Polychromos Drawing of a Red TULIP – Cute Mouse drawing

Cute mouse drawing and red tulip

Polychromos drawing on paper

After impulsively buying a set of 12 color pencils from Faber Castell I decided to test them by making a cute mouse drawing in a red tulip. I used to draw with regular pencils during the period of the university. No, I didn’t study art at college or uni. My specialization in Computer Science and nothing related to art or graphics. The only actual study I did on this niche, is a 3 years class of easel graphics.

I learned a lot of new things, especially from color theory, but mostly it was a basic class. I don’t mean it was bad, but I wish we did more than they offered. The only options were to study still life with acrylics on paper and some poor sculpture and music instruments studies. I don’t want to sound absurd. It really helped me a lot, but I wish we also did some figure or landscape study. Or even cute mouse drawing in acrylics 🙂 .

So, when I finished the class, I felt like a dog who’s been wearing a leash for a long time and now I could just run wherever I want. So I began building my own style. Ever since that period, I studied more mediums and more techniques. I know I have a lot to learn, but I love to continuously learn new things. This time  I tried to make a polychromos drawing.

How to make a cute mouse drawing?

So, going back to my red tulip and mouse drawing, I saw a beautiful collection of photographs from a photo artist. He had many pictures of mice in various positions with tulips. I really like the photos and I thought it’s a nice idea to make a polychromos drawing starting from them. For this mouse art, I started sketching the mouse and the flower using a regular HB pencil.

I began coloring the mouse. Usually, I prefer to color the nose and eyes to have a personal image of the character when it comes to an animal or a person. I saw artists who prefer to color in everything before coloring the eyes or the central part of the face. Maybe this has to do only with how you are used to working since the result is the same.

After adding the mouse color, I sketched the layout of the red tulip. As you will see in the video of my red tulip and cute mouse drawing, I marked the highlighted areas. Using polychromos is tricky if you are used to adding dark colors first and light up the artwork with each step. If you add a dark color on a drawing you won’t be able to add highlights using color pencils.

So, I left those areas like that on purpose, and when I had to color them I only slightly touched them.

The beautiful red tulip drawing

Since I studied a lot of color in the graphics class, I know that adding only black to shade will make the drawing flat and inexpressive. The trick is to use purple, browns and dark blues when you add shade to your polychromos pencils drawing. And thank God, they let you add more color layers.

On the other hand, if you want your highlights to look natural and to keep their pigment value, you need to add oranges and yellows to the reds. This is available for any other color. It’s important to study the color theory in order to create a beautiful cute mouse drawing like the following one.

What you need to remember is that shadows are build up with cool colors like blues, greens, and brows, while highlights and the part that is positioned towards the light build using yellows and oranges. This will make any painting or drawing look professional and artistic.

The cute mouse drawing video tutorial

On the following, I invite you to watch my video of how to draw a red tulip and a mouse in polychromos color pencils. If you enjoy the video please don’t forget to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my Youtube channel. Also, if you have questions or suggestions please, leave a comment and I will answer as soon as possible.

Also, for more information, you can always write me on my email address: [email protected]