How to Draw a Flower - Colored Pencils

Hello there everyone, Matt here with the virtualinstructor.com and I'd like to share a little bit of a secret with you which some of you already know this but the secret is that colored pencils are one of my favorite mediums to work with. Okay it's not a secret but in this video I'd like to share with you the entire process of creating a colored pencil drawing from start to finish. Now this drawing took me about 15 hours to complete so I've condensed it down into a time-lapse video and I also included this as part of our live lesson series so if you want to check out the complete instruction that's presented in real time of course with instruction along the way all the colors that we use in the entire process it's part of our membership program it's one of our recent live lesson series so if you want to check out our membership program which includes a variety of drawing and painting courses, weekly live lessons, all of our recorded lessons of course, weekly critiques as part of the members minute and a year-long curriculum for visual arts teachers. I'll leave a link in the description below this video and you can go check it out. Of course if you want to check out three of our course videos and ebooks for free too I'll leave a link for that as well below this video so you can go check that out and if you are new to the channel or if you haven't done so yet why not subscribe. Here we cover a broad variety of drawing and painting media and subject matter here. Now back to the process of creating this drawing. In this drawing I used stonehenge paper which is 100% cotton. I used the warm white surface and I also worked with Prismacolor Premier colored pencils. These are the softer wax-based pencils and I absolutely love them. All right without further ado let's have a look at the process. So the drawing begins with a light pencil sketch. Now as you can see I'm using what's called the grid technique to ensure accuracy in my drawing. The way the grid technique works is you create a grid over the top of your photo reference or in this case I created a line drawing initially in Photoshop and then put the grid over the top of that line drawing. Then I'm using that line drawing as reference of course to transfer the contour lines or outlines to the drawing paper. Now I'm using stonehenge paper. This is the warm white surface. Stonehenge paper is 100% cotton. It is a little bit more pricey than some of the other papers out there but it works really really well with colored pencils which we'll see in just a minute. But back to the pencil sketch I'm using a 2H graphite to apply the pencil sketch and I'm using a Stiegler lead holder to do so. This pencil or lead holder is fantastic because it allows you to have quite a bit of precision with your mark making. Now obviously you can see here I'm using lighter marks but I'm using still some sketchier marks to sketch out the contour line drawing. So of course after our contour line drawing was in place it was time to start with the colored pencil applications and one thing you'll notice with the colored pencil applications is I like to apply lots and lots of layers. I feel like this is when colored pencils are at their best especially when you're using a wax-based colored pencil like these Prismacolor Premier pencils. You really want to build up layers because the more layers that you apply to the surface the more of a painterly look you'll achieve with the colored pencils. Now you'll also notice that I apply lots of different colors as well not just additional layers. By adding more and more colors you build up more depth in the color and of course this leads to a greater illusion of realism in your drawing as well. Now in this particular drawing I wanted to pull out a little bit more of a secondary color scheme. A secondary color scheme means that I'm going to pull out a little bit more of the oranges the purples and the greens. Now the green is pretty obvious in this image you can see in the photo reference in the upper left hand corner. The purples are a little less obvious and I had to pull out a little bit more of the purple so you'll see I'm using a little bit more of the purple in the areas besides just the pink and the orange mostly exists in the center part of the flower but you'll also notice throughout this process that I'm also incorporating bits of orange into the flower petals themselves too. Now this of course warms things up but it also helps to pull out a little bit more of that secondary color scheme. Now you might be wondering why bother with a color scheme? Why not just draw the colors that you see? Well with a color scheme we can create harmony in the piece. Of course that's incredibly important. Harmony is considered one of the principles of art but we also can create a little bit more pop and visual interest when we incorporate a color scheme especially one like a secondary color scheme where the colors are equal distant from each other on the color wheel. They form a color triad and I kind of like to do this with my color drawings. I like to look for any areas within the composition where I can exploit a color relationship and in this particular case I could have gone with complementary colors the pinks and the greens but I decided to go instead with a secondary scheme. All right now back to the colored pencil applications. You'll notice that as I'm making the marks with the variety of different colors that I'm using I am pulling strokes so that they flow along the form of the petal. Now there are small little veins that are evident in the petal obviously. There's also some shadows that flow along the form or contour of the flower and by pulling strokes that flow along the form of the flower we can better communicate the form of the flower to the viewer. Now these strokes aren't immediately evident because we still see some of the tooth of the paper when we start making applications but as we continue layering these strokes become more and more evident. You can see that I'm accentuating them to a certain degree by adding contrasting colors so dark values and light values next to each other to make those veins a little bit more clear and more evident in the drawing. Now you'll also notice that every once in a while I'll come in with a special pencil here. It's kind of hard to see here in the time lapse but this special pencil is called a colorless blender and it's basically a colored pencil without any pigment included in it. In Mikasa it's just the wax binder. It allows me to go over the top of the applications. Now the wax, the clear wax in the colorless blender, allows for the colors on the surface to mix and blend to a certain degree and it also helps to fill in the tooth or texture of the paper so it leads to a more solid looking appearance. When you're using a wax-based colored pencil like Prismacolor Premier pencils I really feel like this particular tool, this colorless blender, is invaluable. I use it quite often especially in areas where we see lighter values. Now I started this drawing with one of the larger petals on the flower and I did so so I