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Can you Create Realistic Coloured Pencil Art Without Using Colour?

Seren Wen Art

There was a recent debate as to whether you could call a drawing “coloured pencil art” if it was drawn in black and white? Well of course, most people would say yes, after all, the medium used to create it is coloured pencil, even if technically there’s no colour involved!


Black and white realistic coloured pencil drawing of a dog's nose peeking through a wooden fence. Two pencils lay nearby on a textured surface. The mood is curious and playful.
One of my first coloured pencil drawings - I just bought the warm grey Polychromos, plus black and white, to see if I liked the medium - I think you know the answer!

Many artists, particularly those new to the medium, spend a lot of time trying to colour match their reference EXACTLY to create realistic art. Coloured pencils often come in huge array of colours, with sets containing 100 or more pencils in every colour of the rainbow, apart from that colour you think you need! There are even apps you can get that will tell you exactly which pencil of your chosen brand to use if you click specific area of the reference photo. This can lead an artist to be overwhelmed by choice and not trusting their instincts.


The reality is that colour is not the most component of creating a realistic drawing. Getting the proportions correct is important but also paying attention to getting the values correct goes a long way to capturing the form and detail of your subject. Then there’s the way we all see colour differently; the way light can change the appearance of a particular colour and even using a different printer to print out our reference image can vastly change the colours in an image!

Sometimes it’s good to remove the use the colour completely and work in black and white. Of course, you could use a different medium such as graphite or charcoal. But I like to use my coloured pencils as it’s good practice in layering and blending, plus it’s a medium I already have! Here’s a few of the approaches I like to use.

Close-up grayscale coloured pencil drawing of a dog's face resting on the ground, with expressive eyes, conveying a calm and thoughtful mood.
This cute pup is drawn with Polychromos cool greys on white Pastelmat, this time with grey PanPastel for the background

Using Polychromos Warm or Cool Grey Pencils

Many coloured pencil artists start with Faber Castel Polychromos. These are great for tonal studies as the have a range of both warm and cool greys that go from light to dark, so combined with black and white, make them an excellent choice for creating a full range of values. They work well on all kinds of paper and can also be used with PanPastels for easy backgrounds. I’ve used them on both white and anthracite (dark charcoal grey) Pastelmat to create realistic tonal drawings.

Black paper with black and white pencil sketch of detailed leaves. Two pencils, one black and one white, rest on a textured gray surface.
This time I used dark grey Anthracite Pastelmat as the surface for this greyscale study of some leaves.

Using White on Black to Create Realistic Art

Another option is to work on black paper. This makes you really think about values as the dark tones are already there – you just need to add the lights! One of my first attempts was a tiger on black paper tutorial by my good friend Lisa Ann Watkins of Animal Art by LAW. In this tutorial she uses black pencils as well as white, which is a very effective technique to use on black surfaces, especially to create the layers of black and white fur in the tiger’s stripes. You can sign up for a free tutorial drawing both the tiger and a polar bear on black on her website.


Close-up realistic coloured pencil drawing of a tiger's face in black and white, emphasizing fur texture and intense gaze. Dark background enhances details.
Tiger drawn with black and white pencils from a tutorial by Lisa Ann Watkins, Animal Art by LAW

The tiger was done on Canson Mi-Teintes pastel paper - not to be confused with the new Mi-Teintes velvet paper, which wasn’t available at the time. Although this paper is nice to work on, it’s a bit thin for my liking, I prefer something a bit sturdier! My black paper of choice is now Colourfix Smooth, which has similar qualities to my usual Clairefontaine Pastelmat, which unfortunately isn’t available in black! This allows me to use more layers of pencil and PanPastels work like a dream on it, so creating soft, out of backgrounds is easy to do.


Realistic coloured pencil drawing of a Polar bear swimming with head above calm water, grayscale artwork. Reflective surface creates a serene mood,
This was drawn with black and white coloured pencil on black Colourfix Smooth, with PanPastels for the water, reflections and sky. The reference was kindly supplied by Lisa Ann Watkins

Limited Palette Drawings

I also like to do limited palette drawings, for example, black, white plus one colour – but that’s a subject for another blog!


Do you like to use only black and white in your art? Please comment below, I’d love to hear your ideas!

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