What’s In CP Magic! March 2020

Featured Artist: Interview & Tutorial
Before-and-After Clinic: What is the best way to draw long fur so it looks real without also looking stringy?
Making it Better: Making water look more like water.
Featured Artist: Carrie L. Lewis
Interview
Carrie L. Lewis has been painting and drawing since she was old enough to hold a crayon. Her preferred medium for decades was oils. Then in the late 1990s, she began doing more colored pencil work, which is now her primary medium. She shares the wonderful world of colored pencils through her blog, tutorials and the monthly magazine CP Magic.
Carrie describes her art experience from childhood to the present. She also talks about the transition from oil painting to colored pencils, why it happened and how her art journey continues to unfold.
Tutorial
“I wanted to try a full landscape on Clairefontaine Pastelmat. I’d not seen one before doing this, so thought it would make an excellent tutorial.”
See how Carrie developed a dramatic, storm-and-light bathed landscape from a basic sketch to final details. If you think “real artists” never make mistakes, you will want to read Carrie’s tutorial, because she talks openly about a couple of poor decisions and how she overcame them.
Before-and-After Clinic
“I am not quite done and am currently working on the left of [this dog’s] head and that is going well. I like his face and ear but do not like the area under his chin (but) lost most of the lines I had drawn in from the reference and had to try to make what I had left work. It looks too much like ‘spaghetti’ to me.”
Carrie offers suggestions to this artist on drawing long hair without creating a “spaghetti look.” She also gives tips on getting unstuck with a work-in-progress.
Making it Better
Welcome to a new column featuring crits on reader artwork. This month, Carrie shares tips on making water look more like water, including smooth color and crisp edges in the reflections.
All CP Magic! Products are digital downloads only.