Colored Pencil

Art Talk on:

     pencil
     charcoal
     ink
     silverpoint
colored pencil
     soft pastel
     oil pastel
     watercolor
     acrylic paint
     oil paint

Summary

For works in colored pencil, please visit:

Sold Art Card Gallery

Colored Pencil as an Artistic Medium

colored pencil drawing of a wild lily Colored pencils are an artistic medium? To many artists, yes they are. And to many other artists, they are not. In either case, the pencils are not the hard, pale colored pencils of childhood.

History

Colored pencils are a fairly new medium. Like graphite pencils, most are encased in wood. The core of the pencil is an extruded column of pigment and binders, usually a cellulose gum. It is the proportion of pigments, which are fairly expensive, versus filler material that separate artistic grade colored pencils from other colored pencils. 20 years ago, art shows rarely had artists whose primary medium was colored pencil, but today, it's not uncommon to find a few colored pencil drawings at art festivals.

Tools Needed

	Colored Pencils Most often, colored pencils are sold in sets, which range from 12 colors to 120. Large art supply stores also sell individual pencils, so that one can replace an individual pencil as it is used up.
	Paper While colored pencil can be done on pure white paper, it often is done on colored papers, either printmaking papers (shown at the left) or pastel paper. This saves time when filling in large areas and gives a unified feeling to the drawing. The important thing about the paper is that it is fairly tough and smooth.
	Eraser To erase colored pencil, a soft eraser is normally used.

Using It

Colored pencils are drawn on the surface. Usually, an initial layer is filled in. Then subsequent layers are added to obtain the correct color and shading. Mineral spirits can be used with a brush to blend the pencil marks, or special blending pencils can be used. Most colored pencil drawings are not blended in this manner.

Pros

	tools required are cheap to buy
	extremely detailed drawings are possible
	can be stopped and started with no problems
	very portable
	pencils are seen as very familiar and thus 'friendly'

Cons

	mistakes can be corrected, but only in a limited manner
	limited color ranges mean colors must be mixed on the paper by overlaying colors
	only a certain amount of layers can be layered before the paper becomes too slick to hold more pigment
	occasionally the waxes will 'bloom' on the surface and a thin white haze will appear
	looked down upon as an artistic medium by galleries and many artists

Comments by L.M. Hornberger

"Okay, I confess. I don't like colored pencil as an artistic medium. Maybe it goes back to 3rd grade and coloring in maps with those pathetic colored pencils! I have tried artist quality colored pencils and I'm just not impressed with them either. The layers seem to build up so fast to the point of not being able to add more layers without getting the intense colors. It seems to me that it's a whole lot easier to use pastels or watercolor to get the same effect. Having said that, I do admit that I have seen 1 or 2 artists that really make colored pencil shine."

The next medium to be examined is soft pastel.

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