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Adding Some Colour to January with Coloured Pencil Art

Seren Wen Art

Here in the UK January is a darker, greyer month, and this year it has been colder than usual. The short days make us crave some brightness, so after last week’s black and white focus, I thought I’d share some of my most colourful artwork!

Vibrant Coloured Pencil Drawings


Framed realistic coloured pencil artwork of colorful smarties candy on a wooden table. Blue, red, and yellow pencils are scattered around. Bright, playful mood.
I was going to call this drawing "disappointment" as there was only one orange Smartie in the pack, they're the best!

As I mentioned in last week’s blog post (which you can read here), most of the major brands of artist grade coloured pencils come in a rainbow of hues, in wallet emptying sets of one hundred or more! Whilst these professional quality pencils might seem ridiculously expensive, they’re on a completely different level to those pencils you get from a supermarket, plus they usually have great lightfastness, meaning all the hard work you put into creating a realistic drawing won’t begin to fade when you proudly display it on the wall!


As an artist that loves to draw animals and wildlife, I tend to use a lot of more natural colours, leaving all those gorgeous bright, vibrant colours left in the box. Sometimes it’s good to mix things up, so I like to pick out subjects that use different colour palettes and techniques – my go to for this is sweets and candy!

This means I can use all the bright colours, and I get to problem solve how to create the different textures, like shiny and smooth surfaces and really look at how the colours work with each other, which adds to the sense of depth and realism. For drawings with a lot of smooth surfaces and small details, I also like to use a smoother surface, usually a hot pressed cotton water colour paper, I’m all for making my life easier where I can!


Framed detailed coloured pencil artwork of colorful wrapped candies with visible text like "Chupa Chups." Vibrant mix of greens, yellows, and reds on a textured wall.
This one took a while! I paid close attention to the reflections and colours to create extra detail and realism

Choosing Subjects for Coloured Pencil Art

I wanted to draw something that was still colourful, but fancied a change from sweets, so I decided to draw buttons! My Mum used to save buttons in an old tin when I was a kid – the buttons were rarely used for anything, but were kept “just in case”. This time I tried using drafting film, which many coloured pencil artists love, and although I’m reasonably pleased with the result, it’s a subject I’m planning to revisit, this time using watercolour paper and more buttons! I’ve also had this printed as a greeting’s card, which is available on my Folksy Shop.


Framed realistic coloured pencil artwork of colorful buttons, placed on a wooden surface with colored pencils around. Bright, , vibrant playful mood.
Colourful buttons drawn with coloured pencils. The pencils I use in some of my photos are "Stunt pencils" not my expensive one that I use in my drawings!

Using Colour to Experiment

This last image was an experiment to use mixed media to create animal art that’s a bit different from my usual coloured pencil art. I used watercolour paint to create the splashy background, added the stripes with fineliner pens and finally added the eyes with coloured pencil.


Mixed Media painting of a tiger's face with vibrant watercolour splashes of color, framed in wood, against a textured grey wall.
Experimenting with a different style of artwork using mixed media.

I hope this has brought some colour to your day, if you have any suggestions for a future bright artwork, please comment below!


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