Top 7 Colored Pencil Mistakes that Beginners Make - Lachri

today I am going to share the top 7 mistakes I see artists make when they're starting out with colored pencil hi I'm Lisa the artist behind walk refine are now I have to say to start off if you find that you are making one of the things that I call a mistake but you like the results that you're getting there's nothing wrong with that because it's art there are no mistakes if you like the results that you're getting the only time I think there's a real mistake is if you're doing something that is making the work not archival you want to call these mistakes this really applies to those who are not getting the results that they want they're trying to do similar techniques to what I'm doing but they're not getting the results they want so I've got some solutions for you for those issues number one would be not having enough layers this is where the most common things that I see happen especially when an artist is trying to blend with odorless mineral spirits like I do if they don't get enough layers on there before I ever blend out with odorless mineral spirits I generally have three to five layers of pigment of colored pencil on the paper before I blend if you don't have enough layers what happens is you have a little white dots of the papers that are showing through right now you put the odorless mineral spirits on top of that and you still have all the white showing through what the heck that didn't happen when you painted the reason is that I've got more pigment on the paper if you don't have enough pigment when the odorless mineral spirits it sort of dissolves the waxy binder stuff when it dissolves that payment into the paper and you don't have a lot of pigment on there not much is going to happen the white of the paper is still showing through so that is going to cause you not to get the results you're probably trying to achieve the next mistake would be pushing too hard on the pencil too soon what happens when you do this is your furnishing you are kind of polishing the pencil onto the paper and you flatten the tooth of the paper all of the paper that you're using to have these little hills and valleys these nooks and crannies and when you push hard with the pencil you flatten those out now that is a technique there are times when it is good to birch I will generally do that towards the end when I know I don't need additional layers because when you flatten that out it won't take very many more layers because there's nothing for that pencil to grip on to for the technique you guys are seeing me doing my colored pencil work I am NOT pushing very hard exclude white I said it was pretty hard with the white does it get better really stick and show it well but normally I don't add a lot of pressure I'm using a very light hand in order to keep from damaging the tooth of that paper and the nice thing is if you're using an odorless mineral spirits you don't have to push hard to get nice smooth one in the odorless mineral spirits will do it for you without damaging the tooth of the paper which means that many more layers which gives you that much more control in your end piece when my name with odorless mineral spirits all of my work has probably about 20 layers total sometimes more there are a lot of layers there and so if I had burnished if I push too hard too soon there's no way I'm going to get that many layers mistake number three not keeping your pencil sharp enough going back to those nooks and valleys those children crannies I said that wrong those nooks and crannies hills and valleys however you want to work in the paper those little ridges in there that the pencil does your pencils are not sharp enough they're not able to get into all those little nooks and crannies now the oil is narrow spurts will help to get that into them but you'll get even better smoother results if you're keeping your pencil very sharp it'll keep your lines very clean and then again get better more smooth even coverage on the paper itself so keep those pencils sharp just because it's sharpen up the color is still coming out on the pencil but doesn't mean the pencil is really sharp enough to sharpen those the next mistake that I often see happen is where an artist is not using the right kind of paper for the techniques that they're trying to do certain papers just don't yield themselves well with certain techniques for me I have found that Fabriano artistic Oh extra white-hot press 140 pounds name is the way through on watercolor paper is one of my favorites to work with the Stonehenge is another one that I like but only the rice will do individual sheets the one sold in the pad those are more of a bell and finish they are just to smooth some tapers like bristol vellum I used to use that for colored pencil again very smooth to smooth so there's not enough of the pencil to grip to so I'm not able to get all of the layers that I want so I felt that I couldn't get the color saturation quite what I wanted now that doesn't mean that those are bad papers it means it does not work well for my techniques choosing a paper that works well for the techniques that you're using a very big deal another paper that I'm really lucky right now is can send me 10 that one has a really nice tooth to it I use that in different colors like the black probably got my favorite cuz you can't get color as bright as you would get on white paper but you can get some pretty cool effect I've used the light blue I really like that one so that's another paper that I can definitely recommend for the techniques that I personally use next on my list is probably one of the biggest mistakes that I will see artists make and in any medium not just colored pencil but calling the work finished too soon not finishing the artwork look at these two images this is the same bird that first bird when