Creating Textures in Colored Pencil

Gary Greene is a long-time favorite of North Light Book readers and colored pencil artists everywhere. Known for his super-realistic style, Gary uses colored pencils to paint just about every subject you can imagine–still life, portraits, flowers, land and seascapes….

North Light Books brings his indepth instruction to you now with the 15th Anniversary edition of the classic, Creating Textures in Colored Pencil. After some great instruction on materials and painting techniques for colored pencils, you’ll follow along with over 50 step-by-step painting demonstrations for painting natural textures like leaves, wood, water and people; and manmade textures like glass, cloth and shiny metal.

He breaks every texture into bite-size steps that are easy to follow so you can paint your own favorite textures! Here he shows you steps for painting weathered wood in colored pencil.

(White Wood) STEP 1 : Use vertical strokes to layer Cool Grey 20% and establish grain pattern, then wash with rubber cement thinner.
(White Wood) STEP 2: Randomly layer Cool Grey 70%.
(White Wood) Step 3: Layer Cool Grey 50%. Relayer Cool Grey 20%.

(Red Wood) STEP 1: Layer Brownish Beige. Wash with water.
(Red Wood) STEP 2: Layer Light Umber, then wash with rubber cement thinner.
(Red Wood) STEP 3: Layer Crimson Red in a grain pattern. Layer Crimson Red and Crimson Lake in the concentrated red areas. Dab red with rubber cement thinner.
(Red Wood) STEP 4: Relayer Crimson Red.
(Red Wood) STEP 5: Add details by burnishing Warm Grey 90% and Dark Umber. Add highlights by scraping with a no. 16 craft knife.

Learn more about Creating Textures in Colored Pencil here.

Then watch Gary Greene in action on his Painting Textures in Colored Pencil video here.