Monday 4 April 2011

Colored Pencil Drawing - How to Draw a Green Apple

Step 1- Draw a light outline of an apple with any graphite pencil. It should be a fairly easy outline considering the subject. colored pencil drawing - step 1

Step 2- I want my darkest tones to be laid down first. It will give me a base to compare other tones to. I am using "olive green" for this area. Throughout this entire tutorial I am using the circulism method of shading. If you'd like to know more about this method refer to my circulism tutorial.
colored pencil drawing - step 2

Step 3- The olive green color is not dark enough so I go over it with sepia.
colored pencil drawing - step 3

Step 4- I work to the left of my dark area but make sure that everything is lighter than this. I am using olive green again. There will be two highlights in this area so I shade around them. colored pencil drawing - step 4

Step 5- My highlights are going to be very subtle so I carefully shade them in with olive green making sure that they stay lighter than the surrounding area. After that, I move down to the bottom of the apple still using olive green. Areas that need to be darker than the olive green recieve sepia overtop. I want my dark areas to transition into light in the next few steps. My lighter areas are going to be colored with some browns. I start these areas with light umber.
colored pencil drawing - step 5

Step 6- I move back up to the upper part of the apple. I am going to put another subtle highlight above the other two. This time I use rosy beige for the highlight. Above that highlight will be another small one. This one I color with french grey 20%.
colored pencil drawing - step 6

Step 7- At the top left edge of the apple I want it to be brownish so I use light umber. At this point I start transitioning my darks into lighter colors. I use limepeal and light umber for these areas. I want there to be some highlights around the crown of the apple. I use yellow ochre for these.
colored pencil drawing - step 7

Step 8- I put another subtle highlight in the lower left part of the apple. I use french grey 20% for this. More transitioning in this area from dark to light.
colored pencil drawing - step 8

Step 9- In the right center part of the apple I want it to be a warm color just to give the drawing some color variety. I apply rosy beige to this area but more colors will be layered on top later on. colored pencil drawing - step 9

Step 10- As I mentioned earlier I want my lighter, right side to have alot of brown colors. I transition from my dark area into light with burnt ochre and layer a little limepeel on top. I lay down sand color on the upper right edge. colored pencil drawing - step 10

Step 11- I continue working on filling in the rest of the apple. For the reddish area I've used a combination of henna and pink. Be careful with pink. It's easy to over-do it. For the upper part of the apple I used limepeel with some light umber layers in certain areas. I want a brilliant white highlight on the upper right part of the apple so I shade around this area. Make sure to keep this highlight very clean.
colored pencil drawing - step 11

Step 12- More layers of light umber are added in the brownish areas. There is a tool made by Prismacolor called a colorless blender. It's basically a pencil that applies no color or tone and doesn't absorb any either. I am using this tool to blend the colors together. Compare this picture to step 11 and you will notice it's a lot smoother and polished looking. After the colors are blended I start on the stem. I use tuscan red and dark umber.
colored pencil drawing - step 12

Step 13- I finish working on the crown of the apple and blending the colors with my colorless blender. colored pencil drawing - step 13

Step 14- This drawing is very plain looking at this point so I am adding a background. Burnt ochre is applied using circulism again. Make sure your color is consistent all the way to the edges of the apple. colored pencil drawing - step 14

Step 15- I have covered the whole wall with burnt ochre. Where my table surface meets the wall, I make that area darker with dark umber.
colored pencil drawing - step 15

Step 16- Again, using my colorless blender, I blend all the color together. At the upper right corner I leave the wall unblended because it gives the wall a texture and suggests a light source. colored pencil drawing - step 16

Step 17- I start on the table surface. I apply burnt ochre but not quite as dark as the background wall. I am doing a reflection on the table also. Just basically draw the apple upside down for this reflection. The dark part of the apple is on the left side so the darker part of the reflection should be on the left also.
colored pencil drawing - step 17

Step 18- The drawing is finished. From start to finish this took me probably about 7 or 8 hours. colored pencil drawing - final

I hope thishas helped you in some way or another.

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