With my latest horse drawing, Poised, I hope to demonstrate what can be achieved when drawing with coloured pencils.
The right tools for the job
When you think of coloured pencil, it may bring back memories of colouring in as a child. I distinctly remember trying to blend a yellow and a red pencil to colour in a fox when I was young, it was not at all successful! I quickly became frustrated with the way the colours almost repelled one another, and lay sperately on the page with no ability to blend. What I didn’t learn till well into adulthood, is that coloured pencil can be a very versatile medium, and professional results are absoutely possible with it. I discovered the most crucial element in terms of the tools is the pencils themselves. Simply put, you get what you pay for. There are numerous brands on the market, and each artist has their favourites, mine being Polychromos by Faber Castell.
Drawing Poised step by step
The stages of the artwork’s progression that you see here show the layering of many colours. I enjoy a slow approach to drawing, having learned over the years to temper my desire to get on with the details straight away. When I am studying a subject to draw them, I try to peel back the layers in my mind’s eye, almost like stripping back layers of paint from a wall to discover what went before. This approach helps me understand how the form of the subject is definbed by the tones and the hues, and allows me to develop a deeper understanding of the portrait that I am creating.
You can see close ups of the details in Poised in my blog post Poised – Dressage horse coloured pencil portrait
