Easy Coloured Pencil Still Life Tutorial: A Beginner's Guide to Drawing Fruit.

This simple coloured pencil still life tutorial is designed to be your friendly guide. We'll draw a small arrangement of fruit, focusing on essential skills like layering colours and using different pencil strokes to create believable textures.

The main technique we'll explore is layering, which is what gives coloured pencil art its signature richness and depth.

Don't worry if you're just starting out – I'll guide you every step of the way. So, grab your pencils and a sheet of paper, and let's awaken your inner artist together!

What you will need

To get the best results and enjoy the process, here’s what I recommend:

Pencils

You can use any brand of artist-quality coloured pencils.

Pencils with a slightly softer lead, like Caran d'Ache Pablos or the slightly firmer Faber-Castell Polychromos, are often enjoyable for beginners as they release their colour richly without needing too much pressure. Polychromos are also excellent for building up layers because of their oil-based, slightly translucent quality.

For this project, a selection of colours similar to these will be helpful:

• A Cream or very Pale Yellow
• A mid-toned Yellow (like a Cadmium Yellow or Lemon Yellow)
• A bright, warm Orange
• A light, cool Red ((like a Rose Pink, leaning more towards purple than orange)
• A deeper Red (like a Cadmium Red Dark or Permanent Red)
• A light to medium Green
• A Sepia or dark warm Brown (like Burnt Sienna or Dark Umber)
• A Light Grey and a Blue of your choice (for the optional background)

Paper

The right paper makes a big difference!

You'll want a surface with enough 'tooth' (texture) to accept multiple layers of pencil.

Excellent choices include Stonehenge paper, Derwent Lightfast paper, or Strathmore 400 Series Bristol Vellum. A paper with a slight texture will be more forgiving for this tutorial.

Getting started

We'll be working from the photo reference below. Before you draw a line, take a moment to just look. Notice the main shapes, see how the light creates bright spots, and where the shadows settle.

1. Create Your Outline:

Start by lightly outlining your still life with a graphite pencil (an H or HB is ideal).

Focus on the basic shapes and how the fruits are arranged. The goal here is just to get the placement right.

Let your pencil glide across the paper; these first lines are just ghosts to guide you. If you press too hard, they become difficult to erase and can trap the graphite under your coloured pencil layers.

If you'd prefer a ready-made template to get started quickly, you can download my outline sheet:

Templates:

• Outline sheet (PDF)
• Full exercise notes PDF

Guides:

• How to Use Tracing Paper
• Drawing with the grid method

Drawing Your Coloured Pencil Still Life: Step-by-Step

Let's begin bringing these fruits to life with colour! Remember, the key is to build up your colours in light patient layers.

1. The Orange: Capturing Zesty Texture

We'll start with the orange. Oranges have a lovely, slightly dimpled skin, and we can suggest this with our pencil strokes.

Warm Base: Let's give the orange its inner glow.

With your Cream or Pale Yellow pencil, use a soft touch to lightly shade the whole orange, leaving any bright highlights as bare paper.

This initial layer isn't the final colour, but a sunny foundation that all your other colours will build upon.

Introduce Texture: Throughout this orange, try using small, light circular pencil strokes. This technique, called scumbling, is wonderful for mimicking the rough texture of the orange skin.

Keep your wrist loose and your touch light.

Building Colour: Next, lightly layer your mid-toned Yellow over the cream base using the same circular strokes.

Then, introduce a light layer of your Orange pencil into the shadow areas (usually the sides and bottom of the fruit). Your orange might still look quite yellow at this stage – that's perfect! We're building depth gradually.

Add a touch of your light Green to the stalk area.

First Blend: Now, take your Cream pencil again. Using light pressure and circular strokes, go back over the fruit (avoiding the highlight and stalk).

This will gently blend the underlying colours, but because you're shading lightly, you'll retain some of the paper's texture, which adds to that lovely orange-skin effect.

Intensifying Colour:

Repeat the process, adding another layer of your mid-toned Yellow and then your Orange.

This time, you can gradually increase the pressure with your Orange pencil in the darker shadow areas to make the colour richer.

2. The Apple: Smooth Skin and Luscious Curves

Now, let's move to the apple. The smooth skin of an apple requires a different touch.

Changing Strokes:This is important. Instead of circles, we'll use strokes that follow the curve of the apple's shape. Think gentle, curved lines that wrap around its form. This simple change is what will convince the viewer's eye that the apple is round and smooth.

Light Side First: Begin with the lighter part of the apple. Apply a soft, even base layer of your Cream or Pale Yellow pencil where the light hits it most directly. For any rosy patches on this lighter side, lightly introduce your cool-toned Red.

Sculpting with Colour: We're not just colouring in; we're gently sculpting the form of the apple.

Strategically introduce hints of your light Orange where the apple starts to turn away from the light.

Remember, less is often more. A subtle touch of colour can achieve more than a heavy application.

The Red Side and An Artist's Trick: To create richer, deeper shadows in the red areas, we can use a touch of its complementary colour: green.

Very lightly layer a little of your Green into the areas of the apple that are in deepest shadow. This will make the red appear darker and more three-dimensional without looking muddy – as long as you use it sparingly!

Blend and Intensify: Continue layering your reds over the green and transitioning into the lighter areas.

Afterwards, gently blend the apple's surface with your Cream pencil to create that characteristic sheen. Then, go back and reapply some colours with a little more pressure to make them vibrant.

Use your Sepia or dark brown for the stem.

3. The Banana: Gentle Curves and Soft Hues

Your coloured pencil still life is really taking shape! The banana introduces another form and colour.

Adding the banana introduces another lovely form and colour.

Drawing Process: Just like with the apple, use curved lines that follow the banana's elongated form.

Building Colour: Start with a light, even base layer of your Cream pencil.

Layer your mid-toned Yellow over it.

Introduce touches of light Orange for riper areas and a hint of light Brown for the shadows cast by the other fruit. Use your dark Brown (Sepia) for the very ends.

Spots and Blemishes? That’s your artistic choice! A few light touches of brown can add realism.

Finishing with Burnishing: To give the banana a smooth, waxy finish, we'll use a technique called burnishing.

Take your Cream pencil and apply firm, even pressure as you go over the banana's surface.

This presses all the pigment into the paper's tooth, smoothing out the pencil strokes and creating a blended, almost polished sheen.

This is one of the final steps, so only do it when you are happy with your layers.

If you're unfamiliar with burnishing, you can learn all about it here: The Ultimate Guide to Burnishing Coloured Pencils

4. The Background: Setting the Scene

The fruit is our star, so the background can be less detailed.

Keep it Simple: Use your Light Grey and Blue to suggest the plate and cloth. Keep the application light and perhaps a little looser than the fruit.

Crucial Shadows: The most important job here is adding the cast shadows where the fruit sits on the plate, and where the plate sits on the cloth.

This simple step is what will ground your objects and stop them from looking like they’re floating in mid-air.

Your Beautiful Still Life is Complete!

Well done!

You've just worked through how colour and form can come to life through careful layering and thoughtful pencil strokes.

Hopefully, you've experienced how those first light layers set the stage, and then each following layer adds depth, shadow, and realism.

Remember, practice is important. Don't be shy about trying out different objects from around your home. As you continue to draw, you'll find each piece becomes a wonderful expression of your growth as an artist. 

Happy drawing.

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