How Do you Make Realistic Art using Coloured Pencils?

Coloured Pencils are a fantastic medium to use if you want to create realistic looking art. As with any detailed style of art it takes time, practice and probably post importantly of all bucket loads of patience! Here’s a few key tips that help me with my work, but as always these are only what works for me, experiment, try different methods and find what works for you!

Start with an Accurate Line Drawing.

This is a controversial method, but I prefer to trace my line drawing from the original reference drawing. I feel this is the best way to achieve the most accurate base to work from. The downside of this is that your reference photo needs to be the same size as your finished drawing. I only have a standard A4 printer, so if I want to work bigger, I need to print my reference out in pieces and jigsaw it back together.

Preparing the line drawing, I find a lightpad indispensable for this!

Some artists like to use the grid method to transfer the line drawing. The advantage of this is you can scale the drawing up. The disadvantage is you need to draw a grid onto your surface, which may be difficult to remove if you’re not planning on covering the whole surface and would be virtually impossible if you used Pastelmat, Colourfix Smooth or other sanded papers.

Of course, you can draw your line work freehand, which I do sometimes do for simpler drawings. I would advise doing this on separate piece of paper and the tracing your linework onto your final surface once you’re happy with the proportions and composition. This means all your mistakes are done on the spare paper and leaves you a nice, clean line drawing to work on and doesn’t damage your final surface by lots of erasing!

Layers are the Key to Realistic Art using Coloured Pencils.

Regardless of what surface you choose to work on, if you want a realist effect, coloured pencil isn’t a “one and done” medium. Using lots of light layers gives you more chance to create texture and adjust colour and tone as you go. Different Surfaces take a varying number of layers of pencil depending on how smooth or “toothy” they are. Very smooth surfaces like drafting film or Bristol smooth will take very few whereas more textured papers like Pastelmat will take seemingly endless layers. One of my favourite surfaces is hot pressed watercolour paper, which somewhere in between.

Starting the layering process with light layers of coloured pencil

Using a smoother surface isn’t necessary a short cut to create a quicker finished piece, it may not give you enough layers to get the finished effect you’re looking for. A large part of it comes down to personal preference, try a few surfaces and see what works for you, your techniques and the subjects you like to draw.

Focus on Tone over Colour.

This may seem counterintuitive, but tones (lights and darks) are more important than colour in order to achieve realism. I’ve already written about this in a previous blog that you can read here. It’s the shadows, mid tones and highlights that give an object it’s three-dimensional shape rather than what colour it is, so it makes sense to translate this into our drawings. This means you really must look at your reference photo and study the tones and their shape and texture, in order to correctly translate them into your drawing. In fact, using more colour, especially in shadows can add depth to the finished piece as shadows are rarely pure back, so instead if reaching for the black pencil straight away, try a combination of dark blues, browns and even purples and save the black only for the darkest dark areas.

You don't need colour to create a realistic drawing

Ultimately, as I mentioned in my intro, the main way to get good at drawing is to draw, practice really does make perfect!

What are your top tips for creating realism in art? Or do you avoid it if favour of looser styles? Please comment below, I'd love to hear your thoughts!