David's eye has no direct light source and the colors look washed out. However, you can still see shifts in value in color temperature even in such lighting conditions. Remember that colors absorb in reflect the neighboring hues. So you find these colors in your object as low Chroma hues.
This plaster cast cast takes a lot of color from the surrounding wooden box. In this picture, we observe a still live under direct electric light source which means that the lights are much warmer and the shadows are either neutral or cool. We can see the bread in the background which various in value from the darkest on the left to the medium dark on the right. In this drawing the key color is low. Light blue. You can see this color throughout the image in the flower, short eyelids, upper lip, nose, and even the hair.
By overlapping the same colors and different ways you can make your drawing look very colorful without using a high number of colored pencils. Avoid drawing this primary colors in the background as they are the strongest colors and we'll jump forward competing with the center of interest unless it's your plan to break the rules. Avoid drawing this bright color in the shadows. Focus your color intensity on the light. Remember that the color in the shadows can be stronger than the color in the light. Prioritize value over color determine value and find the color of that value.
Have a single dominant color of a tree And use the other two to a lesser degree to create the visual harmony in your art. You can use just a few colored pencils efficiently getting great results by varying pencil pressure, as well as by applying one color at a time throughout your artwork. instead of jumping between all the colors or trying to finish one section, you should pick one color and apply it throughout your artwork varying the pencil pressure. This method gives you color unity on autopilot, and this is what you see in my demonstrations. Color is emotion. Decide what you want to save as your artwork.
Practice your understanding of you value in Chroma. Create the monochromatic drawing utilizing most of your colored pencils based on your favorite he'll find your dark low Chroma colors You can use in your backgrounds later on. A color is relative to the light itself, the same blue object will look warm and light during a sunny day and very dark or even black in the evening. It will look less color intense in the shadow and more intense in the light. That artificial light creates a totally different perception of color. A color is also relative to the surroundings and various in relationship to its neighbor.
Colors usually read much brighter if they're placed next to a neutral hue or gray. Colors appear brighter in warm light and dollar or bluer in the cool light. diffused light makes the colors look less than dense and graze them down. We can see this in the images of the doughnuts. The picture on the left shows the different lighting situation while the picture on the right shows the don'ts and the bright sunlight. Notice how deep colorful and cool the shadows are on the right, alternate shift over the yellow in the light.
So despite having various local colors, all of them have fractions of warm yellow. They are also brighter than the doughnuts on the left and they appear to have more volume. All colors reflect themselves into lesser light and the shadows receive reflected colors. In the image of dance on the right you can see how colors reflect on one into another on the sides of the donuts. what that all means for you is that you look for fractions of other colors in the local color you normally see including black and white subjects. You also begin to analyze general lighting conditions and the weather your sun On the warm or cool light in nature you can really find the bureau strongest color.
It means that you can reserve your strongest colors for sharp edges and accents in your focal point. Avoid placing all your pure colors next to each other they will lose their color intensity and compete with each other. I'm using allege piece of cancel color line colored paper in Clementine Prismacolor premier colored pencils unless know that in color chart, kneaded eraser, current dodgeville, Blender gamsol, fixative, and Sakura touchpad. Please pick your colors based on the reference color chart. Most brands have similar colors and only their names differ. In the reference picture, the background looks pitch black, which wasn't the case in reality, it was low Chroma value three red.
Therefore, you'll see me coloring the background in accordance with my actual reference. You can certainly go this much deeper ads to increase contrast. But please don't use a single black for that because you're going to have lots of bags bloom and also because black represents the absence of color. This image was designed to harmonize well in color red, red purple, in accordance with the Munsell color system. To simplify this rather complex, time consuming demonstration, please feel free to draw a single flower instead of the two flowers often begins to them Choose the local color of the background as their paper scholar. The result is down because they wind up shading with the same color as the paper.
The approach to color must be different. Try to pick colored paper that is fairly close to the middle term, which isn't a value five has natural vibrancy and complements your basic local color that you see throughout your reference image. colored pencils react to vibrant colored papers and even if your burners to the surface, you still see the difference in color. Another advantage to drawing on colored paper is speed layering goes much faster when working on vibrant colored papers because you'll already have an initial color block in just try to be spontaneous and discover how your colored pencils react to colored paper. Never begin working on a large piece without a preliminary test of your colors. Just test your colors on a scrap piece of paper or just use the other side of that colored paper.
