To begin working with color it is important to be familiar with how

color is mixed.

All color mixing happens by using PRIMARY colors, which are red, blue, and yellow. Notice the primaries are located in the center of this color wheel. You can see which primaries combine to create SECONDARY colors (violet, green, orange) by which colors they touch.

You may think you don’t need to understand color mixing because the colors of pencils have been mixed for you. However, blending the colors of the pencils is what gives colored pencil drawing depth, value and texture. If you simply fill in an area with one color it will appear flat and unrealistic. The key to color mixing is finding a technique that works best for you.

Look closely at your pencils. Try marking with each one of them to see the resulting colors. You should have more than one of some or all of your primary colors. Each primary leans toward a secondary color. Paying attention to this can help the way you layer your colors. I’ll go more into this during our demo.

Using a straightforward side-to-side shading motion, a smooth even layer of color is built up. A very light touch can be used to deposit the faintest amount of pigment for graduated shading.

Shading

Rapid, regular, evenly spaced lines are drawn, leaving a little white paper or underlying color showing.

Hatching

Hatching overlaid at right-angles. This can be done with different colors, or carried through multiple layers, to create a textured effect.

Cross Hatching

The 'brillo pad' method, tiny overlapping circles rapidly drawn. Again, it can be used to build up a single color or different colors.

Scumbling

Short directional lines which follow a contour, or the direction of hair or grass or other surfaces. These can be densely overlaid to form a rich textural effect.

Two thick layers of color are overlaid, then the top color gently scratched into with a blade or pin to let the lower layer show through.

Burnishing is simply layers of colored pencil overlaid with strong pressure so that the tooth of the paper is filled and a smooth surface results. This image shows a burnished surface compared with a basic overlay of

color. With some colors, especially with waxier pencils than the watercolor pencils used for this

example, a quite translucent and jewel-like effect can be obtained with careful burnishing.

Directional lines

Incised Marks

Burnishing

Can you see the color that has been built up to show the folds in the fabric and the texture of the upholstery in

this colored pencil drawing?

This drawing was achieved by using the burnishing method.

The clean, smooth surface of this drawing is a combination of carefully layered

shading and burnishing.

Notice that this drawing was made using hatching, it is less smooth and solid than burnishing.

This drawing uses hatching and burnishing in combination.

Layers and layers of cross hatching were used to build up the color in this drawing.

This apple drawing uses most of the techniques. Scumbling in the background, crosshatching, and burnishing for the very smooth parts of the apple.

Directional lines help the definition in this piece.

This drawing is a great example of how tight a drawing with colored pencil can be.

Hatching is used to great effect in this drawing-- detail,

hue, and value are defined but the pencil has been used in a loose, expressive way.

This CR student drawing approached the assignment with a fairly traditional outlook.

This student selected a different type of image to work from, presenting a different type of portrait.

Next class please come with a full color image that you would like to work from for this assignment. You may take the photo yourself or use an image that someone else has created. The image must be a photographic image-- no cartoons, drawings, paintings, or photoshop altered images!

Ideally, your image should be 8 X 10-- do not bring an image that is smaller than 4 X 6