Let's Draw a Pear! - Steps 3 & 4

Today's post continues with our pear tutorial begun in the last post. Click here in case you missed steps 1 & 2. Or go to my Tutorial page and follow the links to download a copy of the entire tutorial, Let's Draw a Pear!, in PDF.

Step Three : A list of materials used to make this drawing

Here are the supplies that I used to make this drawing of a pear. For my support (paper or other surface for applying art media) I used my favorite Rising Museum Board. It has a slight texture and a somewhat firm surface. This allows for lots of layering of the colored pencil. Another good support for colored pencil work is Strathmore Bristol Vellum 500 Series. It has similar characteristics to Rising Museum Board and provides a very suitable surface for colored pencil.

The other items I used were tracing paper, artist’s tape, a mechanical pencil, pencil sharpeners, kneaded erasers, and a white plastic eraser stick.

The colored pencils that I used for this pear drawing were all Faber-Castell Polychromos colored pencils. I used the following colors (in this order):

Light Chrome Yellow, Light Yellow Ochre, Brown Ochre, Sanguine, Light Green, Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Yellow Lemon, Light Cadmium Red, Cadmium Orange, Burnt Carmine, Burnt Umber, and Dark Indigo.

Faber-Castell Polychromos colored pencils are often available as open stock from art supply retailers.

Step Four : Transferring the image to the drawing surface

Mark your drawing support for a 5 x 7 inch format.  Place tracing paper over the photo reference and mark the corners. Trace the outline of the pear shape and shadow with pencil. Other than the pear’s shadow, we are not concerned with any of the background. If it is too difficult to see the shadowed edge of the pear against the dark back ground through the tracing paper, draw that edge with a white colored pencil directly on the printed out photo reference.

Turn the tracing to the back side and draw along the pear shape with a soft lead pencil.

Now place the tracing right side up over your marked drawing surface, lining up corners and tape the tracing paper to the drawing paper at the top.

Draw over the pear shape outline with a pencil, careful not to press down too hard. Using a heavy pressure will impress lines into your support. Now the outline of your pear shape should be transferred onto the drawing support.

Monday's post will show the first stages of the colored pencil layering techniques in Step 5. Hope to see you there!