Explore the vibrant world of colored pencils in this class for all levels of artistic skill. Learn about techniques for blending colors, using solvents, and creating compositions based on references.
Practice skills that you can use to create landscapes, portraits, still life and more in this versatile medium, plus get practice in drawing skills with graphite pencil. Each week, live demonstrations will cover drawing exercises to warm up with, and then studio practice with real-time guidance and feedback.
No previous drawing experience necessary, this basics class will give you the starting ground to take off with your imagination..
Class schedule:
September 27 – December 6
Tuesdays, 11:00 am – 12:20 pm
Virtual on Zoom (join from anywhere!)
Register at Linn-Benton Community College
Materials
Suggested supplies: If you do not have some of these supplies at home, and it is difficult to get them you can get by with the materials you do have.
- Wax-based (recommended) colored pencils (instructor will primarily use Prismacolor and Faber-Castell; Crayola/ Rose Art, other brands are welcome)
- Colors: Prismacolor Premier 24 set 3597T plus, Cream (PC914), Cool Grey (PC1061), French Grey (PC1074)
- Water-soluble colored pencils, any brand (instructor will use Crayola watercolor pencils, Derwent Graphitint, and Derwent Inktense)
- Pencil sharpener
- Tortillons
- Drawing pencil (any of 2B, 4H, 6H)
- Kneaded eraser
- Mineral spirits (Gamsol)
- Small watercolor brush
- X-Acto Knife
- Inexpensive watercolor paper pad (9×12 or 11 x 14) (such as Strathmore or Canson)
- Black and/or toned paper
- Optional: tissue, cotton swab, paper towel (can substitute for tortillon)
- Optional: Carbon transfer paper and tracing paper
I took this class in the spring. Jen is a very good instructor, I learned a lot. I would not say this is an introductory class though or that no drawing experience is needed. The other people in the class we very experienced. I have used colored pencil before but I found this class very intimidating. If you are confident of you skills go for it, but as an intro I found it pretty rough. Perhaps that was just my experience, but I want potential students to be prepared.,
Chris, thank you so much for this feedback, it’s really important for me to know I missed the mark making this class more accessible. If you have anything you know you would have liked to see different in this class please let me know here or in email. I’ll spend some time this summer thinking and exploring ways to make this class more appropriate to beginners who I want to encourage to try out this medium and practice.
Fur Feathers and Faces are intermediate at best perhaps advanced. The course as currently constructed should have at least one possibly many prerequisites. Its very good intermediate class. If it is you first drawing class you may just walk away thinking you can not do it. I think is is just mislabeled as beginning drawing with not experience. I have taken a few beginning classes I took a class at Glendale community college and we only used colored paper for the first few projects. I took one at UCLA extension and color was very lake in the class, and even then is was conte crayon. This is colored pencil, maybe it is beginning colored pencil, but you need to have a background in drawing. Maybe I am way off., but I would be really surprised if the other members I saw that shared work, if that was there first drawing class.
Ah, those are very helpful points. I wonder if I made more printable resources available so that folks can trace or color directly onto their printed linework so that they don’t have to do any drawing and can just focus on the colored pencil part, if that would make those parts of the class more accessible. You do make a good point that other art classes often have color as a later stage subject, and since this class is all about color and colored pencils, it does create the challenge for me to make sure it’s accessible from the beginning. Much to ponder and I so appreciate your thoughtful feedback!