MOST USEFUL TOOL FOR COLORED PENCIL DRAWINGS Video Lecture | Become an Artist: Colored Pencil Portrait Drawing Tutorial - Art & Craft

when it comes to my color pencil
drawings there is definitely one tool in
particular that since I've been using it
I cannot imagine having to create
another colored pencil drawing without
it in this video I want to go through
firstly what is this tool and how can
you use it to make your drawings even
better so let me reveal to you what this
tool actually is the tool that I'm
talking about is my exacto knife I
absolutely love this little tool for my
colored pencil drawings and it's very
inexpensive you can get it on Amazon
I'll leave a link in the description
where you can get it or you can get it
from most craft stores and so what I
firstly love to use this for is etching
in little details into a blank piece of
paper before you go in with your colored
pencils you can engrave in some of the
details that are really really white in
your drawing and you want to preserve
them and you don't want to get any
colored pencil on them so this is great
to do it's the first thing you go in and
do before you go in with colored pencils
you just go in use the side of the knife
and just use that to dent some details
into your work and you can see that when
you go over the top with the colored
pencil those little lines or details
that you've preserved the colored pencil
can't get into those grooves and so it
keeps them really white and it means
that you don't have to worry about
preserving all of those little
highlights and going around those areas
so it's great for anything like white
fur any like little white hairs that you
have for example in a beard if there's a
lot of white hairs or in white fur on an
animal it's great for that the second
thing that I absolutely love using my
exacto knife for is also once you've
added the color pencil already to the
paper you can go in with that little
exacto knife and as you can see it just
scrapes off that colored pencil and
leaves a really nice highlight and as
you can see I've got three different
colors here and I'll just show you that
it works on all of them once you've
applied layers of color pencil it works
really well to lift off the color pencil
to reveal all the lighter layers
underneath you can get thinner lines or
you can have a bit of variation and
create thicker lines with your knife as
well depending on how you hold it if you
just use the tip of the knife then
you'll get more
thin lines but if you use a bit more of
the whole blade then you can get some
thicker lines as well so it's great for
things like whiskers again I love using
it for hair to add details and Flyway
bits of hair and I also love it for it's
great for that as well here's the final
result of all three of them as you can
see you can get some really intricate
details and patterns and I'll be showing
you in a bit what type of real life
situations I use the knife in now you
may be thinking while Kirstie does this
work with all brands of colored pencils
or just those Karen - luminance that
you're using well on the left hand side
I've got a polychromos and then a
prismacolor and then a caring -
illuminance and I'm going to show you
one by one that this trick actually does
work and this tool does work the same on
all three of these different brands and
I'm assuming it would work on other
brands as well I've never come across a
color pencil that this technique doesn't
work for I would say however that it
does work slightly better in my opinion
for the prismacolor
and the Karen - luminance because they
are wax based so they are more soft and
creamy so I feel like they lift up a bit
easier and you can get slightly brighter
results but really there's not much
difference at all so I just want to
mention some things to avoid doing when
you're using these techniques and
firstly when you're using the etching
technique
don't try and cut into the paper or try
and like scratch her or tear it in any
way because if you cut into the paper
rather than denting it then what will
actually happen is it doesn't work you
can see there you don't get those nice
white lines preserved it just looks the
same if not a bit darker where you cut
into the paper and for the scraping
technique again you do not want to cut
into the paper and you also don't want
to go in with a lot of force with your
knife you're only trying to very lightly
scrape off the surface layer of colored
pencil you're not trying to tear or rip
the paper in any way so don't use a lot
of force now like I said I love using
this technique for hair and also things
like eyebrows here you can see I'm using
the knife just to add some highlighted
hair to the eyebrows so little eyebrows
and this gives a lot of nice dimension
because you'll have the shadowed eyebrow
hairs and then you're gonna have a
little
by having some lighter ones in there as
well so it does really help with the
realism of the whole piece if you go in
with this knife and of course it works
great for hair styles I use it so much
when I'm drawing loads of different
types of hair styles and in particular I
love it for creating the little flyaway
hairs and also details to break up each
section of hair so I'll get in the basic
shapes and colors and sections and locks
of hair and then I'll go in with my
exacto knife as the last thing that I do
to the section of hair and just use it
to add details add variety add little
loose strands
not too many otherwise it will look a
bit weird but it gives a really nice
overall look to the hair this technique
is also so useful for getting in little
textures on the skin for example if
you're drawing an older person they've
got a lot of texture and wrinkle to the
skin then it's really helpful for that
as well as for adding little details for
example to the waterline if you guys are
enjoying learning about this technique
and you love creating portraits in color
pencil and want to improve your realism
skills then you guys can learn all of my
techniques for this in one place and see
how I create realistic portraits you can
use the code SAVE 15 for 15% off at
checkout and I take you through things
like how to choose skin tones how to
draw different types of facial features
like an eye and nose skin freckles hair
all of that sort of stuff so you can
learn all of my techniques they'll be in
one place so you can learn them and
apply them to your work I'll leave a
link to that in the description even
though this technique has got great
applications for portraits it also works
wonders for your animal drawings I love
it to add details to the fur so I love
using the knife to scrape off different
colors for the fur and create details
but it's also great for action in those
little white hairs for example on the
fox's ear here I have already etched in
some of the little white hairs and then
I'm going over the top with black and
you can see it preserves them really
really nicely all of the drones that
have shown in this video are available
over on my patreon in real time for you
guys so you can follow along with me and
learn all of my techniques over on there
I have now got over 200 real-time
tutorials on my patreon and so just for
a small amount per month you can access
all of them and all of the new tutorials
I put up
every single month I'll leave a link in
the description so you can check that
out as well so anyway guys let me know
in the comment section below have you
used this tool before is that the first
time you're even hearing about it do you
want to now go and get it and give it a
try let me know in the comment section
below also if you enjoyed this video
please give it a thumbs up and if you're
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don't miss out on all of my future tip
and tutorial videos but that is it for
this video and I'll see you guys in the
next one bye everybody