Mistakes you should not make with colored pencils. Colored pencils aren’t just drawing accessories for kids. On the contrary, with colored pencils, it is possible to create absolute masterpieces. Not for nothing, there are many people who, after years of painting with oil colors or watercolors, have decided to experiment with something new, giving themselves to colored pencils.
How to get started with colored pencils without making a mistake
But how is it possible to create high-quality drawings with colored pencils? Well, the first step is to approach these drawing accessories as you would with oil colors and acrylic colors, and therefore in a “serious” way, knowing that you have something in your hands that can take us far, far away. Then it would help if you studied the proper techniques to use colored pencils, get a lot of practice, dedicating a little of your time to this activity every day.
But that’s not all. At a certain point, it is, in fact, also necessary to understand what are the mistakes that, drawing after drawing, job after job, compromise the results, not giving us the possibility of becoming real PROs of drawing with colored pencils. As we did for other artistic techniques, we want to list the 10 most common mistakes among those who are learning to draw lotus drawing with colored pencils.
Use poor-quality pencils
We are not talking about oil painting, which requires tubes of paint, mediums, brushes, canvases, easels, palettes, etc. To color with pencils, all you need is a good set of pencils, drawing paper, an eraser, and a sharpener. The initial expense to start coloring with pencils, therefore, is all in all reduced. But not too much! We must avoid buying excessively cheap pencils.
We are certainly not saying that all beginners should necessarily buy a set of 76 colors, like the one with the Luminance pencils by Caran d’Ache. In this case, the investment can be significant and is reserved for those who want pencils at the top of the range, practically unsurpassed. However, it would help if you did not buy colored pencils in supermarkets, relying on those famous brands that produce pencils for children: to have satisfactory results and have fun, it is a must to buy colored pencils made for artistic purposes.
Using the wrong card
It’s not enough to buy suitable colored pencils. It is also necessary to choose the most suitable support for colored pencils, assuming that the paper, to be colored correctly, is subjected to considerable stress. Coloring with pencils means “rubbing” a more or less complex tip on a layer of cellulose or cotton.
And again, there are the erasures or even the scrapes. A sheet of plain paper cannot hold up. Hence the need to purchase quality drawing paper albums, also designed for artistic purposes, accompanying it with a sketch pad to make preparatory sketches and try the various colored pencils before moving on to the final work.
Start with a poorly done drawing
Before starting to color with colored pencils, it is necessary to draw a pencil drawing, outlining the shapes and details that you will want to color. However, thinking of getting a good job starting from a poorly designed drawing (with the mind already totally projected to the next phase) is impossible.
Little color saturation
Let’s move on to the operational phase. How much do you need to color a sheet? How much pigment must therefore be deposited on the paper to be satisfied? The designers who are in their beginnings, and who do not have the opportunity to compare themselves with other people, make the most trivial errors, even as regards the quantity of color if we can talk about this in the case of colored pencils (in our opinion yes you can).
And this is how, very often, beginner drawings show reduced color saturation. What does it mean? Simple: in areas where there should be no trace of white, the paper shines through under the color to compromise the visual impact of the design. To an expert eye, such a painting can only appear incomplete. A weak coloring can occur during the work, but not when the work is finished.
Choose the wrong color
You have purchased a quality color set, so 12, 24, 36, or more colors are available. But that doesn’t automatically mean you’ll always pick the right color. Indeed, you could choose a red that is too cold, a green that is too dark, a purple instead of fuchsia. The result is to have a design with incongruous colors, far from those of the actual subject. The selection of colors is a fundamental part of the designer’s work, and for this reason, it must do carefully. Of course, it is also possible to intervene on the paper to erase a wrong color, but it is always better to be safe than sorry!
Don’t choose the highlights at first
You are not painting. You are not using paints that, once dry, can be quickly or mainly effective topped with other colors. It means that once you have created a dark or completely black background, it will not be easy to lighten a part of it decisively with a white or perhaps yellow pencil. Hence, already in the phase of drawing the subject, even before picking up the colored pencils, it is essential to indicate and then delimit any areas of light so as not to mistake coloring them with dark pencils.
Use slightly pointed colored pencils
Above, we talked about color saturation. Here, you must know that, however pleasing it may be, the grain of the paper will always leave parts that are more “difficult” to reach for the pigments of your pencil. Having a sharp pencil will help you reach these “holes” too, so you can have a good level of saturation.
Quitting too soon
Here is the last of the most common mistakes made with colored pencils. Many beginners, perhaps for the rush to see the finished work, perhaps for the desire to devote themselves to another job, or perhaps for the conviction of not being able to do anything more, decree the end of a job when in reality some finishes still exist.
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