Tutorial - Colouring Proteas

No matter what you're colouring or the medium you're using to colour, you will always achieve the best results by layering the colour. Even if you're planning to use a single pencil, applying layers of pigment will allow you to build depth, resulting in a lot more dimension in the image.

I start by applying a very light layer of pencil to the entire image, which is basically the groundwork or colouring plan for my project. 

From there, I focus on one part of the image to work on at a time. In the case of the proteas, I'm starting with the leaves and stem. After adding the base colour, I work with the mid green in the high areas of the image - the places that are raised and catch the light.

Now I switch to a darker green for the lower areas. The darker colour will recede, helping to shape my leaves and give the appearance of a round flower head.

A yellow-green on the tips of the leaves gives the appearance of fresh growth and helps to bring the tops of the leaves forward.

A hint of red on the tips of the leaves will help to tie them in with the flowers and give a more realistic look to my colouring.

The final step is to add some shadows with a dark grey. I've chosen a warm tone since the flowers are red and there's quite a lot of yellow in my green.

To colour the petals, I start with some mid green into the base and then add a little dark green at the very bottom of each petal. Adding the dark colour will help to shape them and give the illusion that they're curved.

Most of the red is concentrated at the tip of each petal, and then gradually lightened as it reaches the green. The colours will blend as you add one over the top of the other.

Some more grey to deepen the shadows at the base of each petal and under the leaves.

The final step is to colour the centre part of each flower, again using layers of colour to deepen shadows and help give the illusion of depth.

To finish the colouring project, I stippled in some green alcohol marker, concentrating the darkest colour around the flowers and getting lighter as I worked outward.

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