I recommend Prismcolor Color Pencils, why ... they have the most pigment, are soft but not so much so that you can't sharpen them to a point, and they have a huge array of colors to choose from. They come in packs so I would suggest at least a 24 but not anything bigger than a 48 count. You will use more white than anything and black the least if at all. Also in the area of paper, Canson paper is the best paper you can get for any pencil work. Its a great weight, comes in a variety of colors, its large, and most important it has a fantastic texture to hold all the pencil. Its not the greatest for erasing but if you use a gum eraser (thats the gray pliable type) it shouldn't hurt the paper much, but with color pencil this is no easy task to erase anyway so its no big deal. A middle key paper is going to be the best to color on. Take into consideration Simultaneous contrast, too light and your whites will not pop .. too dark and your shadows get lost. Well thats the materials ... on to how to do it.
Color Pencil is a lot like painting and should be approached that way. Thats why I chose this one to talk about first. Most people are comfortable with a pencil but the ideas apply to painting so its a good starting point. The first thing you need to do it get a good point on your pencils. A sharpener will be fine, but sometimes these things are rough on the leads so if you can use a Xacto knife (or a utility knife) pretty good I suggest whittling it. Next, separate your colors according to warm and cool colors. I know I haven't gotten into this yet but bare with me. Ok warm and cool colors, your bright-light colors are warm ... your cool colors are dark and dull. So most your yellows, oranges, and reds are warm except the darker duller ones and most of your blues, greens, and purples are cool except your lighter and brighter ones. This will be easier to see once they are sitting in front of you and you start separating them. To start take into consideration your composition, size and placement, of what you are going to draw/color. Once you have given it some thought you can start. Lightly draw out your subject in white. Don't concern your self to much with detail or go reaching for all the pretty colors yet. Once you finish go through and color in all your highlights and white areas, press down lightly in the areas where it will blend into another color and hard where it will be pure white. Pressure on the paper from the pencil is going to play a big role in this whole process. The reason being is ... ok think of the paper as a cloth soaking up some water. You put down too much water and its not going to soak up much else. So you want to leave a little paper to blend in other colors if need be. Alright, once you have all the white done, you want to next work on the color. Start by lightly laying down all your base colors. Use your warmer colors for areas where light is hitting your subject/subjects and your cooler colors in the shadows. This is not to say if you are coloring a blue car then color the light areas in a red, just keep in mind your cool colors are darker so spread them out as the colors allow. The same applies to your warm colors. Once you have the base colors in place start layering on more colors to produce the final color you are looking for. Try to keep the colors pure by not adding white or black to they which will dull down the area, creating a tone. Take for instance the color in the Icy Pops drawing I did. In any given area where the color is full I have maybe 4-5 different colors in any of them. There are a few reasons for this. Take a look around, nothing is one solid color ... nothing, this helps add realism to your work. Next it gives it more depth and allows for more bending and flexing of the object, instead of it being flat. A good color pencil is going to blend really easy, less clay and more pigment gives you that. During all this keep in mind the properties of color, they are going to help you see what you might not have in the beginning, such as reflected color. Also using a contrasting color will help in shadowy areas. I'll get into this more later on, but for general purposed your contrasting colors are those directly across from each other on a color wheel (ie. reds contrasting color is green, blues is orange, yellows is purple, and so on). After you have all your color in do your shadows, cast shadows. The last thing I have to say about coloring with pencils is try to never ever use black. People have a tendency to do this with shadows (I was one of them) and its just not right. Shadows are not black ... dark blue or purple maybe, but not black. Black is a really strong color so use a navy blue or something else really dark. |