As you practice you'll see how some colored pencils look much stronger and appear to have higher Chroma on don't paper, while others remain weak in Chroma. And just one thing that I want to mention about shading on colored paper is that most colored papers have some texture in them. It takes some trial and error to find colored papers with vibrant hues in minimal texture. Step one. Before you begin saving you need to understand the rat ation of each pebble Because you're going to repeat that rotation with your stroke, coloring every single pedal to see the general rotation of the pedal, you can just focus on these lines that you see in the center. And basically what you do you make a directional stroke first like so.
And then you draw out the petal based on that directional stroke, every petal curves in its own directions. So this one curves like this, this one curves like this. This one changes the direction. If I place a line goes like this, and then you draw out the lines. And that curves like this. It's important to remember because you're going to see Following the curvature of each flat out, and a lot of times you need to rotate your paper.
So it would be easy for you to fill in and say in accordance with the petals direction, I encourage you to look at the light pink that also the same, the same idea that every petal curves in its own direction. For instance, I can place a directional line here and it gives me an idea for the curvature. I can throw out the outlines for the petal. It changes direction here, that's the center line. And so I make the outlines going around that line. If you look at the bass pedal, and then we can throw out the outlines Fado, this one curves out and in and out.
And again you will copy that once you start shading. If you look at the petal over here, it has a very interesting curvature again the center line goes like that. But then if you look at the curvature closely it goes in and out and in again and you see it in the placement of the shadows. As we keep studying the direction and curvature of each petal, it would be a lot easier for you to say that in the right direction. I also map out the petals by placing lights with either XL which is warm white or white, which is cool white and marking the dip Threats this pomegranate in the red flower and Hannah in the pink flower. I add a black raspberry into the depth deepest shadows in the red flower.
Look in the background in dark amber and black because Prismacolor black gives a lot of legs bloom. I barely use it here. Today I'd like to show you how to achieve reached dark background without using black colored pencil. Here you see the first layer down in dark amber and you can alternate the pencil pressure it could be heavier or lighter depending on the darkness of the background you'd like to achieve. But I'm going to show you how you can lay a color to have a very colorful background without using any black. This is sepia, which is kind of similar to the basic color that I have it just a little bit lighter.
So you can lay your different dark colors on top of your basic one. So here I'm going to try or polish color. When you lay you can crosshatch and make sure you keep your pencil sharp so the texture of the paper doesn't show as much. Now we could try layering some green. You can also combine those colors and just overlap them and this is 90% Warm gray. Let's try some indigo blue.
I'm using a fairly light pencil fresher, but the harder you push, the darker you're gonna get. The background color of this in this photograph is actually a reddish like dark red. So I'm gonna add some Crimson Lake over the basic Browns that I have here. Okay, so it's getting a lot darker but it still shows a lot of papers texture. There are two ways of blending you could use your colored pencil to blended or a more effective way for the background blending is using gamsol and small brass and just start blending it like like so. As you can see it gets a lot darker and you basically get rid of the texture.
Once you're done blending, just let it sit, let it dry completely and you'll be able to apply more color on top of this. As I'm blending this you can see how dark it looks. This out using the black color pencil black colored pencil. If it's wax based, it may give you lots of bloom. So to avoid that, you could use a combination of dark pencils and gamsol to blend the surface. When you look up close, you could actually see the bluish color, the greenish color and the reddish color all mixed together.
You can also get away from blending this the solvent by by using a very sharp colored pencil and failing in all the texture that she can see. It takes a lot more time and usually you have to do cross hatching, to get rid of the strokes to feel at the end as much as you can. When I do my backgrounds are used A variety of dark colored pencils so my background doesn't look the same throughout the picture and when I photograph this image, I placed very dark red background behind it so I know exactly what the color is. Make sure you go right to the edge. Like don't leave spaces around your petals. Make sure you shade right into the edge.
You can also underpin the surface with a marker, you could use black marker or whatever dark marker you have. It's going to be a fairly light. So I placed the pigment here and I'm just gonna wait till it dries I'm going to show you what you can do with it, layering it over your colored pencil. So I have some colored pencil over here and I'm just layering the marker over it and you can see that it also seems to blend the surface a little bit and the darkens that considerably. This is try so we can layer colors pencil. This is the marker layer and with the marker.
