Added Oct 10, 2017
I want to share with you what I thought about Prisma Color Pencils when I used them on "Tears Will Someday".
I wanted to do something with color pencils that was more like acrylic painting, something that was able to draw on darker color background. Oil paintings usually use this technique by giving the canvas a mid-tone color in grey, raw umber and white, or yellow ochre to give it an underglow to the background of the painting that makes it look more professional.
I also wanted to use this on my color pencil drawing by using a mid-tone ash-grey colored paper.
I used Prisma Color Premiere, 150 colors.
I first drew out the draft sketch of the picture I wanted on the paper with pencil on tracing paper.
Then I taped the tracing paper onto the ash grey paper to trace the main outlines using carbon paper underneath it.
In the same way that I paint my acrylic paintings, I started the drawing by drawing in the dark shadows with burnt umber and the highlights with white first.
This gives the drawing the feel of where all the shapes go.
I did notice that the white pencil didn't show up as much as I wanted it to, so in the end I used a bit of pastel on the strongest highlight on the lights coming through.
Then I did the blue dress and a little bit of the hair next. All you need for each object with color, are four colors, the main color, the highlight, the shadow and the color between the shadow and the main color. I just matched the colors of the pencil with a reference photo and chose the colors to use.
Using the same technique of using the four color pencils, I did the red hair band and the shoes.
I also added a bit more color to the hair. Same four color technique, but emphasizing the highlights and the darks a bit more.
Then I started on the greens. With this one, I used 8 colors, four colors for the lighter greens, and four colors for the darker greens.
I used different shades of green depending on where I wanted the light to hit the leaves.
You can also see that the face and the arms and legs of the girl are more 3D because I also put the four-color technique on the skin tones as well. Just as an example of what I've used on the skin here are the colors for the skin tones: Shadow-Dark Umber, Main color-Nectar, Highlight-Deco Peach and Transition color-Clay Rose. All skin tones are different depending on the person and the environment, so it's good to get a reference photo of the skin color you want and try out different sets of four colors.
Lastly but not least, I used the four color technique on all the roses of pink, purple and orange on their shadows, highlights, main color and transition color.
I also did the flowing petals and tear drops. Theses droplets are fun to do, as all you need to do is to draw a thin white circle and draw a miniature picture in each droplet of the background upside down! The closer to you the droplets are, the bigger the background it contains, so your choice as to how much to put into each droplet. Then you do a little highlight on the corner where the light is coming from.
I hope you enjoyed my little progressive report on the making of the "Tears Will Someday".
Overall, the Prisma Color pencils did great on the darker color paper.
It was a lot less messy than doing acrylic paintings and you can do it whenever you want to just by having the pencils and the paper on your desk, so there is a lot less preparation to do and can be done in your spare time just to relax and have fun.
You can get pieces done a lot faster too since you don't need to mix your colors but just choose the color pencil that matches the color the best.
I guess the draw backs are that the lighter colors didn't turn out that intense as I thought they would be, so the colors actually don't have the punch that acrylic paints would have, that you do take more time to do bigger areas than paints and that the paper on which you draw won't last as long as canvases do.
It's a matter of what purpose you have for your artwork. I would like my artwork to last for a very long time because I am thinking long-term, so I probably won't be using prisma color pencils for really big pieces that have long-lasting value. But for pet portraits and portrait gifts for people, I think they would be very suitable.
Thank you for reading this and if you have any comments or questions, do leave them on the section below.
Ta!
AyaSophie