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    101 Textures in Colored Pencil: Practical Step-by-Step Drawing Techniques for Rendering a Variety of Surfaces & Textures
    101 Textures in Colored Pencil: Practical Step-by-Step Drawing Techniques for Rendering a Variety of Surfaces & Textures
    101 Textures in Colored Pencil: Practical Step-by-Step Drawing Techniques for Rendering a Variety of Surfaces & Textures
    Ebook454 pages1 hour

    101 Textures in Colored Pencil: Practical Step-by-Step Drawing Techniques for Rendering a Variety of Surfaces & Textures

    By Denise J. Howard

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Capture the feel of your subject on paper. Learn every technique you’ll need to give your colored-pencil drawings realistic, palpable texture.

    Named One of the 54 Best Colored Pencil Drawing Books of All Time by BookAuthority*

    There has never been a better opportunity to master textures. Knowing how to make your surfaces and textures look real is one of the most challenging aspects of creating art in colored pencil, even for experienced artists. 101 Textures in Colored Pencil provides artists with step-by-step instructions for drawing a wide variety of the most common textures and surfaces, including sand, water, metals, foliage, wood, fabrics, stone, grass, hair, and many more.

    To get you started, this comprehensive guide opens with a review of tools and materials as well as basic skills, such as strokes, effects, and color mixing. Plus, the book is organized into sections based on subject matter, so you can easily find the specific texture you’re looking for.

    Just a sample of the textures you will learn to render:
    • People: smooth skin; aged skin; straight, curly, and wavy hair; lips
    • Animals & Insects: smooth, curly, and course canine fur; elephant skin; feather; fish scales
    • Fabrics & Textiles: burlap, tweed, silk, velvet, leather, lace, sequins
    • Glass, Stone, Ceramics, Wood & Metal: porcelain, polished silver, hammered brass, peeling paint
    • Food & Beverage: red wine, cut citrus fruit, coconut, peach, dark chocolate
    • Nature: smooth and rough bark, moss, river pebbles, still and rippled lake, clouds


    101 Textures in Colored Pencil includes all the textures you need to create realistic masterpieces in colored pencil.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateDec 12, 2017
    ISBN9781633226548
    101 Textures in Colored Pencil: Practical Step-by-Step Drawing Techniques for Rendering a Variety of Surfaces & Textures

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      Book preview

      101 Textures in Colored Pencil - Denise J. Howard

      GETTING STARTED

      How to Use This Book

      This book includes step-by-step instructions for achieving a wide range of textures with colored pencil.

      1. GATHER the tools and materials you need to start drawing. (See here .)

      2. LEARN the drawing techniques shown here . Acquainting yourself with the vocabulary and methods for working in colored pencil will help you quickly and easily understand the instructions for replicating each texture.

      3. LOCATE your desired texture in the Table of Contents . The textures are organized in the following six categories:

      4. FOLLOW the step-by-step process outlined to draw your texture.

      5. PRACTICE the texture as it appears in the book; then integrate the textures into your own drawings.

      Tools & Materials

      Paper

      The tooth, or texture, of a paper grabs and holds onto pigment. The toothier the paper, the rougher it is and the more pigment it will hold, but that also makes it more difficult to achieve a smooth, blended look with no speckles of paper peeking through. Very smooth paper makes it easier to create fine, smooth details, but it will not accept as much pigment, making it more difficult to achieve rich, complex color. Examples of toothy paper are cold-pressed watercolor paper and papers made for use with pastels. Example of very smooth paper are smooth and plate bristol. In between are papers such as hot-pressed watercolor paper, vellum bristol, and printmaking paper, such as Stonehenge.

      Choose good-quality, acid-free paper that has the right characteristics for the textures you plan to depict, and practice on it first to familiarize yourself before launching into a full project. For all my work, I prefer acid-free, 100-percent cotton rag, archival paper. I used white Stonehenge paper for all the examples in this book because of its consistent, fine tooth, durability, and availability in many art supply stores—in both pads and large single sheets.

      EXTRA PAPER Always keep a disposable sheet of paper under your drawing hand as you work to protect the drawing from the oils of your hand and prevent smudging. Glassine is excellent for this—it looks like wax paper but is more slippery. Plain printer paper will also do.

      Pencils

      GRAPHITE For planning basic outlines, a graphite pencil of grade HB or H works well. It is a little harder than a standard 2B, so it deposits less graphite on the paper. Use it lightly so that it doesn’t dent the paper.

      COLORED Whatever the brand, colored pencils fall into two main types: wax-based and oil-based. This refers to the composition of the binder that holds the pigment together to form the pencil core. Wax-based pencils are softer and creamier, while oil-based pencils are harder and drier. They can be used together, and neither is better than the other—they’re just different.

      Depending on the brand, full sets range from 72 colors to 150 colors. Although purchasing the largest possible set of a brand is always tempting, it’s not necessary to make beautiful drawings. A smaller set of 24 or 36 colors can produce a broad spectrum once you learn a little color theory and how to layer them. Many stores also sell individual open stock pencils, so you can add the colors you need to your collection as you need them. Avoid cheap student-grade or children’s pencils. They don’t blend well and the colors will change or fade over time.

