We want to give you the best tools to expand your artistic practice, which is why we’ve launched our carefully curated POSCA PENCIL AND PASTEL sets. Here we show you how two of the sets, POSCA PASTEL Neutral and POSCA PENCIL Luxe can enable you to create amazing tonal drawings with two easy to follow avian-themed drawing projects.
Neutral nature
We love the earthy tones of our curated Neutral 12-piece POSCA PASTEL set. While they lend themselves wonderfully to landscape and botanical studies, these beautiful shades on golden browns, yellows and tech, the vibrant green and blue hues plus the subtle greys and blacks are also perfect for animal and bird tonal drawings. So our first subject for you to create amazing tonal drawings is a lovely tawny owl portrait.
Tawny owl portrait, you will need
To create your owl portrait you will need a pencil, a sketch pad and your Neutral 12-piece POSCA PASTEL set.
Create amazing tonal drawings, owl portrait step 1
First sketch out a basic tawny owl face with a pencil . Do this by making one big circle for the face, then divide in half. Soften the bottom of the circle but drawing a subtle inverted v in the centre line. Then draw a seagull-type line parallel to the inverted v as illustrated below.
Using the sketch pictured as a guide, make curved lines around the inside of your circle the outside of your central line. Draw a beak – an oval shape with a pointed end. and the eyes in the space shown, then draw around the shape to create the head.
Step 2, anchor your owl portrait drawing
To create amazing tonal drawings you will need a strong contrast between light and dark shades. Use your black POSCA pastel to anchor your drawing by drawing in the dark areas. This will give you structure to work from when using your pastels.
Step 3, blend and shape
The wonderful thing about POSCA PASTELS is that you can blend and layer your colours without smearing or creating any muddiness in your work. On this intense tawny we’ve blended our lighter shades with our more earthy intense POSCA PASTEL hues to build intensity and texture. We’ve then overlaid strokes of the pencil pens to create shape and definition to the portrait.
You can see how we layered and defined using the POSCA PASTELS on this quick drawing video below.
Lovely luxe POSCA pencils
Containing rich mauves, deep greens and intense, vivid blues, the stunning POSCA PENCIL six-piece luxe set is perfect for a range of amazing tonal drawings and compositions. The collection would be marvellous for luxurious pieces or fantasy artworks, but we thought we’d keep it simple here and opt for a striking flying bird design.
You will need a pencil, eraser, a sketchbook and your luxe POSCA PENCIL set for your bird project and to create amazing tonal drawings.
Draw an intense blue bird, step 1
First sketch out your flying bird shape. Follow the guide above and make simple circles, curves, diamonds and triangles for your bird parts.
Then, follow the sketch below to draw in feathers and wing shapes, softening and erasing your guide lines.
Step 2, create amazing tonal drawings by hatching and layering
First work on the body of the bird, use your pine green and navy blue POSCA pencils to make fine strokes around the bird’s head then cross- hash and overlay the shades for the body. Increase your pressure on the page to create more intensity and tone.
Think about the detail step 3
Always make sure your POSCA PENCILS are kept super sharp. You will need sharp pencils for precision and definition especially when drawing in fine lines for feathers around the face, beak and eyes.
As you can see below, we’ve layered and cross hatched our blue and Prussian blue shades with the fuchsia and mauve for the brighter areas and used the navy and fuchsia shades with blues on the deeper parts of the bird.
It’s important for the pencils to be sharp, as you can add further definition by overlaying outlines and detail on top of your blending. Again, increase your pressure when adding details as they can really ‘ping’ on the drawing and create further intensity, interest and tone.
You can see how the POSCA pencil colour builds up to create amazing tonal drawings in our video below.