I first layers my first couple of layers on that it was terrible kind of was going to show you that it on with my feet there's no definition no details but it's not wrong it's not bad it's not finished that's the key there look what happens when I continue to work on it that's a pretty big difference and it is something that I see so often with the inner artist is that they just call it finish too soon they just get those first few layers blocked in and I get I'm done no that was the whole point in making sure that you didn't damage the tooth of the paper in point number two not pushing too hard is that you could get more layers just having color and pigment on the paper does not mean that it's finished keep layering and get all the detail in there you're going for realism keep working on it until it looks how you want just be aware - for example it's a very slow medium these videos using all of us on YouTube doing these CDs videos may give you the impression that you can get something done in the night or two nights you know it's a very quickly it's not it is slow takes me we actually I spent a couple weeks on the one that's behind me from unfinished but it takes a very very long time to get these finished and if you can get that in your head really understand that going in I think it will make you a little bit more patient and more likely to put the time needed into finishing that project don't expect to finish something in a single night it's probably not going to look all that great but I needed to reach the goal that you've set for yourself and get the look that you're going for number six is scribbling having your pencil go this direction and now I'm going this direction and I'm over here and you can see these lines going all over the place it's one thing if you're actually trying to cross that but if that is not the look you're going for if you really want a nice smooth even we saw we blended whatever it is you're working on work your pencil instead in small little ovals or small little circles and let one area overlap into the next you will get a much much smoother end result do you make me straight harsh lines you and especially when they're going to different directions it really does look like it was scribbled you can work in a small little all of these little circular circular circular shapes cut kiss-off work in a circular shape that will give you such better results and those straight lines back and forth even if the straight lines are all going in the same direction you end up with these harsh start and stop points where your hand switches directions if you're going in oval you won't have that you'll get that nice smooth finish left it's starting with a bad drawing it doesn't matter how much you master all of the other things that I talked about if your drawing is inaccurate if your goal is realism but your drawing is inaccurate it's not going to get better the more you start shading and coloring things in don't start shading and coloring until you get your drawing exactly how you want it to be because once you start drawing if you look at something in there like at I think the face is a little offset it's probably okay I want to go ahead and start with a colored pencil once you start with the pencil you can't easily fix stuff if you realize and I was a little too far left little too far to the right you think you smell whatever that's not something you can easily fix with colored pencil make sure that your drawing is we hundred percent accurate before you ever start coloring things in does that mean that you want to trace things for a while while you get the hang of drawing things go for it nothing wrong with that that's a great way to learn to draw better does that mean that you just need to spend more time practicing on the drawing side of things then that may be what you need to do but make sure that your drawing is perfect don't rush through the drawing do it quickly and then expect it to look realistic in the end when it turns out it was not drawn right I was looking on Instagram just yesterday and this one artist was drawing dogs and his a heads were like this big and the muzzles were these little I mean these also be deformed if they were real dogs his shading was a phenomenal his highlight everything was good and I don't think this was the goal of a stylized list because he claimed he was a realist artist so this was just an issue of he was starting with bad drawings to start with his again shading his blending technique was really really good but he was jumping into that too soon he needed to spend a bit more time to get that initial outline exactly how it should be if you would wanted to reach his goal of having it look very realistic and as I said if you're using any of these things I'm calling mistakes and you are happy with your results than they're not mistakes it's art these tips are for those who are trying to get their work to look more realistic and aren't happy with the results that they're currently getting how do you already subscribe to I have five videos I think it means jazz hand things at the end this must be five but really that's ten five videos every week that's a lot of videos all art videos all aim to help you with your business and marketing of your art to give you tips and I've got tutorials and live streams and if you are an artist this is just a good place for you I'll see you guys on Saturday no wait that's not right I'll see you guys on Tuesday

Channel: Lachri Fine Art

Views: 772,428

Keywords: Lachri, Fine Art, colored pencil for beginners, colored pencil tips, colored pencil tips for beginners, colored pencil techniques, Colored pencil, Drawing, Painting, how to paint, learn to paint, tutorial, Demo, Demonstration, lachri fine art

Id: onX7yxOJikI

Length: 9min 37sec (577 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 14 2017