For an explanation of the three types of col-
ored pencils and a materials list for getting
started in the medium, go to www.artists
network.com/article/getting-started.

So many art teachers admonish their students, “Work loose, work loose!” Early in my career, I became weary of hearing that phrase, annoyed with teachers who insisted that paintings with details were somehow taboo. Although I was frustrated, I didn’t give up, but many students who take my workshops did—until they discovered colored pencil art and realized that they don’t have to “work loose.”

Colored pencil art has come a long way in the 25 years I’ve been working with it. In my early years with the medium, many people thought it was for kids scribbling in coloring books. Today, many talented colored pencil artists have enlightened skeptics, and colored pencil has taken its rightful place as a serious art medium.

rate scrap piece so the artist can check the desired values and hues before committing them to a painting.

Finally, because colored pencil art is time-consuming, artists usually must work from reference photography instead of live subjects.

Colored pencil is unique because it’s a translucent medium (See Translucence, on the next page). When one color is layered on top of another, both colors are distinctly visible, yet they combine to make another color, enabling artists to create paintings that resemble oils, acrylics, watercolors, pastels—or even colored pencil.

Mixing color directly onto the painting instead of on a separate palette also sets colored pencil apart from other media; however, colors can be combined on a sepa-

You can apply color in many ways, but crosshatching, stippling and other “stroke-intensive” techniques are contrary to those discussed here because the objective is not to allow strokes to show. Strokes can be either circular or linear, depending on the subject’s texture and contours. Use a well-sharpened pencil to apply color in a uniform matter with an extremely light touch.

The basic colored pencil technique involves layering colors, one on top of another—creating hues, values, gradations and textures that are further controlled by using paper surfaces of varying tooth or color (See Layering, on the next page). The tooth of the paper plays a major role in this technique, because the paper is allowed to show through the layers of color.

Burnishing involves layering and blending until no paper tooth shows through the colored pencil layers (see Burnishing, at right). To avoid contamination of

www.artistsmagazine.com ■ November 2008

■ Gary Greene has been a full-time artist since 1967. After working for 15 years in mainstream fine art media, he accidentally came across a book on colored pencil in 1983. “It was an epiphany!” he says. Greene is the author of four books and videos on colored pencil techniques, including No Experience Required: Colored and Watercolor Pencil (North Light Books, 2005). He has conducted workshops, demonstrations and lectures internationally, won numerous awards for his colored pencil paintings and is a co-founder and the only 15-year Signature Member of the Colored Pencil Society of America. For more information, go to www.geocities.com/garygreeneart and www.ggart.biz.

Spheres (colored pencil, 21x32)