Mastering Colored Pencil: An Essential Guide to Materials, Concepts, and Techniques for Learning to Draw in Color

Many people who bought colored pencils during the adult coloring book craze are now looking to learn new ways to be creative with them.

In Mastering Colored Pencil, artist and colored pencil evangelist Lisa Dinhofer presents everything artists need to know about traditional and contemporary drawing techniques, materials, and color theory in order to master this versatile medium.

Colored pencils, an inexpensive, easy to use, and mobile medium, are coming of age. More and more artists are discovering the incredible qualities of drawing with colored pencils. The wide variety of vibrant color choices among the major manufacturers seems endless. At a recent count, there are more than fifty different reds in the colored pencil spectrum of Prismacolor, Faber-Castell, and Derwent. The base of the pencils vary as well: wax, watercolor, pastel, and graphite. These can be interchanged or mixed together. The effects that can be achieved are limitless.

A work in pencil can be a drawing, a watercolor, or an oil painting. A wax pencil can sketch, can draw, can paint. A watercolor pencil can do the same. The drawing can be transparent as a loose wash or as dense as an oil on canvas. Artists can work as small as a postage stamp or as large as a wall. Mastering Colored Pencil is illustrated throughout with Dinhofer’s fresh and sophisticated artwork and includes more than twenty-five step-by-step demonstrations, thoughtful exercises, workbook templates, and specific assignments that are sure to help every artist achieve striking results with pencils. A special exhibition section includes work, technique descriptions, and insights from seven additional contemporary artists.

Lisa Dinhofer is an artist who lives and works in New York City. Born in Brooklyn and educated in the New York City public school system, she went on to receive her BA with honors from Brandeis University and her MFA from the University of Pennsylvania. Her work has been exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally. Her most recent solo shows were at The Century Association, Denise Bibro Fine Art, and Purdue University. Collected widely, Dinhofer’s paintings and works on paper are represented in many public and private collections including The Brooklyn Museum, the New York Public Library, City College (CUNY), IBM, and many more. A recipient of numerous awards, she has received a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Individual Fellowship Grant and the MacDowell and Yaddo Colony Fellowships. In 2003, Dinhofer completed a 90-foot glass mosaic mural, Losing My Marbles, commissioned by MTA, Arts for Transit. This public work is located at the Times Square, 42nd Street subway station in New York City.

Lisa Dinhofer’s work has been featured, reviewed, and profiled in several publications including American Artist, The New York Times, Arts Magazine, ARTnews, and Drawing magazine. Dinhofer developed original workshops in the technique of colored pencil and color theory. She’s been successfully teaching all aspects of drawing for over 20 years and is currently on the faculty of the Art Students League and The National Academy Museum and School of Fine Art in New York City. She also taught a popular class for the online site, Craftsy. For more about the artist, visit www.lisadinhofer.com.