Review: Radiant Portraits in Colored Pencil (Craftsy course)

Radiant Portraits in Colored Pencil is an intermediate to advanced course on using coloured pencils for portraiture work.

The instructor Kerry Brooks is a designer and illustrator from USA who focuses on figure and portraiture art.

Here's the list of lessons in the 185-min course:

• Subject Matters - 25 min
• Establishing a Framework - 24 min
• Creating Value & Form - 29 min
• Creating Realistic Skin Tone - 34 min
• Drawing Lively Eyes - 32 min
• Creating Realistic Hair Textures - 25 min
• Finishing Touches - 16 min

Note that Kerry uses Prismacolor coloured pencils for the course. If you want to follow the lessons exactly, then you probably need to get the same colours. There are also specific colours that she uses that are identified by the product number code, and all those are listed on the Craftsy website AFTER you have enrolled. Since this course is for people who already have some background with coloured pencils, you might need to spend a bit more if you're not using the same brand.

If you want to learn how to create a realistic portrait drawing with beautiful blending tones, this is the course. It's a complete course that starts from scratch to finish, from the using pencils to block in the shapes, drawing in the features and finishing up with coloured pencils.

Creating a convincing portrait is not easy so having a video course like this helps. Kerry goes through all the techniques and tips that she uses for portrait drawing in step by step with demonstrations and close ups. For more challenging areas such as creating skin tones, drawing the eyes and hair, she spends more time. Actually each is in a separate lesson by itself.

The last lesson teaches you how to use the colourless blender to blend colours and create smooth transitions and edges.

Her skill level is very high so it can be intimidating if you want to compare your own work with hers, but you're learning from a professional. Over 3,000 students have enrolled in the course and most have rated the course very favourably, including me.

So enroll in Radiant Portraits in Colored Pencil if you want to bring your art to the next level.

Disclosure: This course was provided to me by Craftsy for review purposes. You can support Parka Blogs by using the affiliate links as I get a little commission from each sale. :-)