Janie Gildow Combo Set

The Colored Pencil, Getting Started Right

Janie Gildow's drawing video workshops provide a firm foundation to the colored pencil artist. In this drawing instruction video, you learn about the basics of drawing, including how to choose your pencils, erasers and papers.

Janie Gildow's art emphasizes striking realism and dynamic lighting. Her teaching emphasizes clear presentation and practical examples. The combination of her artists' vision and instructor's mindset make her the perfect guide to her primary medium: the colored pencil.

In this workshop, Janie grounds you in the fundamentals of colored pencil art. She begins by sharing her favorite pencils and proves her expertise with a demonstration on pencil construction. She explains the textures you'll achieve and application methods you'll learn using different types of paper then sets you to work.

Janie has developed exercises to improve everything from blending and color selection to your grip on the pencil. She considers her color wheel one of her best friends, and she uses it to demonstrate the unique blending properties of colored pencils. You'll learn to use complementary colors without neutralizing pigment and to contrast them to create striking highlights.

Janie leads exercises to perfect even application of color, pressure changes and dynamic shading. She shares techniques for seamless blending and creating dimension.

Janie also introduces you to her magic pencil – the colorless blender that helps her burnish pigment into the tooth of her paper. Janie's smooth working surface and color transitions lead many people to mistake her colored pencil for enamel paint.

Finally, Janie reveals one of her signature techniques: the impressed line method that allows her to drive thin veins of light value into pools of rich darks. Using vellum and a hard graphite pencil, she traces her designs onto the paper then teases them out with a rubbing of color. Janie enjoys the impressed lines so much that she uses them to sign her work.

This film provides the skills and exercises you'll need to start your colored pencil career, and it serves as the perfect primer to the advanced techniques in Janie's second workshop. To build a foundation in a fast-growing medium, join Janie Gildow in The Colored Pencil: Getting Started Right.

Janie Gildow shows you the proper grip for pressure control, and exercises to improve variegated and smooth tones. She contrasts and demonstrates the major pencil techniques of layering and burnishing, and discusses the benefits of each. Janie describes important modifications when working on dark paper; shows you how to incise lines. She describes how blending contrasting colors is considerably different with colored pencil in contrast to liquid media. There is an important discussion about the color wheel. Janie demonstrates color layering and how she achieves her elegant hues.

Bonus Clip: Blending with Colored Pencil

In this clip from her video workshop, The Colored Pencil: Getting Started Right, Janie Gildow teaches you how to smoothly blend colors. Janie explains how accurate blending is the key to drawing realistic objects. She uses patience and a light touch to create realistic contours.

The Art of Colored Pencil, The Light Touch

Janie Gildow is your guide to the rich and elegant art of colored pencil as you learn how to draw with colored pencil in this drawing instruction video, The Art of Colored Pencil: The Light Touch.

Janie Gildow makes realism a challenge in her colored pencil art. While she takes liberties with composition and hue, the precise detail and dynamic shadows in her finished drawings create a lifelike image of her subjects. In this workshop, Janie shares the design, shading and blending techniques that help her meet the challenge of realism and make the apples in her still life glow.

This film employs and enhances the skills from Janie's introductory colored pencil workshop. She starts her drawing with the Grisaille method, establishing values in the background elements but reserving the apples for a layer of pure color. As always, Janie demonstrates precision when coloring shadows. She layers complex darks and cuts away unwanted wax with an X-acto knife.

Turning to her subjects, Janie sketches indigo shadows then blends luscious colors to contour the fruit. She experiments with hue and takes the time to perfect her blends. The finished apples contain more than a dozen colors, each applied with Janie's careful design instincts and delicate touch. The subtle transitions on the apples' surface adds one of the most important elements of realism.

Janie shows great care in all phases of drawing. Her artistic process is often painstaking, but her experience as a teacher makes her methods accessible. Her workshop presents the medium in a concise format, helping you to understand the necessary techniques and design principles while viewing the key moments in Janie's shading and coloring process.

By the time she returns to the background to darken the fabric and enhance edges in the straw mat, you'll understand the colored pencil process from initial design to final detail. To take on the challenge of realism with an exciting, non-traditional medium, join Janie Gildow in The Art of Colored Pencil: The Light Touch.

Janie covers a few basics then jumps into a project and teaches you her process from design to completion. Janie Gildow, CPSA, shows her photo selection process, cropping to improve composition, use of a modified grisaille approach to establish values and then demonstrates how she layers color, often using four or more colors in an area for richness. Janie Gildow uses the 'light touch' for flexibility and elegance.

You will learn pointers to improve your own technique as she shares her thoughts about the process. Your view is so close you will see when Janie's pencil point starts to dull! This workshop packs days of information into 90 minutes. A recent update from Janie on the pencils she uses: The name has been changed to Prismacolor Premiere "soft core" colored pencils--available in 132 colors. They're made by Sanford now (instead of Berol) but they're the same colors with the same numbers.

BONUS CLIP: Tinting Darks in Colored Pencil

In this clip from her video workshop, The Art of Colored Pencil: The Light Touch, Janie Gildow adds the first touches of color to the shadows in her still life composition. She shares tips on how to control pressure, adjust your grip, and evenly apply colors.