Colored Pencil Demonstration - cat on a vintage blue chair - Composition

Thanks for stopping by to watch my step by step demonstration of how I do a colored pencil piece in my signature, painterly style!  You'll see that I approach my pieces in an unusual way for this medium.  I don't use sharp points and teeny tiny circles to fill in, I block in, and then refine.  This is the first step, the composition of the piece.

I studied my reference photos and decided what I wanted to go with.  Then, I did a little thumbnail sketch of what I had in my mind.  Putting two elements together, the chair and the cat, meant I HAD to do a little sketch to make sure everything fit.  First I was going with a portrait orientation, but after I did the sketch, realized it looked more like a chair with a funny looking cushion and changed it to landscape to put the focus on the kitty!

I use either pastels or colorerase pencils to lay out my pieces.  I am using a medium gray shade of Canson's Mi Tientes pastel paper, the smooth side.  I sketched out my piece, erasing as I go with a white plastic eraser.  Mi Tientes is hard and erasable, so I can correct mistakes easily.  After I'm done, wipe it with a tissue and much of the pigment comes off.  Where I've gone too dark, I just lightly erase it.  I've photoshopped this so you can see my drawing, but actually, it's very pale.
Next, I save the areas where the whitest whites are from any migrating smudges from dark areas with white pencil. I can erase that later or just go over it with another color.

Then, I blocked in the light chair using Cloud Blue, a pale shade. I use the side of my pencil lead, not the point, just lightly color it in.   I don't want to lose my drawing, so I use a sharp point of a blue gray to just keep my lines in.
Next, I took a dark brown, Sepia, and blocked in the wall behind the chair.    Kitty will wait til my background is close to finish because the colors I use will be affected by what's next to him.  And I want to be able to let fur straggle onto it.

The next, more important thing I do is put it away for a day or two!  I can already see areas that need erasing and refining in this basic drawing that looked fine as a layout to me yesterday.  Somehow letting the brain rest allows me to see where changes are needed for this basic foundation.  If this isn't right, no matter how nicely I color it in, it won't look right.

I'd love to hear what you think, if you have questions!  I'm glad to answer emails, but it's more fun if everyone following along can comment!  If you have friends or family who like to draw, or love pets, I'd love to have them join along.   "Like" my Facebook page for alerts on the next installment!

Using Art Stix for a Dog Portrait

Here's the next installment, and you can see I've added local color on the pooch and the grass. I need to do background and subject at the same time, otherwise my colors would be way off. Since colors that lie next to each other affect each other in our eyes, it's important to not get so far along on the subject and realize the color seems off when adding in the background.

For some reason, beginners seem to want to leave the background for last, and that's just asking for trouble!

There are artists who complete one tiny section at a time and seem able to anticipate the background but I'm not one of them.

More detail at this stage, the features are defined, but not as detailed as they'll get. What' I'm going for here is molding the basic shapes by color and value and suggesting where the detail will be. So at the most, I'm using a flattened "point" of a pencil, but mostly the art stix or the sides of the prismacolor lead. The grass is done quickly with the sides of a pencil, kind of stabbing it as though I had paint on the side of a butter knife.

This is also about the time I put away the reference for a while. I will get it back out at the end when I do the final facial details, but for now, I like to let loose and not be constrained by the photo.

This is where I think style comes into play. The colors I choose, how I use the art stix or the sides of pencils, the pressure, the strokes, all make it uniquely mine, for better or worse.

You can see I've chosen a fairly bright green for the grass background. I liked the shade, I liked the bright against the perky, goofy expression of the dog. Whether it's photorealistic doesn't matter to me. He has a photo. He wanted a portrait by me. So away goes that photo!!

Lots more of my (American Animal Artist, Robin Zebley) pet portrait work on my site: robinzebley.com and if you've googled and found this post and want to see the rest of my blog, including the complete step by step demonstration, just click the banner at the top of the page that says "Art And Animals".