You can see this part of the paper is getting a lot darker than this one. A lot of stuff It's a good thing when the papers colors, so throw that colored pencil. It just depends on the image and what what you'd like to achieve. And don't forget to close your drawing when you say it so you don't bring smudges into the light side of your drawing. I usually use tracing paper. Okay To sum up, you see three ways or burnishing the background and making it look very dark without using the black pencil.
Here, I applied two or three colored pencils, using a very sharp point and just filling in all the texture of the paper. Here, I use The marker on top of the colored pencil and here I use Ganzel with any kind of solvent to blend the surface. As you can see, all of them give kind of similar results and it is possible to layer color on top of the blend that surface once it try. If you burn the surface like like I'm having it being close to being burnished over here, what you can do, you can use a light coat of workable fixative spray the background part and I'll close in this part of the drawing and just spraying the background, letting it dry and then applying color once again because it's going to grab the color and you Let's learn more color of the marker as well.
But remember, it's going to give you the same texture as in the beginning, in the place where I have gamble. I got rid of the papers texture and so layering becomes much easier. Continue working on the vase mark the strongest skylights in the wild the scary pencil pressure. After that you begin to create transitions between the strongest winds and the deeper shadows. This heavy tensile pressure I add aluminum all of yellow, which is very similar to Prismacolor Apple green and light blue or Prismacolor cloud blue in the light around the white. I'm aiding this colors to create smooth transitions in the light.
I'm also overlapping the colors and you can see that the papers colors Imagine grass green to the stems and I'm overlapping it over the previously applied bluish turquoise. grass green makes a nice transition between the deep shadow into lighter values. I say this polychromos glows turquoise and current Pablo ultra Moran to map out the darkest, curving shapes in the ways you can replace this colors with Prisma color indigo blue. Make sure not to make these dark areas in the ways to linear. They must wrap around and rotate in the circle in space. Add some bluish turquoise to the background sparingly and see how it cools down the previously applied colors.
Here I'm going to burnish all the colors in the vase by applying heavy pressure and then using gamsol if needed. If you work on a rather textured surface your blend is a solvent. But if the paper is smooth blending happens via heavy pressure layering and blending is the full blender. lessons I go for a second round and layering with the same colors, but I increase my pencil pressure and overlapping so much so that the colors begin to blend on their own. I don't apply gamsol if I don't have enough pigment on my paper I apply lots of color And then I would be able to blend that. After using Ganzel, don't forget to let it dry.
I usually step away from my drawing for a few minutes to make sure it's dry completely. The outer edges of the vase should blend into the background nicely. If your background looks different, you can blend it with a solvent to once it is dry, you can blend the edges around the highlights in the vase even more using white or light blue colored pencil. Any light color will blend the pencils with heavy pressure just pay attention to color temperature to see if it's warm or cold and pick the pencils accordingly. You can also grade down slightly the light areas Peer blue, light gray colored pencil it beers as a low Chroma blue on this paper What's important to understand is the direction each petal takes because it's not just about the color or the value but also about your stroke that she used to describe the form the diary of this pedal goes this like, but if you start seeding like this, it's gonna look flat, you need to help yourself to create volume not just this your tone and color but also this direction.
Once I've decided on the direction of each pedal and making decisions, what I want to come forward more and what needs to receive back and space more. Therefore, I've decided that I'm going to make sharper edges over here and blend or mute the edges that I see over here. I would create contrast based on the edge, color, and value once you make a drawing on your sketch paper You transfer it to your nice drawing paper, you can start shading from the dark. Once again, the general curvature of the paddle goes like this, and the center line is over here. And then I just draw out the lines around this line before you start shading if your flower is light, you must make sure that the graphite lines stay very nice and light. This dazzle is is Arad and these are dark reds.
So the graphite line is not going to show unless you're in the light. But if you continue drawing the thing flow you must make sure that the lines of their light to begin shading you basically make two notes that you place the light in the dark. The lightest light that I see are in here. And usually I shade a little bit more because when you start shading you overlap your colors, that's why it's better to say over the area that you think you need. This would be our lightest, our highlights, and I'm gonna place the highlight here. And then you can see the darks and I'm just looking at one of the petals and making out the dog that I see and I start chasing Right next to it.
Once again, it's important to repeat the curvature of the parallel. Then this would be the shadow, the shadow that we see right next to the shadow. I'm just placing it here. So this petal becomes this edge will become wider and it will be in the context. And also, this battle casts a shadow over here actually there is another battle here. We are not going to enjoy it, but I'm going to place this because these are the darkest notes that I have and that's important to outline but then You see right next to that outline.