      I used Prismacolor® Premier® colored pencils for all the examples in this book. These wax-based pencils are readily available from any store that carries art supplies and are reasonably priced. You may prefer a different brand. Experiment to find the pencils that suit you best.

      Erasers

      KNEADED RUBBER Applying a light color over a graphite outline is a recipe for disappointment—at best, the graphite will become more noticeable; at worst, it will smear. To avoid this, a kneaded rubber eraser is a must-have. Throughout the book, when preparing to draw with light colors, you’ll see that I suggest dabbing away as much of the graphite outline as you can and still see it. I recommend doing this ahead of not only light colors but any colors. Never scrub with the eraser—scrubbing damages the surface of the paper.

      POSTER PUTTY Colored pencil is not easy to erase, and almost neer erases completely. Lifting it off paper reasonably well requires something with more tackiness than kneaded rubber: poster putty. This is the same stuff that students use to hang posters on walls! Depending on the brand, it might be white, blue, or green; the color doesn’t matter. Like kneaded rubber, it can be pinched and rolled into a fine point or a line. It works best by gently dabbing at the paper surface. Again, never scrub the paper. It’s a must-have for corrections, lifting the inevitable little blobs of pigment, and cleaning up edges.

      OTHER Some artists find great value in electric erasers, or those that come in a holder that clicks like a mechanical pencil. Either of these can be sharpened to a fine point to make crisp edges.

      ARTIST TIP

      When working with wax-based pencils, occasional blobs of pigment inevitably appear. Even tiny ones can be quite noticeable. When this happens, don’t try to keep drawing over them—they will only grow by grabbing more pigment. Instead, pinch your poster putty down to a tiny point and gently dab them off right away.

      Blenders & Solvents

      Whether you choose to use blenders and solvents is a personal choice—some artists prefer their work to look like a drawing, even if they depict a very smooth texture, while others prefer their work to look like a painting, even if they depict a very rough texture. In this book, I often use a colorless blender or solvent to demonstrate what a big difference it can make.

      COLORLESS BLENDER A colorless blender is a colored pencil with no color—just binder and waxes or oils. Most colored pencil manufacturers make a colorless blender designed to work well with their pencils, sold separately from their sets. I used a colorless blender for many examples in this book.

      SOLVENT The binder that holds colored pencil pigment together is easily dissolved with a little solvent, either alcohol or odorless mineral spirits. Both evaporate quickly, leaving no residue. Solvent does not turn the pencil into a watercolor effect of liquid color that you can pull around with a brush; it drops the pigment in place into the tooth of the paper, eliminating speckles of paper peeking through and producing a more even, intense color. This is useful when you want to smoothly blend two to three layers of pigment but preserve the tooth of the paper so you can continue with more layers on top.

      Whenever I mention using odorless mineral spirits, you can also substitute alcohol. I used odorless mineral spirits for several textures in this book: Smooth Skin (#1), Rusted Steel (#51), and Still Lake (#93).

      Sharpener

      There are hand-held, hand-cranked, and electric sharpeners. There is no best sharpener, but I do recommend getting an electric one to save time, since you will be sharpening often. When working with colored pencils, it’s crucial to get a very sharp point, and sometimes you may need to sharpen every 90 seconds! For an electric or hand-cranked sharpener, choose one with a helical mechanism, as it will last longer and be gentler on the pencils. Occasionally sharpen a graphite pencil in the sharpener to clean the blades of waxy buildup.

      ARTIST TIP

      Rotate your pencil a quarter turn frequently during use between sharpening, so that the sharpest part of the point is always on the paper. Sharpen often!

      Stylus

      A stylus is a pen-shaped instrument with a tiny steel ball tip, used for impressing lines into paper without damaging it. An empty extra-fine ballpoint pen will do in a pinch, but manufactured styluses are available with much smaller tips. Do not use a sewing pin or a wire, such as a straightened paper clip—the sharp end will cut your paper.

      Swatch Chart

      The biggest time-saver for working with colored pencil is a swatch chart. For every set of pencils you own, arrange them in color sequence. Then make swatches of color in that sequence on a large piece of paper, and label each swatch with its name. Keep your pencils arranged in that order, and keep your swatch chart next to you while you work. Whenever you need a certain color, you need only to find it on your swatch chart and go right to it in your set, without wasting time making test scribbles to see what color comes close.

      I have several swatch charts available to download on my website: www.denisejhowardart.com/downloads-media.html.

      Fixatives

      Fixative is a liquid spray that creates a barrier. There are two main types: workable fixative and final fixative. Workable fixative allows you to continue drawing more layers on top without affecting or blending into the layers underneath. Final fixative completely seals the surface of the drawing to protect it from smudging, and is only used upon completion.

      For wax-based pencils, final fixative is especially important to prevent wax bloom. Over time, the wax from the binder can migrate to the surface of a drawing, causing a blotchy, cloudy look, known as wax bloom. Bloom is more likely with heavy layers of pigment and more noticeable on dark colors. It’s easy to fix by

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