could get an idea of what colors I was going to use throughout the process for the flower. Now at this point I'm trying to figure out what colors I'm going to be using for the green sections around and you can see I'm using some blues, some browns, some greens, obviously some cream, and also some yellows. I'll use these same colors throughout the process to ensure harmony and unity. You'll see I'm also using the colorless blender here as well. Now I'm working from the upper left hand corner of the picture plane. I'm working my way down to the bottom right lower section and this is simply because I'm right-handed. I want to keep the palm of my hand out of the way of the drawing as much as possible. Now at this point I've moved to the center portion of the flower where we see some of those oranges and you can see I've started with a little bit of a yellow orange and I'm accentuating this with a bit of a red orange and also some browns to create some contrast. I also use a little bit of indigo blue in this section to make a more natural looking black. And speaking of black, black is not used at all in this drawing. I do use some dark grays and I also use, like I mentioned, a dark brown and a dark blue to mix to create a more natural looking black. Black, you have to be careful with black with colored pencils, especially with these premier pencils. The black can look a little bit flat and unnatural if you're not careful. Sometimes it's better to mix your own black again with a dark blue and a dark brown. Now speaking of neutral colors, I want to talk for a moment about color intensity. We obviously have the tendency, the natural tendency, to use colors straight out of the tube. Now obviously we're not using tubes here with colored pencils, but we have a tendency to just grab colors at their fullest intensity or highest chroma and expect our drawings and paintings to look natural. And that's just not really the case because we typically see colors at a lower intensity or a less intense version of a color in reality. So what that means is we need to tone down the chroma in a lot of circumstances. And this means that we might need to make the colors less intense or mute the colors a little bit with another color. And we can mute colors very easily by using grays. So gray obviously is a mixture of black and white. And by adding gray to a color, we can make a color look a little bit more natural in a lot of circumstances. You can see here when I'm applying a little bit of that dark blue and that brown over the top, I'm actually mixing a gray over the top. And that is creating a less intense version of that color, which leads to a more natural look. Now of course with colored pencils, there's a variety of different grays we can use. Some grays are warmer, some grays are cooler, but all the grays will do the same thing. They will lessen the intensity of the color, which often leads to a more natural looking appearance. Of course it's fine to have areas within your piece or within your composition where the chroma is really high and the intensity of the color is really high. That's fine, but you want to mix that up with some less intense areas as well. So as you can see, I've worked down at this point to the bottom portion of the picture plane, again addressing those petals at the bottom. And at this point in the process, we have a good idea of what color combinations we're using for this section because we've used it on all the other petals. And we also have a good idea of what color combinations we're using for the green areas around this section as well. Here, when we're really zoomed up, you can really see how those colored pencils look on the surface and how what a great job that colorless blender does at blending those applications together as well. So a lot of times we see colored pencil drawings from a little bit of a distance and we don't really realize how much of a painting they look like up close, but here you can really see how those colored pencil applications look when you're really up close to the art. Now it might not be totally obvious at this point, but we've got enough information on the surface where you can kind of see how I'm pulling out quite a bit more purple in my drawing than what we see in the reference. Another thing you'll notice if you compare it to the reference photo up in the upper left-hand corner is the reference photo has a little bit too much contrast in areas where the shadow and the highlight doesn't translate very well or wouldn't translate very well in a drawing. So I've toned back that contrast to a certain degree or pulled it back a little bit in the drawing so that my drawing looks a little bit more natural and is a little bit more easy to read. A lot of times we see things in photo references and we think we should include them in the drawing, but when we include them in the drawing, it just doesn't translate very well. And in this particular case, I think that strong contrast between those shadows and highlights, especially on that first petal that we addressed was a little bit too strong and that's why I pulled it back just a bit. Now you can see in this lower right-hand portion of the picture plane, I kind of refined my process. I knew exactly what colors I needed to apply and what order I needed to apply them at this point. So I started with that darker olive green color and then over the top, some more yellow greens, some blue greens, some cream, of course, and some yellows as well. Then I started bumping up the contrast here by applying that indigo blue and that dark brown in the areas to create those dark values. And you can see this area in general is pretty dark, but there were a couple of light areas as well. When you work with colored pencils, it's always a good idea to have an understanding of where your light values are going to be located and make sure that you preserve those areas or address those areas first. Because it's always easier to make an area darker if you need it darker, but it's sometimes very difficult to make an area lighter if you accidentally go too dark in a specific area. As you can see, we're finishing up the drawing here with a bit of the colorless blender. Now this drawing took well over 10 hours. It's probably closer to 15 hours to complete. So it's important to work slowly, be patient, and take your time. And you also can be successful with colored pencils. Thanks so much for watching this video. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you were able to pick up a couple of things here and there. I'll remind you if you want to check out our membership program, which will give you access to this complete lesson series in real time, step by step. There's a link in the description below. You can go check out our program for free for seven days if you want. You can also check out three of our course videos and ebooks for free. Again, a link in the description below. And if you haven't subscribed yet, go ahead and subscribe to the channel. I don't think that you will regret that at all. As always, thanks again for watching and I wish you all the very best in your artistic success.