This way you clarify the edges and fuse together. Okay, this way we've created the highlight and the darkest nodes and after that we just create the transitions between the dark and the light. And you can use a variety of stencils and depending on the color temperature to create those different system values. There is the same idea of is light. Think petals. Once again you follow the general direction and curvature Fitch well this petal casts a shadow A very dark shadow on the petal right next to it, and I'm filling it in to create the darkest notes.
It doesn't matter what you draw. And you need to start the same way every single time you brought your shading because you need to save from your dark to light. And for that you can make the darkest notes first and then mark the highlight. And then you basically work on them. They'll use that bridge, the darks and the lights. Just gonna give a general shading here to set that in context.
Make sure there is no graphite. I know that the lightest light is somewhere in here you can hear I'm marking it, I know that I can go back and enhance the whites I just want to place the note and there is some light here. So you see two notes, the darkest darks and the lightest lights and then I would be bridging the values in between those two notes. Now, you Begin observing how light or dark you need to go between grades and values between those dark and light nodes. And you basically begin working in one color and adjust your pencil pressure to create the basic transitions and as you keep layering you will be adding more and more color to just the values. Excel is a very light color that's similar to white in value.
But it has warmer colors. That's why whenever you see a light, not all of them are pure white because White is a cool color. You can use extra oil instead. Create light warm colors. If you need to darken the valleys and make them a little bit cooler, you can use a little bit of gray and that's the idea behind rowing erotism In the following steps, I'm going to focus on the purple red flower, which has cooler red heels. I define the white edges with a sharpened of a soft white colored pencil.
I work on middle tones in various pressure shades in this Prismacolor Carmina red and purple which is the light the value of Prismacolor. Carmina read. This marks a transition between the shadows and the y's I already established I use Barrett pencil pressure depending on the value that I need to shade in, and I also overlap colored pencils all the time, it's important to overlap them as opposed to stacking them up next to each other. That's how you get the transitions of colors. I also apply a little bit of white over the cooler ram that you see here. It lightens it up.
But I do it under where I see that it needs to be lighter. Then I create transitions between this value and this value and make making sure that it's nice and smooth. I work in color thinking of the rotation, how light or how dark I'm supposed to go at every step and I keep layering the same pencils over and over again until I achieve the result that I want. And I also know that I need to fill in the rest of the flour so I'm not worried to do this one 100% because I will adjust everything in comparison to my other pedals. Eventually, I want to put to put This battle forevermore as opposed to that one. Therefore, I will be sharpening this edge even more.
Also, I want to say that despite the fact that some of the shadows could be very dark, I'm using black raspberry and colored pencil to fill in the shadows. Anyway, despite its darkness, it has some color in it. That's why I'm throwing more color in because they mix together. The Shadow becomes, you know, colorful black as opposed to using a black pencil and I'm actually adding color into the shadow itself. I can see that it's much lighter over here. Therefore, I'm just trying to lighten up here.
And I can do this at a later stage as well because I, I could use the workable fixative spray a little bit and work on top of that. At this point, I'm just gonna leave it like, like so but I will be adjusting values and color at the later stage as well. Overall the color scheme of this flower is cool so I'm using cooler fuse To save the battle despite the fact that all of them are red, red, just like any other color could be divided into warm and cold version of it. And overall, I'm using a cooler version of the heel. Or I could use fractions of warmer colors in here, but the overall color temperature would remain cool, just like I see in the picture. And again, I'm keeping the edges quite soft as of now and if I decide that I need to sharpen them, I could go back and sharper and more.
If I want to use the color just a little bit, I could go over this a light gray, or light or white or any off white color. Here, I'm just doing the grayish color just actually the Sienna using a combination of two colored pencils black, raspberry and pomegranate, on the darkest areas on the veins of each petal My strategy here is to lay down the foundation for each petal. And because I'm drawing from dark to light, my first intention is to put the darkest shadows and areas that I see and then I will be coming back and I feel me and get to be in the dark and the light. But as of now I'm just establishing various degrees though darkness will never pass all that white is a cool color. And I add a touch of yellow over white to make some white edges in the battles to be a be a little bit warmer.
