Still Life Easy to Draw and Shade
How to draw a still life with coloured pencil
By Artists & Illustrators | Tue 6th Jul 2021
In this coloured pencil drawing tutorial, Michael Gallone shows how to draw and colour a still life in 10 easy-to-follow steps
Careful planning and subtle reflected shadows can add realism to your coloured pencil drawings. Showing you how it's done with his step-by-step, still life guide for beginners is artist and London Fine Art Studios tutor Michael Gallone…
Drawing and mark making are one of our most innate instincts. We all have a facility with pencils and crayons, but many people are intimidated about starting to draw and paint. People often tell me they can't even draw stickmen, and yet we all drew as children before we could write or read. I am always amazed at how much time is given in schools for children to learn to write, and yet so little attention is given to making art, when surely the visual language is more natural than written words. We see paintings in books and galleries and want the end product, but there is of course a process to be learnt.
How do you start drawing with coloured pencils?
The best way to start drawing is not to think about trying to achieve an end painting, but to learn the visual language of how artists translate the visual world onto a piece of paper or canvas. The easiest option is to work with paper and coloured pencils. We all have access to paper, crayons and household objects. In this demo, I will show you the simple steps and the visual language required to build up to a final drawing.
At London Fine Art Studios, we are always teaching about the process and not the product. The final drawing or painting is a by-product of the process, and surely the joy of art for the artist is not in the product but in the process? The finished artwork is not a piece of magic but a skill that can be learnt through an orderly sequential process as demonstrated.
Drawing a still life with coloured pencil:
A step-by-step guide
Michael's Materials
- Coloured Pencils: White (01), Black (10), Naples Yellow (22), Orange (23), Brown (44), Blue Violet (53), Ultramarine (55) and Dark Grey(78), all Bruynzeel Design pastel pencils
- White chalk pencil
- Faber-Castell 9000 2B graphite pencil
- Strathmore 400 series "Toned Gray" 118gsm sketch paper
- Cretacolor kneaded eraser
1. Establish proportions
With my graphite pencil, I began by drawing my top and bottom lines, then the side lines to create a rectangle. This helps me decide on the size of my drawing. Even at this stage, I was checking the height against the width of my rectangle, ensuring it was the right proportion in relation to my objects.
I then divided the rectangle up into different sections that were based on the placement of the objects. With each line drawn, I double checked its placement and compared each section against the other until I was happy with the scale and proportions of my still life drawing.
2. Relate the objects
Now that the framework was established, I could confidently begin to draw in my objects. I kept the shapes simple at first and avoided getting caught up in the details. I started with the bigger objects first, building up the drawing in stages to make sure everything remains to scale.
I also made sure that the gesture and relationships of the objects were working well together and avoided drawing any tangents that could flatten the image. To finish off this stage of my drawing, I added in the shadow shapes as they also helped with the gesture of the image and enhance the readability of the shapes. It's important to include them at this stage to avoid having to make any changes once you begin to add colour.
3. Add and subtract
Once I was happy with the layout of my drawing, I started to add the details and refine the drawing further to make it more accurately match what I was seeing. I'm not just adding details; throughout my coloured pencil drawing I'm constantly asking myself what can be left out to better describe my still life set up clearly. For example, in this image I have chosen to only focus on refining the light shapes and leaving the shadows empty, this is intended to draw the viewer's attention to where the light hits the objects.
4. Shade in shadows
With all the previous hard work done planning out the drawing, I was able to focus on simply shading in the form and cast shadows. I kept all the shadows at the same tonal values at this stage. I wanted to simplify them and avoid drawing too much attention to them, because I didn't want them to become the focus of my coloured pencil drawing.
5. Time for colour
I began to use my coloured pastel pencils here. I chose the colours that were closest to the chroma of my objects and begin to apply them to the light areas. I saw this as a sort of base layer for the colour. I then went over every part of this image with the pastel pencils to mass in the colours, but still left the shadows as they were from the previous stage.
6. Add some depth
I began to create a sense of form with the lights by pushing the colour and halftones. I did this by blending and making sure I didn't make everything too light in value. I used darker coloured pencils to make sure the mid-tones were dark enough – this is particularly important on the mid-tones next to shadows areas as it creates depth.
I blended the colour by hatching one pencil over another. I tried not smudge them together at this stage as that can cause you to lose the vibrancy of the colour. I also chose not to draw the exact pattern on the plate. I wanted instead to convey just enough information to give an impression of the pattern.
7. Make it pop
Generally speaking, if I want to give my objects a nice finish, I will add highlights to them. These small touches can really make things appear pop out of your drawing.
However, one must be careful with this stage. Don't just jump to solely using a white pencil for your highlights – instead, mix in a little of the local colour. For the highlights of the fruit here, I used a mix of Naples Yellow, Orange and White.
8. Cool the shadows
Once I was happy with the how the lighter side of my objects looked, I could begin to block in the shadows.
During this stage of drawing, as a rule, I like to render my shadows in a cool tone. Otherwise, if the shadows are too warm, I run the risk of making my drawing look muddy.
I also began to add a small hint of the plate's pattern in the shadow of the plate by faintly shading it in.
9. Set the scene
We want our objects to take centre stage in our still life drawings. Rather than detracting from them, our background can really help pull the drawing together if handled correctly and give our objects substance and weight.
Subtlety is key. I began to deepen the colour of my green base cloth, but I was very careful not to let that colour overpower – or compete with – the chroma of my objects.
I also darkened the shadows and added a thin layer of the relevant object's colour to them to create a reflected warmth – in this drawing, that meant adding some orange to the fruit's form shadow, and some blue to the plate's cast shadow.
10. Finishing touches
I noticed that the cast shadow above the orange was drawing too much attention and didn't add to the readability of my drawing, so I gently removed it with my eraser and reapplied the cloth's colour. I then added more warmth into the shadows of the orange and made the shadows on the background more appealing by adding a bit more blue and yellow to them.
Some of the edges in my drawing were looking too strong, so I softened them by rubbing them lightly using a tissue folded to a triangular point. To finish, I then softly hatched in some of the colour that I had lost near to those edges.
Read more:
- The best pencils for sketching
- How to draw with graphite
- How to draw everyday objects
- How to start a daily drawing routine
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Source: https://www.artistsandillustrators.co.uk/how-to/drawing/how-to-draw-a-still-life-with-coloured-pencil/
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