People keep asking
me: "How do you do it?" Especially beginning
artists are often floundering, struggling with how and
where to begin. Colored pencil seems like an easy medium to
use, but to achieve any kind of mastery, it can become
exceedingly difficult and unforgiving. There is only so
much erasing you can do before the board or paper no longer
yields the pigments without damage, and blending and
layering can easily result in "mud."
So, here I am
going to present the basic process I use, although it will
vary with each piece. Other artists work differently, but
this is how my technique evolved over the years.
The subject:
while I am working from a photo, this is one of my dogs, so
it helps to have her sitting next to me as I work. In any
project, a good reference photo or two will go a long way
toward a successful piece of art.
Image size:
12" x 16". This is a common size for pet
portraits and one that yields the desired results in a
reasonable amount of time. I'll try to keep track of that
time, too.
Medium:
Prismacolor Colored Pencils
Note:
the images of each stage are large to show better detail
(30-50k). If you are on a slow connection, they will take a
while to load. Colors are close, but not true; I can spend
only so much time on correcting the scans, and we're
talking about the overall process. I will list the colors I
use in each step.