This step you finalize the shading of petals, blending them with the full blender and Prismacolor white on the edges. I'm using Prismacolor white because is the softest white I know. luminance has the same softness as well but every other brand that I've tried is just not soft enough to work well for blending. Wide lightens up the tips of the petals making them appear cooler and pinker when overlapped over the cooler add. In this step I enhance the curvature of fish battle with subtle transitions between the valleys seen in Colorado. I shade this Prismacolor pomegranate and strengthen shadows with a mix of permanent red, crimson red and black raspberry.
Notice that I use the same black ground raspberry in the background I also use grass green and black raspberry to draw tiny circles in the shadow side of the green center and I have yellow shutters on the left side to brighten up the light green more Here I work on details in the Oval center developing stronger contrast. Unlike in the shading of battles with short and soft strokes, I can change my strokes to definite circling and leaving curves. It creates texture in the center. I add Prismacolor cannery, yellow or yellow chartreuse in the light side of the green center which is on the left and touch up the brighter slides with the sakura bam. Please don't make too many highlights this this BAM because you want your lights to have a parent. Limiting them to very few.
You can also brighten up the highlights in the vase the same way if it's needed, and if you lost them for any reason. If the surface becomes too waxy and you can't make adjustments to petals or center, just spray the red flower with a fixative. Covering the other flower is a piece of paper as you as you're doing it. Next, I develop the texture in the light elliptical shape going around the red flower center. I create texture with an even short strokes by shading around the little white curves. There's a mix of Carmina red and cannery yellow on the right side and this black raspberry on the left side.
As you as you develop your own drawing constantly refer to the reference picture to pick up on details and colors. You can Add here and just see that I'm basically repeating shading with the same colors in different parts of the drawing. Now let's look at the second flower. Once I made the basic breakdown between the shape and the light, again I'm gonna look at the direction of each petal to save in the right direction. And the second thing is to look at General light and dark and keep observing that as I keep shading, I'm going to complete the petals first and then deal with the center of the flower. But that doesn't really matter, you can start from the center and move.
It's up to you. Also, I decide where I'm going to focus on because I'm trying to have a little bit of a selective focus. Therefore, I'm going to make sharp outlines in the battles that are coming forward, and I'm going to mute the second tier of pedals to make sure that some of them receive them space more and others come forward more. Now I'm beginning working on the light pink flower. For the center I feel in the circle this dark amber and I'd be attention to change in values. The outer rim is darker than the very center, I placed a few white dots in the center with with a Sakura pen.
For the tiny petals around the brown center, I make very short strokes going out radially away from the center with dark gumbo wide cannery yellow and light beach. For that I sharpen my pencils and map out the tiny petals. I outline them with either light pitch or eggshell and then I begin to fill in the deepest shadows of every tiny battle with Prismacolor hammer I placed the deepest shadows in the largest petals there's a mix of Hannah and Jade green or you can replace it to Prismacolor 30% one gray. I'm setting the pink petals with mostly peachy colors that glued Prismacolor peach light peach nectar actual and Hannah rather than this light beings just due to my pencil choice limitations eliminated a lot of beings in the Prismacolor line because they fade very quickly. You can change this colors to light beings. It will be totally fine as long as you follow the same pattern of light and shade.
After the placement of shadows, I work on the lights and transitions. That's why I begin shading the brightest white areas in the petals. And I'm using a combination of light pitch and the knees wide and XL underneath wide to warm up the surface. I also keep checking the accuracy of the pedals rotation and length by looking at my drawing in the mirror, if I noticed that the petals looks kind of strange or too long, I try to fix the mistakes I fill in all the battles with the colors men mentioned before it just speech like peach nectar actual and Hannah. And I follow the same formula of saving every battle by drawing shadows than highlights. Then making transitions between the two.
And I I'm overlapping all the colors in the pink petals. This nectar and 30% one gray I also use speech to Blend transitions between the shadows and the lights. I'm blending the bathhouse with a full blender and why depending on my layering, if you want your petals to be lighter, use white but it's the value some petals to look alright, just use the blender shading because while it will make that that those appear slightly cooler I spray my art lightly there's a fixative and the back to check the edges and values. There are flowers should be darker than the pink one. And I'm looking at the edges of the vase to see if they blend into the background well enough. I look at the edges of the petals and make some of them much sharper than the outer ones.
Also the flower centers should have definition and the petals should curve. I'm fixing my mistakes and then I'm spraying the It's a final fix the tip outdoors.