Color Pencils! I love them!

Over 2 years ago my husband, then fiance`, gifted me a wonderful Sony Vaio laptop to help with our long distance relationship :)  He is in a habit of adding a goodies bag along with his gift with some tini-mini stuff, he knew I loved to draw, so that bag contained a pack of 12 pencil colors along with other things. So these were my first ever pencil colors and I didn't know what to do with them.

Out of my love for him and putting a good use to his gifts I did a random drawing on the first page of a drawing book that my sister had gifted me.Remember, how we used to do a "My Art book" drawing on the first art class in school. After that the colors were more or less forgotten. Now, on my last birthday, he gifted me a pencil drawing set which had a nice assortment of graphite pencils, the kinds I use, colored pencils and some other drawing tools. These colored pencils I put to use for decorating the scrap book I made of our Thanksgivings vacation pics. That is essentially the only experience I have with color pencils.

Day before yesterday, I was checkout pencil drawing tutorials, tips and techniques, online and I came across a couple of color pencil drawings and I was immediately attracted to the idea! I really love colors in general, I like to keep things a little colorful, it is my way of keeping my life colorful :) Vivek  had always been insisting that I try doing the drawings in color but I wasn't confident enough.But, I read through a couple of articles defining techniques in color drawing and I printed out a photo of Taylor Swift. I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome! I did not expect it to be this well a drawing in my first attempt.

So here I go, starting with drawing the outline. 

After I was done with the outline the real dilemma began. At this point I was very confused as to which color to apply as the background of the face as I had only the basic 12 colors and nothing to go for the skin shade. Had it not been for Vivek, my drawing was ruined. I was about to apply a very light shade of brown. When I told him that, he said that mostly the base is done in light orange. Sometimes, I feel he is more knowledgeable about drawing than me! So, here's how it looked after a light wash of orange. I left out the eyes and lips and covered all the skin in light orange. I then used an ear bud or Q-tip to blend it, so that the fine lines would be gone.

I have one regret about this drawing, not having a proper shade of yellow and only one shade of brown has made the hair look quite different from it should have been. All I had was a lemon yellow shade and dark brown. I moved on to the eyes and the lips and from here the drawing starts to look realistic. Its the eyes, I guess.

 I started to darken the shadow areas in pink and blending with the ear bud all the time.

Yes, I had the original picture open on my laptop all the time. It really helps! For a while I just continue to darken the pinks and using a little black for the lips and teeth.

This is where I stopped working on it. It was almost 3 hours and this is all I had achieved. I supposed had it been a graphite one, it would be almost done. So here's the thing, color pencil drawings take way longer than the graphite ones. Almost more than double the time, and obviously not as easy to erase and re-do.

Next day (i.e. yesterday), I read some more on using colored pencils and different ways to blend the colors in. I have added more pink along with a touch of brown to the shadows along the neck and the hand. I have also added a little orange in the hair on the right and highlighted it in brown.

As I sat to do the rest of the drawing I decided to do the flower first, and came another issue, I had only one shade of pink which I had been using to darken the shadows on the face. I decided to keep blending/ mixing a little red, the one I used for the lips to do the shadows in the flower. By now I was so engrossed in it that I forgot to take any further pictures :)  I took this picture from my iPhone 4 and although it is a little yellowed, it shows the tones best.

Here are some pictures taken from my digital camera...I forgot to mention adding the sleeve in the end, it is some pattern similar to the one in the original picture and not the very same.

At the very end I highlighted the eyes, eyelashes again, used some more black on the lips added a touch of brown in between the eyes and nose.

I am yet to take a picture, after I corrected the right eye :) Will add that soon. Click on the images to see larger  versions.