Color Pencil Shading

Color Pencil Shading

Once students have began using value and shading in their drawings this is a good time to move onto doing shading with colored pencils.  However, it's important for students to understand color theory first before they delve into doing full on shading.  Once students understand the primary, complementary, and secondary colors they will be able to better understand how to shade effectively with colored pencils.  Give students a blank color wheel that they can either paint or colored pencils.  I would recommend using paint because it may be a little easier to mix their colors to create the colors for their color wheels.  

For this assignment I would have them draw fruit or other objects that have a nice variety of color.  Fruits are nice because they usually have a nice range of complementary colors.  

Some tips that you can give your students when shading with colored pencils 

- Use good quality colored pencils such as Prismacolor

- When shading with colored pencils students shouldn't use black to create their darkest darks.  In fact, the best thing to do is to take away the black colored pencils altogther so that the students aren't tempted to use them.  

- Show students how to create darker values by blending the complements (ex: red, use green to create darker values.  

- Teach student that they can use the white of their paper to create the lightest highlights

- Show them how much pressure to put on their pencils, overall it should be light pressure

- To get the best result it's better for students to take their time blending their colors slowly over time this will create richer, more vibrant colors.  

- Show students to use the side of their pencil instead of the tip and remind them to keep their colored pencils sharpened at all times.