In February, I expressed my hopes of being able to do art on a more regular basis. Well, my hopes were fulfilled. From May until now, I have done more art and photography than I have in the last three years. I shot six cameras in three weeks, getting enough images to cover five months of posts with frames left over.
Art has been just as fruitful. I finally found books that were indeed for beginners. Too many beginner books that purport to be step-by-step show the first few steps, then the final result. They tend to leave me thinking at least 10-15 steps are missing. After going through all my books and counting up the money wasted, I narrowed the lot down to a few that really are useful.
How to Draw and Think Like a True Artist is the best beginner drawing book I have found. The examples are detailed, and they progress from simple to complex. Using this book, I have been able to create a practice schedule that has allowed me to make real progress. However, graphite drawing and photography are not the big news here—color is.
Color is complex. Emulating the colors of real objects is far more complex than it looks. The first time I tried painting something in color, it was a tulip that was only recognizable by its outline—total failure. I went book shopping and found a good book—50 Small Paintings, that has step-by-step tutorials on how to create 50 6×6 inch paintings. These are fun, but they didn’t teach me as much about mixing colors as I would have liked.
Todd Casey, a great artist and teacher, decided after getting a degree in graphic design that he wanted to paint like the old masters. In order to learn, he enrolled in an atelier—a painting apprenticeship. The program was three years long, and he wasn’t allowed to use color until the third year. As I said, color is challenging. Since I’m never going to be an apprentice (I don’t think so anyway), I went looking for more books. What I discovered were colored pencils.
When painting, one has to deal with shadows as well as form and color. Realism, or anything close, requires one to mix paints to obtain subtle gradations of color and to create realistic shadows. The first thing you learn the hard way is shadows aren’t black or gray. So, one has to mix paints, and that requires color theory. For example, the shadows on a red object tend to be a darker red, which is achieved by mixing a green with the red, not black. The problem is there are cool reds and warm reds, cool greens and warm greens, and improper mixtures can lead to poor results. I tried mixing with acrylic paints with little success. Also, I made a mess. I tried not to get paint on everything, but I did anyway. Also, the setup is a pain—you need water, paper towels, a palette, a palette knife, brushes, and canvas. After some frustration and a few messes, I realized I needed a way to practice color theory, shading, and mixing without the mess. Hello, colored pencils!
Colored pencils create less of a mess, and they can be layered to achieve results similar to mixing paint. Even better, they tend to be much cheaper than artist-quality paints (unless you buy some of every major brand, as I did). To get started, all that is required are pencils, paper, a sharpener, and maybe an eraser. Using colored pencils, I have been able to experiment more efficiently with color theory, mixing, and shading.
With paint, one makes new colors by mixing paints on a palette. With colored pencils, one creates new colors by layering one color on top of another. To test my handle on color pencil layering, I tried this YouTube tutorial. My drawing is not as realistic as hers, but it was my first attempt with colored pencils. Overall, I am quite pleased with the result because everything she did made sense. It was this video that convinced me to try replicating the red pears in colored pencil without a net (i.e., without a tutorial helping me decide on colors and shadows).
These red pear images demonstrate the evolution from black and white to color. I started with graphite pencils, practicing shading and getting the form right. Next, I created a second drawing with colored pencils using shading techniques with color theory. After seeing that the colored pencil version wasn’t that bad, I tried to apply the lessons learned from colored pencils to acrylic paint. While I find the light reflections in the colored pencil version acceptable, I have not been able to get the light gradations right with paint. After a few very frustrating attempts, I gave up–at least for now. In a few weeks, I’ll try again.

Looking over my painting tutorial books, I realize that many painting projects can easily be converted to colored pencil. These projects will allow me to practice color use without a mess and then go for paint once I have a solid idea of what is required to achieve the desired results.
I am happy with the progress I’ve made in the last few months. The only problem is I’ve developed GAS for colored pencils, and GAS is always costly. I bought a set of each of three major colored pencil brands–Prismacolor (72), Polychromos (60), and Luminance (40)–as well as a 120 set from Castle Arts. Considering the costs of these pencils, paint would have been cheaper–but still messier. I have much more to learn–layering, blending, using solvents–but the learning pace is faster with pencils. One lesson I’ve learned that applies to colored pencils and acrylic paint more so than graphite pencils is that student/craft-quality vs. professional quality matters.
I’ve tried cheap and expensive graphite pencils, and I don’t see a real difference in results/performance. However, student/craft versus professional makes a huge difference with colored pencils and acrylics. Not knowing this, a few years ago, I bought inexpensive sets of student/craft paints (red pears were painted with a craft set). Professional-level materials have more pigment and provide better coverage, meaning fewer layers are needed for the same result. Having learned this lesson, I gave most of my student/craft paints to my niecettes (this is what I call my nephew’s kids). I kept the rest to experiment with mixing, but, no doubt, there will be expensive paint in the future.
In all, the summer of 2024 was very fruitful and a lot of fun.