Animals in pastel pencil
Grey Wolf: a step-by-step guide
Follow Colin’s stages to give your wolf a realistic appearance. A flat chisel ivory colour
shaper is a useful blending tool for giving the hair a smooth, lifelike finish.
Step 1
Step 3 Step 4
Step 2. Creating the eye
Step 5 Step 6
I usually start the eye by completing some of the eye surround first,
this gives me a better reference for the colours and shape of the eye.
As this is a very detailed area it is better to use sharp pencils.I decided on a darker background to make the wolf stand out. I used
a light cool grey followed by a mid cool grey before adding strong
colours, all these colours were rubbed smooth using my finger.For the longer hair I am using a flat chisel ivory colour shaper to blend
in the pastel pencil application, this will give the hair a smooth lifelike
appearance. I am working all the strokes in the hair direction.
I started this picture with the ears, applying the lighter colours first
then adding the stronger tones. Pastel pencils are better used from
light to dark as it is difficult to use lighter colours over dark tones.
The hair on the top of the head is much shorter than the rest of the
hair so use short, sharp pencil strokes working in the direction of the
hair, this gives the animal a more realistic appearance.
I started the build-up of the nose using a white pastel pencil for the
highlights, a light grey for the medium tones and mid grey for the
very darkest tones. This provides a base in which to add darker tones.
.Use a light grey
pastel pencil for
the medium tones
for the nose