A large part of my improvement on my artistic journey was thanks to coloured pencils.
They were a friendly, easy to use and easily accessible medium that made very little mess and took up very little space when compared to other mediums like paints or pastels.
I started using cheap pencils we had around the house but was unsatisfied with the results I got, in particular the lack of pigmentation these pencils gave was frustrating.
My grandparents bought me a small set of Prismacolor pencils for Christmas when I was sixteen, beginning my obsession. Although they're not the best brand of pencils for professionals due to low lightfastness, for beginners they are perfect. The pigments are bright and require very little pressure to show up strongly onto the paper, they were already a massive step up from regular children's coloured pencils.
To make some money when I was in school I decided to take commissions, specifically pet portraits. Doing these portraits not only earned me money, but helped me train my eye and helped me improve my fundamentals, specifically colour theory and values. Despite this, I'm a little regretful that I made very little personal art during this time.
With the money I earned doing commissions I was able to afford better and more lightfast pencils, so I bought a small set of Faber-Castell Polychromos. I love these pencils, and still use them today. They have a great range of colours, and they're more affordable than higher end brands such as the Caran D'ache Luminance range. Almost every penny I earned went towards buying more of these pencils.
The medium I used the most was Clairefontaine Pastelmat, which as the name implies is made primarily for pastels but holds the pigment from coloured pencils really well. It has a sort of velvety feel to it.
The first portrait I made on this surface was of my dog, Bryn, back in 2019. Recently I thought it would be interesting to draw him again and see how I've improved after three years.
To be fair, this new portrait is roughly A4 size, whereas the old one was A5, and the new one isn't on Pastelmat but on Bristol board, but the improvement was still evident.
I started by picking a reference photo to work from.
I chose this photo, although it's a little blurry the details are still clear and the lighting is fantastic. The warm highlights and cool blue shadows complement each other beautifully, and the light bringing out the colour in his eyes really shifts the focus to them.
As with all my portraits, I start with the eyes.
I find it easier to start here as they're quite tricky to get right, and once they're done it's a lot easier to visualise the finished piece.
I wanted the eyes to really stand out, so along with the browns I chose a strong terracotta orange to add. I was also careful to shape the reflection in the eye first, as it would be difficult to fix if made accidentally too small.
After the eyes, I found the ears the next most difficult part. I started with a pinkish brown that won't necessarily be seen in the end, but this foundation is important to ensure the right temperature of the final colour on top. Although the inside of the ear looks black at a glance, it's actually a dark pink and this will show through on the final layer of black. At this stage I was also careful with my use of cream colour. This is because most black pencils are a cool(bluish) black and so crossing them would result in a greenish colour.
After finishing the eyes and ears, I used a dark indigo pencil to map out the shadowed areas in the black parts of the fur and used that as a base to build up the layers into a very dark colour. I wasn't too focused on getting that much fur detail in this part of the piece as that would distract from the detailed light areas, like the eyes. I did however make sure that the pencil marks matched the general direction of the fur.
This is the finished piece. It took me maybe a week and a half, working on it on and off.
And here's the original I made back in 2019. Overall I think my biggest improvements have been in my use of colour, and also how I draw textures like fur.
Looking back on old artworks are a great way to boost self confidence!