The latest off my drawing board is one I'm calling 'The King". I'm a Leo and I absolutely love Lions. They are my spirit animal. So when I'm just getting back into drawing, I had to create this one as my first color pencil piece of 2023.
I started by laying down my grid and drawing the basic outline of the lion. For this, I print off my reference photo and add a grid overlay onto it. To save time I have made a few different grid sizes on clear transparency sheets, that I tape over the reference.
Once I'm satisfied with the outline, I begin adding my base layers of color. For this one, those base layers consisted of oranges and yellows, various shades of brown and pinks and purples. It is important to remember not to go too dark, and to leave and white spaces white. When I was happy with the first layering, I went in and blended using odorless mineral spirits. I put a little bit of spirits on a paint brush, making sure it wasn't too wet, then began to paint and blend with it. 
Why would I use a dissolvent to blend my color pencils? Because it does indeed dissolve the colors (I would say the wax) in the pencil layers, allowing me to push the color down into the tooth of the paper without damaging it. When using color pencils its very important to try to maintain the tooth (roughness or grit) of the paper. The more tooth you have, the more color layers you can apply. It will indeed make your paper wet, so to prevent buckling as it's drying, I tape my paper down to a hard drawing board.
The next steps involve a lot of repetition. Layer colors (at least four layers) adding more depth and details, blend, wait to dry and repeat...until you have the image you are after.
If the layers of color are thick enough, you can go back in after its all dry and scratch away some of the color using an x-acto knife, revealing under layers of different colors. If you try this, do be careful not to scratch too hard and ultimately damage the paper. We're only going for the color layers and not the paper itself.
Through out the layering, I'm choosing colors that I see reflected off his coat, or within the layers of fur. The blacks or darkest spots within his fur, are not entirely black, they are a combination of dark blues, purples and browns with some bronze and even green. Using this technique, creates a black look without it seeming dull and flat, something that would happen if using only a single black pencil.
I do that same with the lighter fur on this face and mane. I use creams, light pinks, light grey and green and even bronze again along with white in the brightest spots. If something was not quite light enough, I would scratch or erase the color and add a lighter one over top.
I do find with color pencil that white, is never really bright enough for me in the end, especially for those blindingly white spots where the sun is hitting it, making the color disappear. At the end, I went in with a gellyroll pen and added more white details. This step, you have to be careful not to go overboard with. That's very easy to do. If I found that an area or line was getting too white, I could dab at it with my finger to soften it, so it didn't look too harsh.
For the very last step, I always spray my pieces with a fixative. It's a way to set and seal the paper.
If you have any more questions about anything if spoken about, please do message me!
