Is Color Important When Drawing In Realism?
- Kim Bricker
- Jan 25, 2018
- 3 min read
You know the feeling all too well.
You're super excited to begin a new project but, as soon as you sit down to start, you become overwhelmed with the stress of choosing and mixing colors.
How are you supposed to know which color to pick?
Which color matches your reference photo best?
How are you ever supposed to learn how to draw realistic if you can't figure out exactly what shade of red that apple is?!
Well I'm here to tell you to, first of all take a deep breath, and second of all; stop stressing about color because color really isn't that important!
In fact I'd say when you're trying create a piece of realistic art, color is the last thing you should concern yourself with!
But don't just take my word for it! Let me show you through my latest drawing of a barn owl
Comparing My Latest Drawing To The Reference Photo
If you look at my most recent colored pencil drawing next to my reference photo, it's noticeable the colors aren't identical
However, it still looks realistic and, in my drawing, the owl looks more like he belongs with the background chosen than he does in my edited reference photo. This is because, instead of spending hours trying to perfectly match my colors to the reference photo, I payed attention to what colors I thought would be the best fit for my art.
For example, I used a lot of ultramarine and sky blue in the owl because those were the colors I used in the background. Using some of the same pencils in both the background and the subject is one of my favorite colored pencil techniques. This technique helps the two look like they belong together instead of two separate images cut and pasted in Photoshop; instantly increasing how realistic it looks!
Let's Look At Black And White Drawings
When you draw something in graphite or charcoal, it still looks realistic.... even though there's no color.
This just further shows that color isn't the most important thing when learning how to draw realistic because you can draw something with no color at all and still create a piece of realistic art!
So What Makes A Drawing Look Realistic?
At this point in my post, you're probably wondering: how are you supposed to learn how to improve your art and render things realistically (if that is indeed the look you desire)
When your trying to make your art look realistic there are three things you need to focus on!
1) Having A Correct Line Drawing
If you're line drawing isn't perfect to begin with, your finished piece will never look super realistic.
Not having a great line drawing just creates problems from the get-go that are extremely difficult to remedy once you've started adding detail.
2) Having Good Contrast In The Right Places
Good contrast will immediately make your drawing more visually interesting, as well as look more realistic.
However, similar to how the line drawing needs to be correct, the shadows and the highlights also need to be in the right place.
Having great contrast in the right places will emphasize the three dimensionality of your subject, which contributes to how realistic it looks!
3) Using The Same Colors In Your Subject You Used In Your Background
Now I'm not saying you have to use exactly the same colors for the subject and the background, but there should definitely be some overlap.
What colors you choose isn't necessarily what's important here, but if you use a lot of orange in your background, you should probably also use some in your subject.
This helps your piece look like a cohesive scene instead of a cut and paste image. Like I mentioned earlier, because I used a lot of blue in the background of my drawing, I also used blue for shadows in my owl.
Thanks so much for reading, I hope this eased some of your nerves about choosing the correct color for your project!
If you'd like to read about some of the problems I ran into while working on this colored pencil drawing of a barn owl and how I solved them
, then check out my blog post from last week:
Happy creating!
Comentários