Course project

My project for course: Vibrant Portrait Drawing with Colored Pencils

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I absolutely loooved this course and became somewhat addicted to the final project - instead of just one drawing, I made at least one colourful portrait every day for a week. This way of colouring reminded me a lot of my youth. I loved to paint portraits with coloured pencils back then. It was nice to get out my old Caran d'Ache box of colours with 80 Prismalo Aquarelle pencils.

Thank you Gabriela for this fantastic course, the valuable tips and additional resources and the inspiration to fill my sketchbook with coloured pencils more often again. I still enjoy painting with them as they are very easy to erase - something I had to do quite often in the beginning.

Gabriela's courses somehow make me want to bring more structure to my approach. The first thing I did was organise my colour box into different colour palettes - a 'standard palette', a cool tone palette, a warm palette and a pastel palette.

First exercises
First exercises
Drawing different hairstyles with Gabriela's templates
Drawing different hairstyles with Gabriela's templates

For the first portrait, I followed Gabriela's steps and mainly used my "standard colour palette". For portrait number two, I used a lot of colours from the pastel palette and added some darker colours. The third portrait is a mixture of these two palettes.

My project for course: Vibrant Portrait Drawing with Colored Pencils 6

Then I realised that I've only drawn women so far, so I looked for a male reference picture and played with the warm colour palette.

My project for course: Vibrant Portrait Drawing with Colored Pencils 8

I gifted myself a scanner for Christmas so that I could finally document my process step-by-step, even though I usually paint in the evening in poor light.

I had difficulties getting the proportions correct, so I decided to do some pencil studies first.
I had difficulties getting the proportions correct, so I decided to do some pencil studies first.
The initial sketch
The initial sketch
The base: cool shadows and warm lights
The base: cool shadows and warm lights
The hues of the face
The hues of the face
Adding hues, saturation and values
Adding hues, saturation and values
Adding details and final touches
Adding details and final touches
My project for course: Vibrant Portrait Drawing with Colored Pencils 16

When I thought my final project was finished, it crossed my mind that I still have a box of Luminance 6901 Portrait Assortment colours that I sometimes use to add colour touches over my watercolour paintings. I've never painted a portrait with this palette before, so I decided I should definitely give it a try. The colours felt very unfamiliar and I had to have a second attempt as I couldn't handle the soft texture of the pencils the first time, but I'm quite happy with the result and will definitely continue to experiment with this colours.

My project for course: Vibrant Portrait Drawing with Colored Pencils 18
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