Just Twelve Colors

If you can’t see the photos, go here: cabinart.net/blog.

I have an artist friend in Kansas named Carrie Lewis. I found her on the internet some years ago while looking to see what other artists were blogging about, and how their blogs were working. Carrie works in colored pencil, and because I love to draw, used to use colored pencils, and still help some of my drawing students with colored pencils,I thought I could learn from her. 

A few weeks ago she asked me to write a guest post for her. This is the link: Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and Colored Pencils. 

After she posted it, the ideas started coming for more posts. Along with those ideas came intense summer heat and a desire to cower in my air conditioned studio instead of painting in the swamp-(barely)-cooled workshop.

I own a tremendous number of colored pencils, and I seldom use them for anything except putting color on American flags in pencil drawings and lending them to my drawing students. (I have way way more than these, and this is after thinning them out a few years ago!)

Because I paint using the primary colors, I’ve wondered why I think I need so many colors of pencils. I don’t. I really don’t need them all. Colored pencil manufacturers sell starter sets of 12 colors, and it is a great challenge to see if I can produce pieces using only those 12 colors.

My first set of 12 came from Aunt Shirley for my birthday in 5th grade (age 10, I think). I still have 2 pencils from that set. (I can tell by the typestyle.)

By looking on the internet, I learned the 12 colors that were originally in the Prismacolor starter box. (It was clear plastic and it finally cracked. . . wahhh. It was so cool.) I also learned which 12 colors are in the Polychromos starter set. Then I went through my pencils and filled a box with those 24 pencils, along with back-ups and pencil extenders (circled in photo). The back-up pencils are for Prismacolors, because they break and break and break and. . .

I started a colored pencil drawing using just the 12 Prismacolor pencils.

Colored pencils are difficult for me to get an exact match, but that doesn’t really matter. What matters is making beautiful, plausible, believable, realistic art. Because. . .

Using pencils, oil paint and murals, I make art that people can understand, of places and things they love, for prices that won’t scare them.

You Can Do THIS With Colored Pencils?

If my drawing students learn to draw with graphite pencils – i.e. see proportions, understand values (the darks and lights), understand hard and soft edges, and make the tools do what they intend for them to do, then my drawing students who want to can use colored pencils.

Colored pencils (mis)behave differently than graphite pencils. I’ve heard plenty of colored pencil artists say the reason to use colored pencils instead of paint is C O N T R O L.

Colored pencils require many many layers, and it hurts my wrist to use them. However, many of my advanced students choose to use them, and in spite of my ouchy wrist, I can help.

It may appear to you as if Mae has copied her photo as efficiently as a Xerox machine. I can assure you that she has done a fabulous job of interpreting the photo and adjusting it so the drawing makes more sense than the photo. She pays a great deal of attention to detail and chooses what to eliminate and what to enhance.

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May is using Polychromos by Faber Castell. These seem to be the highest quality for the price that I’ve used so far. They are oil based, made in Germany, and last a long time. They are a little fatter so they don’t fit in our normal sharpeners. They are also a little hard to find if you just want to buy them one at a time.

Prismacolor used to be my favorite. I learned their colors beginning with a set of 12 that my Aunt Shirley gave me when I was in 5th grade. They are wax based,  made in the USA,  and break easily, which is exasperating. They are readily available in sets or in one-sies, and can be repaired in the microwave (but don’t tell the company – they don’t take responsibility for the breakage and blame the pencil sharpeners, not the rough handling before they arrive in your hands.) I noticed they are now referred to as “soft-core”, probably a response to all the complaints!

So, yes, you CAN do this with colored pencils (after hours and hours of practice!)