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Cat in Color Pencil
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Colored Pencils are not just for kids! But if you are serious about wanting to do some nice coloured pencil art, make sure you spend a few dollars to get a good brand. Prismacolor pencils are good to use, and you can get sets of them on eBay rather inexpensively. Look for seconds - not those in boxes. You can buy them cheaper because they haven't go the stamp on the side of the pencil - huge savings! But if you buy them like that make sure you get a good colour range, with at least two white pencils!
Faber Castel is another brand that is excellent quality without being over the top expensive. They are smooth and hold a point better then the Prismacolor, so are excellent for finishing touches and animal fur. Their pigments are also more archival then Prismacolor.
Paper makes a big difference as well. You can use coloured paper, white paper, textured paper, smooth paper - you will have to experiement to see what you like the most.
Other tools you might like to have but aren't necessary - a kneedable eraser, a ruler, a blending stub.But you will need fixative and you WILL need a good quality hand held pencil sharpener!
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 | Make a rough drawing on your card. If you aren't confident in what you want to draw do sketches on rough paper first and transfer them over to the final surface when you have it how you want it. Try not to use normal pencil for this - pick out a light colour that is in the picture and use that, that way it will be less likely to show through (I've used lead pencil here so it will show up)
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 | Here are some of the pencils I'm using - as you can see they are different brands. Some are Prismacolor Verithin, some are normal Prismas and some are Faber Castels. Having a sharp point at all times is very important - you work with your pencil sharpener in your less dominant hand and you don't wait until the pencil becomes blunt, you sharpen all the time! Keep a point!
I've started by darkening the area around the eye, doing the pupil and putting a dot where the highlight is on the eye. Basically - darkest and lightest first to show me where I am. I always start with the eyes, they are the most important part of any portrait, animal or human. |
 | OK this went a little blurry! I was photographing it at night under artificial light. Sorry about that! Here I was trying to show you how I did the background of the eyes in cream and yellow. You will just have to take my word for it I guess! |
 | Here I have added other colours to the eyes. If you look closely into any eye you will be amazed at the number of colours there. I've used yellow, orchre, blue, green, terracotta and even an orange/red. With colour pencils when you put one colour over the top of another you not only change the colour, you also blend to give a smooth surface. You have to learn to know when to use this effect - it works wonderfully on eyes where you want them to look as smooth as glass, but would not do if you were drawing the fur - that takes a different technique. |
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The eyes aren't so blury here! The pencils shown here are the ones that I plan to use for the next phase, although I'm sure to ad some others as I go. First, the skin around the eyes. Because I'm working on a grey/blue background I don't have to draw in any areas that are that colour - and there are some around the eyes. So I leave that bit and draw around it.
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 | Here I am starting the background of the fur. I pick out the areas of lightest colours and do them using cream, pink and white. Try to go in the direction the fur grows, even at this stage it's important to get that right. |
 | More of the same |
 < | All the pale areas done |
 | Put in most of the darker, orange bits. Yes, looks ugly at this stage, but it will soon clear up! |
 | Started to pick out the pattern in the cat's coat. |
 | By going over the coat with the cream, orange and even bits of terricotta and umber the coat starts to come together. It looks smoother, but still looks like fur due to allowing flicks of pencil lines to show pattern, and not overblending. |
 | Finished cat, with whiskers and signed. Sorry some of these photos are so blurry! |
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I hope that you have found this demo useful. Please write to me at eliza@elizasart.com if you have any questions. Don't forget to feel free to experiement!
I'll be doing a colour pencil demonstration on a different subject, one that people have a lot of problems with - humans! So check back regularly.
If you would like to do a demonstration I would love to put it on the site! Please contact me at eliza@elizasart.com
Thank you. :)
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