How To Draw Animals With Colored Pencils

Welcome Peggy Osborne dorsum for a step-by-footstep tutorial showing you how to depict blackness fur.

Peggy's tutorial comes in response to discussions near the difficulty of accurately and realistically drawing black fur that she's seen (and participated in) on social media. As an artist specializing in horses for so many years, I know from personal experience how difficult black tin exist.

So here's Peggy to explain how she dos information technology!

How to Draw Black Fur Step-past-Pace

by Peggy Osborne

I hear information technology all the time.

Drawing blackness fur is difficult. How do I proceed from just having 2 eyes floating in a black blob?

Black fur does have variations in shading and tin also take a number of other colors in it depending on the lighting. The fur in shadow is very dark while the highlighted fur is lighter. Those highlights are where you run across unlike colors.

If the lighting is warm, you will run across tones of peach, aureate colors, browns. If the lighting is cool, yous will encounter tones of blue, violet, greens.

In this reference photo, I see a lot of absurd colors in the highlights.

Prototype by brandog from Pixabay

I will be drawing this with Prismacolors and a few Polychromos colored pencils on light grey Pastelmat newspaper. The nice thing near Pastelmat is that you can layer lite colors on height of dark colors. Although I usually e'er work from light to dark, this will help to add more than details in the end.

Getting started with the eyes and face

My first step is to draw a detailed map/sketch of the reference.

Then I start with the eyes using various chocolate-brown, orange, and cream tones.

For the black fur, I started out layering White, Light Blueish, Greyed Lavender. I gradually add layers of fur-similar strokes with darker colors like Cool Grey 20%, Slate Greyness, and l% Cool Grey.

I keep adding darker strokes of Violet and Indigo Bluish. In the very darkest areas I use strokes of Black in random areas to give the fur a more realistic texture.

Blocking in and cartoon the rest of the head

I kickoff blocking in the rest of the head with initial light layers to show where the darks and lights get. I use a light bear upon and depict in the direction that the fur grows.

Here I have used White, Light Blue, Greyed Lavender, and Slate Grey.

As you lot can run across these drawings require lots of layers to achieve the realistic look I'yard aiming for and the Pastelmat paper is perfect for that as it holds lots and lots of layers.

This ear was completed with many, many layers of Light Bluish, Indigo Bluish, Greyed Lavander, Violet, Cool Greys, and Black. I repeated the layers, adding the lighter colors in the highlights and darker colors in the deep shadows.

The kickoff layers are applied with a lite touch, and I increase pressure as I build upward layers, always looking at the reference photograph, and following the way the fur grows.

Trying new tools

With this portrait, I tried a new product, to me, to pull out lilliputian hair like textures…. The Slice tool. I'd heard many good things nearly it and decided to try it for myself.

Information technology works very well. You can see where I used information technology along the meridian edge of the ear where I was able to create some little hairs for more texture.

Finishing the head and ears

For the side by side steps I basically follow the same process every bit earlier. Layering the colors following the management of the fur growth. I use the same colors throughout the dog since he is the aforementioned colour overall.

I've completed the left side of the face and started on the other side and ear. This photo shows about 4 or five layers.

This photo shows iv or 5 more layers.

I will probably add some other 4 or 5 layers to complete this department, maybe more. The Pastelmat paper has a different finish than regular newspaper and it takes many, many layers to fill the tooth of the paper. I like to fill the molar of my newspaper when I piece of work, not leaving any lilliputian dots of the newspaper showing through.

Drawing the muzzle

Always brand sure to follow the reference photo very closely. I'm layering the same colors I have been using throughout, dejection, Greyed Lavander, cool greys, Violet, etc. I utilize White in the lightest areas.

I'1000 using a precipitous point and a low-cal touch going with the direction of the hair growth.

The next steps on the muzzle are just adding more than and more layers, alternating colors and adding the lightest colors to the lighter areas and the darker colors to the darker areas. I continued this procedure up forth the right side of the face and ear finishing off that area.

Once I accept as many layers equally I need, I use the Slice tool to scrape out some teeny tiny hairs along the muzzle to add more texture.

I likewise scraped out a few more than highlights along the ears and where the calorie-free hits the confront and os structure. I use Black along with my darkest cool gray and Indigo Blue to really punch up the darkest shadows.

The nose is basically an extension of the cage using withal colors. I apply a circular motion with a light touch when drawing the nose, building upwards the layers every bit I work.

The nostril is super dark as it is in shadow and the meridian of the nose is in highlight. In the end, I take my electric eraser and tap the nose erasing tiny dots from the nose to add texture.

Cartoon the Blackness Fur on the Chest

The adjacent two photos show the chest area. In that location should be less detail hither so the focus on this lovely canis familiaris'due south face is not lost. I apply the same colors just apply a looser stroke. I laid out the darkest areas with blackness and the lightest areas with white. The mid layers are created using violets and blues.

And so I continue adding layers with all the other colors I have used throughout this painting. I nevertheless follow the direction of the fur but with a looser stroke.

Here is more done on the breast area, once again just building upwards those layers.

Making Adjustments and Adding Final Details

At this point I use the reference photo to compare values and color to each other. I tin see I need to add more violet to the painting and darken the overall picture.

And then I add together a wash of Black Grape throughout the dog, and Black in the darker areas. And then I use solvent to smoothly blend all this together. This gives the more realistic look to the painting and looks more than like the reference photo.

TIP: When doing commissions you want to proceed to look at the reference photo to get as shut a likeness equally possible. You aren't just cartoon a domestic dog, you are drawing the client's dog.

Finishing off the muzzle and chin area with all my dejection and cool greys. I used the Piece tool to add the whiskers .

One last step I do to check values is to plough the original and fine art into black and white.

I finished tweaking the portrait past zooming in to areas on the original photo and putting in as many details equally I can see on the drawing. Little devious hairs along the ears, (scraped out with the Slice tool) , adjusting the nose just a bit and overall highlights and darkening in areas that need information technology. And a few more whiskers.

And here is the finished piece.

Hope yous have enjoyed it equally much as I enjoyed working on information technology.

Now you're seen how to depict black fur using Peggy's method.

Use the same process to create your own drawings of animals with black fur.

If y'all missed it, bank check out Peggy'southward previous tutorial, How to Draw a Long Haired Domestic dog.

Most Peggy Osborne

Peggy is an accomplished self-taught creative person living in Canada specializing in creating beautiful realistic portraits of pets and family members. She's had an on going love affair with colored pencils, loving their simplicity, for as long as she can remember.

She started out using graphite pencil and so it was an easy transition to carry on with colored pencils. Dearest of animals and fine art go paw in manus. Peggy is in awe of what can be achieved with colored pencils.

Come across more than of Peggy's work at Pet Portraits past Peggy.

Carrie L. Lewis

Carrie L. Lewis has been an artist longer than she can remember. An oil painter from her teens, she began using colored pencils because they were ideal for highly detailed work, and were easier to transport and use at horse shows. She now uses colored pencils about exclusively. From the start, horse were a favorite subject, and she's been an equine portrait artist for most of her career. When she began cartoon with colored pencil (and afterwards a move to Kansas,) she found special dazzler in landscapes, and landscapes are at present what she draws well-nigh often. The rugged Flint Hills region of eastern Kansas is at the top of her list of beautiful places to visit and draw.

Source: https://www.carrie-lewis.com/how-to-draw-black-fur/

Posted by: keaslertheraid.blogspot.com

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