Colored Pencil Photorealism
Step 1: Colored Pencil Exercises
Step 2: Finding the right image and preparing the drawing
- The image must be close-up, have a background or enough detail for no background to be necessary. You must be able to see details easily.... what you can not see you can not draw. No people. Objects or food or flowers are great subjucts.*
- Use this website for the grid: http://griddrawingtool.com/
- If your photograph is horizontal ("landscape" page set-up) - choose "8 or 9 boxes wide" for the grid
- If your photograph is vertical ("portrait" page set-up) - choose " 6 boxes wide" for the grid
- If your photograph is square choose "6 boxes wide" for the grid.
- Using a T-square ruler, grid your drawing paper with 1" x 1" squares very lightly.
- Place an "x" in each corner.
- Write-in the corresponding letters and numbers.
- Begin to sketch the image lightly square by square.
*If you would like to do a drawing that is NOT "photorealism" - Follow these steps first before gridding your image:
- Download the "prisma" app (it is free).
- Edit your photograph to be more creative with the shapes and colors of the original photograph.
- Use this as your photograph to draw from instead.
Step 3: Lightly erase your grid lines... just enough that you can still see them.
Step 4: Begin colored pencil.
- Use the darker colors first but lightly. Remember to "cross-hatch of use "circles". Slowly build up density with your layers. If you draw to heavily with any of the colors (especially the lighter colors) you will not be able to layer in any shading.
- Use complimentary colors for shadows.