How do you decide the order of colors to get the right color, values, or appearance? That’s what Catherine wants to know. Here’s her question:
How do you determine the order of layers of different colors? I spend a lot of time testing the order of laying down color on the outer edges of my drawings, is there a quicker or better way?
One of the joys of colored pencils is the ability to layer multiple colors to create new colors. You also have a wonderful selection of colors to use. So you have to decide which colors to use when, and I confess that decision can look mind-boggling.
So how do you decide the order of colors? Is there a simple method or technique?
I’m afraid the answer is no. In fact, the best answer is one most of us prefer not to hear. Practice and experience.
Lots of both.
But there are few basic principles that may help you make those decisions more easily.
How to Decide the Order of Colors
I once read about an oil painter who used only seven or eight colors and mixed everything else. Obviously, his techniques won’t work with colored pencils, but his method of deciding which colors to mix, what colors to start with, and adjusting colors as he painted can be applied to colored pencils.
The following tips are based on personal experience and the oil painter’s methods.
Study the Colors in Your Reference Photo
The first step is to study the color of whatever you’re drawing. What’s the main color and to what color family does it belong?
This horse, for example, is yellow-gold in overall color. The color family is brown tending toward yellow or golden.
This color family provides the foundation colors for this portrait. The main color family provides the foundation colors for whatever you want to draw.
So determine the main color family for your drawing. Not every color will be appropriate, but identifying the main color family will ultimately help you decide the order in which you apply colors.
Start with a Base Color
The base color comes from the main color family.
The base color should be a medium-light or lighter value. Ideally, as close to the color of the highlights as you can get. If you have to use a color darker than the highlights in your subject, work around the highlights.
This is the first color you’ll put on paper, and it’s also one of the colors you’ll use most often. Set it aside.
Choosing the Next Color
After you’ve layered the base color, compare your drawing to your reference. Chances are excellent the base color isn’t exactly the same as the colors in the photo.
So what color do you need to add to make the color on the paper more like the color in the reference photo?
For my horse portrait, I decided the base color needed to be warmed up, so I chose a warm, light-value color that was about the same color as the highlights, and layered that over the horse.
After I finished that layer, I compared drawing and photo again, and chose a reddish earth tone to add more color and value.
The color selection process continued that way until I’d used five or six colors, then I began layering them over and over.
Do the same thing with your work. Compare your drawing and reference photo after you’ve layered each color. Decide how your drawing differs from the reference, and what color you need to use to make the drawing more like the reference.
Keep making those decisions layer by layer, color by color, until you finish.
That’s the Easiest Way I Know to Decide the Order of Colors
Don’t fret too much over deciding what order you should apply colors. You will make mistakes. That’s part of the learning process. Be bold and courageous! Learn from those mistakes.
Catherine says she spends a lot of time testing colors before using them on a drawing. That’s a good idea and a lot of artists swear by it. It’s a good way to gain the experience necessary to know instinctively what colors to use when.
The other option—the one I used when I began—was simple trial and error. Mostly error, sometimes (or so it seemed.)
But knowledge acquired by experience often sticks with me more quickly and longer than what I see or hear by example.
My Advice for Deciding the Order of Color Application
Don’t worry too much about getting the order of color application correct right from the start. Unless you’re a highly analytical artist (yes, there are some of those,) it will be more frustrating than helpful to try to plan so carefully. You’re far more likely to frustrate yourself into not drawing at all. At least that’s what happens when I try to plan too far ahead.
The fact of the matter is that one layer of color could totally upset all those carefully laid plans.
So work one color at a time. Do those test swatches if they help you, but don’t try to swatch out the entire drawing before you start drawing.
Instead, choose the base color and put that on the paper.
Then compare what you’ve drawn with your reference photo to decide on the next color. Keep track of the colors you use and the order in which you use them if you like, but work step by step through the drawing until it’s finished.
I guarantee you’ll have more fun drawing and finish more drawings that way.
Unless you are an analytical sort of artist!
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