- Tutorial -

Presenting.....the making of "Unicorn - Fall Hills", a 12" x 9" colored pencil illustration on fiber-enhanced Strathmore Artagain paper. I hope you enjoy this glance into my artistic process.

Supplies for this project - Mechanical pencil, low tack tape, eraser, vellum paper, popsickle stick, Prismacolor colored pencils, verithin pencils, sharpener, fiber-enhanced paper, and finishing spray.

(Sketch)
The first thing I do is tape down a piece of transparent vellum paper onto my high-tech drawing board. Well, okay, it's an old kitchen cabinet door upon which I've taped down a piece of white paper topped with a sheet of acrylic. You see, I always draw either on my recliner couch. Sitting at a table to draw gives me pains in my back and neck. The board is just perfect because the rim keeps my pencils from rolling off and I can angle the board anyway I like. Whatever works, right? I use transparent vellum so that I can easily flip the page over to check my proportions as I go. When I'm finished, I tape down the final paper I'm going to use and then flip my sketch over before taping it on top. I use another high-tech tool to transfer my drawing onto my paper. Yes, it's a popsickle stick! By transfering my lines in this manner, I prevent any "digs" into my final paper which will catch the colored pencils and prevent me from creating smooth transitions. There are times when you WANT to create a groove in the paper, however. For example, if you want clearly defined thin lines of white for whiskers per say, then you just draw your whiskers in as best you can, put a piece of vellum over it, draw over your lines with a pen, remove the vellum, and then gently haze over the whole area with another color. If you are careful, the white will be protected in the grooves in this way. Okay, onward!

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