Colored Pencil Basics

Overview

Reveal the versatility of colored pencils in this course that takes you through the numerous tools and techniques artists use to bring their work to life. Did you know that there is an affordable and accessible medium that combines the techniques of drawing with the power of vibrant color? In Colored Pencil Basics, you will be able to follow along step by step with illustrators Susan Rubin and Cynthia Knox as they help you discover the astonishing range of colored pencils. Divided into four modules that cover both essentials and more detailed projects, this course is the perfect place to start if you are just beginning and a great resource for more experienced colored pencil artists to discover new techniques.

Video Lessons

01: Class Preview

Completely new to colored pencils? Join illustrator Susan Rubin as she helps you navigate the basics from choosing the best beginner-friendly supplies to completing four drawing projects: a pear, leaf, persimmon, and tulip. With Susan’s techniques and step-by-step guidance, you’ll soon be creating your own colored pencil drawings with confidence!
Duration: 2 min

02: What You Need: Colored Pencils

Get started with a colored pencil primer as Susan explains the history behind colored pencils as well as the various types available, including which brands and palettes are best suited for beginners.
Duration: 11 min

03: What You Need: Paper

Follow along as Susan goes over the different types of paper and their various qualities, including the best ones for colored pencil beginners.
Duration: 4 min

04: What You Need: Other Tools

Review everything else you need to get started from pencil sharpeners and erasers to blending pens, waxed paper, and more.
Duration: 9 min

05: Method: Mark-Making Basics

Now it’s time to put pencil to paper! In this lesson, Susan covers basic mark-making techniques to help you create different visual effects. Learn how to make effective strokes as you practice applying pressure to your marks.
Duration: 13 min

06: Method: Layering and Edges

Continue exploring mark-making techniques as you learn to use a limited palette to mix, layer, and create any color! After that, Susan shows you how to create clean edges for clear, convincing shapes.
Duration: 12 min

07: Method: Reference Tips

Find out how to edit and adjust your photos so you can get the best reference possible. Plus, learn how to achieve great reference material using your smartphone!
Duration: 10 min

08: Method: Color Basics

Ready to dive into color? Explore the basics of color terminology as you learn to create a color wheel.
Duration: 25 min

09: Method: Next Steps with Color

Continue your color exploration by learning to adjust value and saturation. Susan shows you how to shift color to light, dark, bright, and dull.
Duration: 12 min

10: Make It: Pear, Part One

Start your first project, a green pear, using just three colors, none of which are green! Susan helps you create a value study (which will act as a roadmap for your finished project), transfer the image, select the palette, and put down the initial layers of local color.
Duration: 17 min

11: Make It: Pear, Part Two

In this lesson, finish up your pear by building colors and depth. Find out how to fix mistakes, shade convincingly, and create texture with blending. And see how to replicate tiny dots and break up large areas of color for a more realistic look.
Duration: 21 min

12: Make It: Leafy Greens

Practice mixing rich green hues as you start your second project, a green leaf. Susan guides you through drawing, value study, and effective color selection. Then she helps you emboss vein lines on your leaf; layer for blended color; create shaded areas; and depict 3-D forms and realistic, shiny texture.
Duration: 22 min

13: Make It: Persimmon

Following the same process as above, start your third project, a persimmon. But this time, add underpainting. Susan shows you how to cover large areas and create the fruit’s unique textures, such as the white bloom.
Duration: 58 min

14: Make It: Tulip

Wrap things up with your final and most challenging project, a tulip. Start by underpainting the color, then build layers slowly, creating effective shadows and color harmonies along the way.
Duration: 42 min

15: Class Preview

Improve all of your colored pencil drawings! Learn easy, empowering techniques for color mixing, application, and more.
Duration: 1 min

16: First Steps

Meet your instructor, Susan Rubin, and see how to set up a successful workspace for drawing comfortably. Then learn the difference between student-grade and artist-grade colored pencils and why you might use one or the other. Finally, practice controlling your pencils to create color gradients, tones, and textures.
Duration: 25 min

17: Color Basics

Learn all about color! Begin with creating the color wheel as Susan helps you understand complementary and analogous color relationships. Then start to layer colors for your own color palette. Susan also helps you to avoid color-mixing mistakes.
Duration: 15 min

18: Luminous Color Layering

Create a color recipe book with Susan’s technique for layering colors and labeling your pencils for future reference. Then, learn Susan’s mixing and topping trick for brightening or subduing color combinations. Finally, learn how to use a white pencil to create tints and expand your color palette even more!
Duration: 20 min

19: Surface Textures in Colored Pencils

Learn Susan’s tricks behind using unique tools, such as wax paper and baby oil, to create more kinds of texture on paper. Achieve a smooth, finished look with a blending pen. Use a colored pencil resist for drawing leaves on a tree and the stumble stroke for branches. You’ll also see how to capture light and dimension in water droplets!
Duration: 27 min

20: Color and Texture Come Together

Combine your color and texture techniques to draw cherries! Learn to mix colors to match and plan a palette of colors. You’ll see how to underpaint to allow the base coat to shine through, then use burnishing pencils to create a smooth, shiny cherry.
Duration: 20 min

