New Art Project: Colorful Colored Pencil Portraits
One thing I keep coming back to in my art is trying to find new and interesting ways to incorporate color into my paintings and drawings. I dabble in a lot of different mediums — pencil, paint, charcoal, colored pencil, watercolor, and more — and I’m always trying new things. I’ve come to the conclusion that what really fascinates me among all of it is a vibrant rainbow of colors.
My History of Experimenting with Color
My fascination with colorful art goes back a long time. During my first go at creating an art website and trying to make a name for myself as an artist over ten years ago in my late teens, I think my most memorable project was “Colorful Paintings.” Back then, I did a series of paintings of celebrities, animals, and other random things in a random assortment of colors. It was bold, it was vibrant, and it has stuck with me ever since then.
A couple years ago, I took a course on Domestika called “Vibrant Portrait Drawings With Colored Pencils,” taught by Gabriela Niko. I had been doing a lot of pencil and charcoal drawings at the time, and when I came across this course I thought it would be an interesting way to spice up my portrait drawings a bit. Sure enough, it taught me a lot about the different dimensions of the face and how to use different color combinations to capture them.
Now, over these last couple of months, I’ve shifted my art focus to colored pencils for the time being and decided to revisit the “Color Paintings” concept along with what I learned in the Domestika course to practice portrait drawing with colored pencils.
My New Project
Honestly, I didn’t expect them to be very good. It was really meant to be an informal project, one that I didn’t think that I would ever post. I figured I hadn’t done a lot of this type of drawing with colored pencil before, and while I did think I had a pretty solid handle on how to draw a human face at that point, I wasn’t so sure that I could capture it well with colored pencil.
I ended up being quite impressed with my first drawing (and I’m rarely impressed with my own work).
The face mostly followed the color scheme that was taught in the Domestika course, but I was pleased with how I was able to emphasize her facial features and I liked the way the hair color offered an interesting contrast to the mostly warm colors of her skin.
I was excited and inspired after this and thought, “Alright, let’s keep going.” I have an “Art Inspiration” Pinterest board where I save reference photos or pictures with elements that I may want to incorporate into a drawing or painting in the future. I have a lot of stock photos of models saved so I thought now would be a great time to use them.
The one in the middle ended up being my favorite out of all of these because I thought I did the best with the facial features, but I think there is something good in all of them. The idea for this series has been to choose a different color scheme for each one and see what I end up coming up with in the end. Not only has it been fun, but I think it’s helped me as an artist in a few ways:
It allows me to really test what I know about human facial features and portrait drawing.
It makes me think about color theory; I’m thinking about what colors compliment each other the most, how some colors can make some parts of a drawing pop, and what colors contrast the best with those highlights.
It’s a chance for me to put a fun spin on my love of portrait drawing.
Not to mention, it’s an excuse to use up some old colored pencils that I’ve had for a long time.
Experimenting is Key
I go back and forth all the time about what I’m interested in drawing and what mediums I’m interested in using. I go from pencil drawing, to paint, to colored pencils, to back to paint. One minute I’m doing portraits, next I’m doing fanart, and then I’m doing nature art. Maybe I get bored easily, maybe I just have a lot of interests, I don’t know.
What I do know is that what makes art interesting and what makes me grow as an artist is experimentation. I’m always learning different techniques and skills as I try new things. I would encourage any artist to incorporate something new or something you don’t do very often into your art. You never know what you’ll end up liking the most.
Color is something that I keep coming back to in my art so I definitely think that’s something I’ll be sticking with for a while. This idea of testing various color schemes in my drawings, in particular, has been exciting and has awakened new inspiration. I hope you’ll check back to my website and my social media (BlueSky, Cara, Instagram) often to see where this ends up going.