How to Color Veils With Colored Pencils

Always work with a fine, sharp point in colored pencil painting.

Students with basic skills in colored pencil painting may want to advance to something a little more challenging. Don't feel intimidated at the thought of creating something like a veil. All the skills needed to complete this task have been learned already.

Things You'll Need

• Colored pencils
• Erasers
• Pencil sharpener
• Black drawing paper
• piece of transparent material

Instructions

1. 

   The red background would be painted before the veil.

   Look through some books on colored pencil painting before beginning the practice. You may not be able to find a painting with a veil but there are examples of transparency. How did the artist manage that? It's all in the pencil pressure. Learn to control the pencil and you've got it.

2. Using the black paper and pencil color of choice, make a value scale from 1 to 9. You'll use the lightest pressure for "1" and the heaviest pressure for "9." Since you've had basic colored pencil training, you will be familiar with this exercise.

3. Practice making value scales on the black paper until you feel in total control of the pencil. Number one will be the most transparent with transparency increasing up the scale using greater pencil pressure. The darker shades will represent the folds in the veil.

4. Set up a still-life with a piece of transparent material. Drape the material over a darker object like a chair or dresser. Using one color, pencil pressure and vertical strokes, render the material. The lightest strokes will reveal the object beneath the cloth. Darker strokes will represent the folds.

5. Practice rendering the actual veil you wish to use on the black paper.
   Use heavier pressure to create any designs on the veil. As a colored pencil student, you know that layering color is how all colored pencil paintings are done. Therefore, using the lightest pressure possible, paint the first layer of the veil. Now add the folds using heavier pressure. Next, begin to add the design just as if you were creating an opaque picture.

6. Practice these exercises until you feel confident you can place the veil on a painting of an actual person.

Tips & Warnings

• There are many excellent books on colored pencil painting. If you can't afford to buy them, check with your local library.

• If you've painted a portrait that you'd like to add a veil to, practice these exercises until you feel very confident. It would be a shame to ruin a portrait that you spent hours painting.

References

• Colored Pencil Secrets for Success, Ann Kullberg, 2009
• Colored Pencil Portraits, Ann Kullberg, 1999
• Pencil Painting Bible, Alyona Nickelsen, 2009

Resources

• For All Things Colored Pencil
• Brush and Pencil, online colored pencil school
• Piecing Earth & Sky Together, A Creation Story from the Mien Tribe of Laos, 2003