Drawing Animal Portraits in Coloured Pencil

Book excerpt: A masterclass in producing lifelike animals with colored pencils. Domestic animals are an eternally popular subject for art, and present unique challenges to the artist. Lisa Ann Watkins has made a career of teaching her colored pencil techniques to capture character and realism in her art. A section on materials covers colored pencils, watercolor pencils (wet and dry), and PanPastels. A chapter on character shows how to capture the best reference photographs to work from; information on anatomy – eyes, bone structure, fur direction – and notes on tools/apps that can be used to help with tonal values. Clear simple techniques are then presented through short exercises that focus on a particular technique or effect selected by the author from her experience teaching, such as a cat’s eye. Answer to common technical question from students/followers that cover unique aspects of the medium such as the amount of pressure to use. A series of step-by-step projects then follows, including cat, dog, donkey and a baby animal.