Drawing is relaxing, but coloring is downright hypnotic. There’s something special about the sound and feel of the paints that puts you completely in focus as you fill in a drawing.
Open that box of colored pencils you haven’t touched and add some color to your sketches. If you can’t think of what to do, get inspired by this collection of colored drawings.
Quick Tips for Drawing with Colored Pencils
- You don’t need an expensive box with dozens of colored pencils. With a minimum of 12, you can already do amazing things, and I recommend a maximum of 40 pencils.
- My favorite brands for hobby drawing are Faber Castell, Lamy, and Plastidecor (don’t laugh, you can do wonders with kids’ crayons).
- With colored pencils, layers are added to make the color increasingly intense. Start with a layer with hardly any pressure and then increase the saturation by coloring over it with more pressure.
- Take advantage of the full range of pencils and use different colors than the main one for highlights and shadows. This will make the drawing more interesting. For example, use a dark blue or purple for the shadows of a green tree.
1. Rainbow
A perfect drawing to use the full range of colors, from red to purple. Notice how the rainbow color fades as it moves away from the umbrella. I first colored very lightly and then added layers with more pressure to achieve the color saturation.
2. Anxiety
Don’t you sometimes feel that your outward appearance doesn’t reveal your mental state? Then draw it. There’s nothing more expressive and relaxing than making a big scribble, and it expresses feelings much better when you use color: blues for sadness, reds for anger or stress, etc.
3. Desert Sunset
A desert isn’t particularly inspiring, but it improves a lot if you add a sunset and start to see the starry sky. It’s a perfect drawing to learn and master warm colors.
You can paint the stars with a white gel pen or a correction pen (like Tipp-ex).
4. Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are big and terrible, but fresh out of the egg, they can be drawn chubby and adorable. The combination of complementary colors (red and green) is always striking and vibrant.
5. Poppy Field
This drawing is inspired by Monet’s famous painting (bridging the gap 😂). Filling the field with poppies is as easy as making lots of red circles.
6. Waiting Dog
A VERY simple drawing that even the most beginner can draw and color, and it’s full of meaning.
7. Farmland
The secret to making this drawing not look dull is to use different colors for the crops: greens, yellows, oranges, etc.
8. Day and Night
The contrast of day and night, light and dark, always offers a lot of possibilities in drawings. The day side can also be painted as a sunrise/sunset in orange tones.
9. Dreaming Dog
This is a drawing that allows many options because you only have to change the content of its dream: bones? Another dog? A squirrel? Adapt the colors of the dog to one you know and you have a nice gift for their owners.
10. Coastal Landscape
If the desert made the most of the range of warm colors, here you can use all the blues in your box of pencils.
11. Plants
A single plant doesn’t say much, but accompany it with some more with different shapes, flowers, pots… and you’ll have a very nice drawing. Use different shades of green so it doesn’t look monotonous.
12. Polaroid
Drawing a Polaroid is easy; you only need a couple of rectangles. Make it a special drawing by making it a photo of something impossible.
13. Flower Bouquet
If you know how to draw flowers (and you do because a couple of circles are enough), you can make a whole bouquet. Like the rainbow, it’s a drawing that allows you to use all the colors you want.
14. Robot
Big, small, modern, or vintage. Drawing robots is very simple because you don’t have to complicate things with realistic hands, feet, or bodies. Contrast their metallic body with a colorful detail.
15. Stamp
The stamp works as a frame that transforms everyday things into a valuable object. You can fill a notebook page with a whole collection of stamps, and it will look spectacular.
16. Band-Aid
A nice way to represent the need for care or the healing of a wound (physical or spiritual). This drawing can be done and colored by anyone, no matter how beginner they are.
Thanks for reading this far!
I hope these colored pencil drawing ideas have inspired you to start drawing. Would you like me to add something else? Let me know in the comments!
Have a fantastic day and find some time to draw.
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