21: Background and Atmosphere

Complete your cherry study with a textured background of complementary colors! Then, add realistic shadows to provide depth to the cherries and learn why shadows aren’t made with just black colored pencil. Finally, learn techniques for laying down the background before starting the subject.
Duration: 15 min

22: Bright and Bold Colors

Learn how to make the perfect bold and bright shade with Susan’s layering technique. You’ll color a gorgeous yellow flower using all the techniques and tools Susan has shared with you and master shadows and shading throughout the flower. Finally, make your colored pencil drawing last with fixative.
Duration: 21 min

23: Class Preview

Draw textures so lifelike, you can feel them! Recreate the appearance of fruit skins, metallic surfaces, woodgrain, fur, fabric, and more.
Duration: 1 min

24: Organic Textures

Start things off by learning the essential colored pencil techniques you’ll use to create all of the textures in class. Cynthia will cover techniques for varying pencil pressure, burnishing, and layering values. Then, render the surfaces of fruits to practice achieving shiny and dull textures and a range of values and tones.
Duration: 19 min

25: Uneven Surfaces and Markings

Fruit serves as the perfect subject for studying uneven surfaces and markings such as dimples, dents, and more. Learn how to apply small highlights and soft blending to achieve these looks, and practice creating random dots and jagged linear markings to indicate freckles and distress lines.
Duration: 18 min

26: Metallic Textures

Love the look of shining silver? Find out how to recreate it by layering from the darkest dark values to the brightest highlights. Then, employ a warmer palette to capture the look of brass objects. Cynthia will even help you heighten the realism of your metallic textures by incorporating fine details.
Duration: 25 min

27: Wood Grain and Branches

Mimic the complex look of wood grain and the intricate knots found in trees with Cynthia’s guidance and professional tips. Along the way, you’ll discover how to carve lines into paper to separate grain lines from background blending and define form and shadows as you render knots and tree hollows.
Duration: 11 min

28: Fur and Feathers

Use firmer pencil pressures as you see how to create the look of sleek, long fur, and experiment with lighter pencil pressures to achieve short, wispy, fuzzy-looking fur. Then, Cynthia will share tips for drawing all types of feathers accurately by developing shadows and dimension.
Duration: 18 min

29: Fabric and Leather

Cynthia shares techniques for capturing the look of different fabrics and more. You’ll find out how to draw both shiny and distressed leather. Plus, build confidence capturing the characteristic stitching and feel of denim, and practice drawing negative space to recreate delicate lace patterns.
Duration: 15 min

30: Class Preview

Draw radiant, true-to-life flowers that pop off the paper. Learn techniques for matching colors, shifting values, layering, blending, burnishing, and more.
Duration: 1 min

31: Layering, Blending, and Burnishing

Meet artist Cynthia Knox as she introduces you to the amazing colored pencil techniques you’ll learn throughout this class! Gain helpful insights into color theory, blending techniques, and the burnishing method, which creates a gorgeous painterly effect.
Duration: 19 min

32: Working with Reference Photos

Learn how to select and edit a reference photo that you’ll draw from and how to transfer it to drawing paper using Cynthia’s helpful tips. Next, discover an easy and nearly foolproof way to create and catalog color swatches that perfectly match corresponding areas of your reference photo.
Duration: 16 min

33: Value and Fixing Mistakes

Turn your focus to value in this lesson, which covers ways to identify and recreate shifts between shadows, mid-tones, and highlights. Cynthia helps you refine your burnishing technique as she covers a variety of ways to build up layers of color or remove colors that you don’t like.
Duration: 20 min

34: Adding Dimension

Add more depth and dimension to your drawings using carefully developed color and value shifts. Cynthia shows you how to make your flowers look like they’re popping off the page and demonstrates ways to create deep shadows and intriguing details like water droplets. She also shares easy but ingenious tips for identifying value more easily.
Duration: 15 min

35: Blurring and Blending

Expand upon the skills you’ve developed in prior lessons as you use brandishing to push elements into the background and blend midground details to create a lovely, natural-looking blurred effect. Next, explore the versatile medium of watercolor pencils, which can blend seamlessly with the color you’ve applied in pencil and infuse a lovely, looser quality to your work.
Duration: 30 min

36: Natural Shadows and Leaves

Turn your focus to the flower’s leaves as you learn how to add dimension and realistic effects to a variety of leaf shapes. Add details like ridges, stems, and new layers of color to make your leaves spring to life on the page, and apply Cynthia’s pro tips for adding shadow and movement.
Duration: 11 min

37: Dramatic Backgrounds and Petal Veins

Focus on the direction and pressure of your pencil strokes as you learn how to create a dark, even tone for your background. Cynthia also illustrates ways to create realistic full petals with nuanced vein lines that suggest movement and rich texture. You’ll finish the lesson with a bevy of new techniques that will help add drama, nuanced detail, and gorgeous form to your works.
Duration: 22 min