New For 2020 - Trying Out Colored Pencil Drawing - Cat's Eyes Turns Into Cat Face

Publish Date: 
2/29/2020
Cat Eyes In Colored Pencil 1 | Tracy Marie Lewis | www.stuffnthingz.com

For the new year, I decided I would be embarking on a new art medium that I have not used before, artist grade colored pencils and watercolor pencils.  I've owned the two Stampin' Up! packs of watercolor pencils for awhile now, but I've never learned to use them until very recently. I have a 3 part video series demonstrating techniques, creating focal images, and then I put them on card fronts. It was a fun exercise and I find that the SU pencils are great for coloring stamped images. 

I am so impressed with the hyper-realistic drawings artists create with colored pencils. I wonder if I will have the patience to draw tiny lines of detail down to individual hairs and other miniscule features.  My first goal with colored pencils is to be able to create realistic eyes. I figure I should start small, and I have had success drawing human eyes in my distant past using graphite and pastels (we are talking college days far).

So with that one goal in mind I purchased supplies and last night I sat down to tackle my first video tutorial.  I've already been ramping up to this point by using papercrafting pencils for cards and watching countless hours of sped up drawings on YouTube. 

The first video I started with (linked below) is called a step by step tutorial but there is no sound. The artist does write out every color they use as they use it, and you learn by watching and then mimicking their pencil strokes. I bought Faber-Castell Polychromos so I am watching videos that use these particular pencils. I bought the complete set to ensure I can pull out each color to have ready. 

After after an hour and then some, voila! I had colored some very nice looking cat's eyes. /whew. Drawing like this is very tedious and slow using very light pencil pressure. My hands were not upset at all by the repetition which is a good thing!

I took a break and by later in the evening I felt I was ready for the companion video on how to color cat fur. That took another hour and a half or so and I posted my final version below. (you can find this video on the Artist's channel, just link on the video below and click on the artist's channel name)

Overall you will see that my version came out much darker even though I used the exact same pencils. I colored on watercolor paper and the artist used smooth bristol which has far less "tooth" to it. I will be investing in smooth bristol very soon, but for now I will be using watercolor paper and matte drafting paper.

I will be adding these little masterpieces to my card fronts and after much more practice, I will embark on drawing eyes, without the assistance of a tutorial. I already have a variety of photos in my photo galleries of cats from my past and can't wait to replicate them on paper!

Let me know what you think of my work, be honest. And do you think these will make nice cards? 

Here are the Polychromos colors used:

Eyes:

  • 199 Black
  • 231 Cold Gray II
  • 271 Warm Gray II
  • 101 White
  • 182 Brown Ochre
  • 283 Burnt Siena
  • 177 Walnut Brown
  • 172 Earth Green
  • 168 Earth Green Yellowish
  • 173 Olive Green Yellowish
  • 157 Dark Indigo
  • 171 Light Green
  • 183 Light Yellow Ochre

Fur:

  • 101 White
  • 102 Cream
  • 183 Light Yellow Ochre
  • 187 Burnt Ochre
  • 182 Brown Ochre
  • 179 Bistre
  • 180 Raw Umbre
  • 283 Burnt Siena
  • 189 Cinnamon
Cat Face In Colored Pencil 1 | Tracy Marie Lewis | www.stuffnthingz.com
Supplies Used In This Project: 

Thanks for stopping by, please feel free to leave comments or questions, I am here to help!

~Tracy

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