Draw flowers and blend colors with colored pencils.
Colored pencils are an easy and clean way to color flowers and draw other foliage. They are versatile, simple to use and inexpensive compared to artists' paints like gouache, acrylic and oil. You can also get a more impressive, professional look than you can with other colored drawing tools like markers or crayons. Pencils have an advantage over pastels in that they are less liable to smear or smudge due to contact. Use regular colored pencils for a basic rendering, and add watercolor pencils, which are fully compatible with colored pencils, to add a painterly effect.
Instructions
1. Sketch the contours of the flowers using a color appropriate to the flower color. The contours are the outside edges of the petals and stems. This will set up the architecture of your drawing. Get as close as you can to the color while keeping in mind that if you do not have the exact color in your pencil selection you can blend colors later to get a closer match.
2. Fill in the petals and stems of the flower with either short, hatching strokes for a tight, organized look or a looser, loopy application for a more expressive impact. You can also use the side of the pencil to lay in blocks of color that will not be as textured.
3. Sketch in structural elements like veins and stems with a darker pencil. You don't have to use black; a dark brown or blue is less jarring. Use a sharp point for fine lines.
4. Blend colors to get closer to the flower colors, if necessary, by adding a color needed to complete the shade. For example, if a flower is yellow-orange and you have sketched it in with yellow, draw in some orange to make the mixed color. A stump, a cardboard tool that looks like a pencil, is helpful for blending colors. Rub it into the drawing to mix pencil colors more completely.
5. Draw onto the flowers with watercolor pencils if you are using them, then dip a brush in a cup of water and smear it across what you have applied. It will not affect the regular colored pencils but the watercolor pencil pigment will become liquid, and you can manipulate and blend the watercolors with the brush.
