Make Skin Tones with Colored Pencils

Take your leprechaun drawing lesson beyond just a cute leprechaun and turn it into a lesson about shading and creating form. 

Use your choice of drawing page to draw a leprechaun.  Color the skin with the skin color of your choice. (More about dark tones below.) Use a darker skin tone to add some shading along the side opposite the light source. 

Add shading under the nose and inside the ears.  Add shading under the eyebrow and along the side of the nose opposite the light source.  Add shading under the lower lip.

Use a warm color like red or orange to add some color to the shadows where skin reflects skin (or orange hair).  Add a cool color like blue to the shadows in the remaining areas.  Use an eraser to lighten areas that stick out, like the nose and forehead.  Use a warm color like pink to add some extra color to the cheeks.

Use a light green as a first layer.  Color heaviest on the side nearest the light source (on the right in the example). Use a darker green for the top layer. Color it heaviest opposite the light source (on the left, in the example).

You can get the drawing pages that I used from 

ExpressiveMonkey.com or Teachers Pay Teachers.

To make a darker skin color, I like to start with a peach base color and layer yellow ocher (or dark yellow) on top.  In the second frame, I'm added a light brown over the entire face making it darker in the shadows.  Then, use a darker brown to achieve the level of darkness that matches your goal by slowly building up the layers of brown. Make the brown darker inside the ear, under the rim of the hat, and on the side of the face and nose opposite the light source.

You can add some pink to the checks to bring your leprechaun to life.  Use some blue in the shadows to give them a cool cast.  In the last frame, you can see all the colors that I used placed in the order I used them.  

You can get the drawing pages that I used from 

ExpressiveMonkey.comExpressiveMonkey.com or Teachers Pay Teachers.

I used Prismacolor colored pencils (affiliate link) for this demonstration.  

Just for good luck ... Pin this image for later :-)