A great looking color pencil drawing isn't all that hard to create, if you know the two tips that I'm about to share with you. Before I go into that, I want to just say that if you haven't been doing your sketches, now is the time to start picking up that sketch pad again. Here's why.

The first thing that you need to know is that sketching is important to your color pencil drawings. I know if you're looking for color pencil tutorials, you're probably just looking for some tips on how to create beautiful looking colorful pictures. Unfortunately, color drawings are not just about applying a bunch of great looking color on to a surface.

Sure, the colors may look great but if you're not very good at putting a drawing together, there's a limit to how far you can go. Sketching is a skill thing. It needs a little time to develop but it gets easier with practice. Your skills are what you depend on to help you overcome any problems that you may come across when you're drawing.

So if you want to jump the gun and jump straight into color pencil drawing, you can go right ahead but don't say that I didn't warn you. If you don't believe my point, you can go out there right now and buy a box of color pencils and a sketch pad and start drawing. You'll learn the hard way, but you'll still learn.

You'll learn that your drawing didn't turn out the way you wanted it to because you didn't know how many layers of color to apply. You didn't know when you should apply the highlights. You didn't know why some objects look so fake. You didn't know why some details are lost in the process of drawing. You'll most likely run into a wide variety of problems without knowing how to solve them.

The second thing you need to know about color pencil drawing is that you need to understand the tools that you're using. Color pencils are very different from normal graphite or lead pencils and they behave very differently. If you understand color pencils, the next time you walk into an art supplies store, you'll be able to consciously pick out the right color pencils for your artwork. You'll also be able to pick up the right drawing paper (yes, drawing paper makes a difference as well).

These are the two basic elements that you need to pay attention to when learning color pencil drawing. Once you've armed yourself with the solutions to the problems above, you're ready to start creating your first beautiful color pencil drawing.