American Spirit: In-Depth Colored Pencil Tutorial

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Learn to work on drafting film and create a gift-worthy work of art.
After you've joined Rhonda in this 24-step adventure into drafting film, you may never want to work on regular paper again. You'll use your choice of Polychromos or Prismacolor pencils — there's a supply list for both — to create two of the U.S.A.'s favorite symbols in vibrant color. Begin with the deep blue field of stitched stars, move into mastering stripes, stitching, and folds, then blend that blue field into warm brown feathers, and then complete that colorful eagle's head. Finally, you'll cap off the art with...

This is a digital download. Prefer Print?
Print editions now exclusively available on Amazon. Click here
Learn to work on drafting film and create a gift-worthy work of art.
After you've joined Rhonda in this 24-step adventure into drafting film, you may never want to work on regular paper again. You'll use your choice of Polychromos or Prismacolor pencils — there's a supply list for both — to create two of the U.S.A.'s favorite symbols in vibrant color. Begin with the deep blue field of stitched stars, move into mastering stripes, stitching, and folds, then blend that blue field into warm brown feathers, and then complete that colorful eagle's head. Finally, you'll cap off the art with a dark vignette to help draw the viewers right to that eagle's eye.
Drafting film takes fewer layers than paper, so you'll be using simple two and three-color blends to get to the desired color more quickly than you would on paper. You'll also discover how drafting film lets you add vibrancy to your artwork by adding color to the backside.
• See how using surprising shades can create an eye-pleasing pop of color.
• Work on both sides of the film to create more intense color.
• Create a center of attention by using colors to direct the viewer's eye.
• Find out how much faster and more forgiving drafting film is than other surfaces.
Now is the time to celebrate your American Spirit with this bold and colorful tutorial.
About the Author:
Rhonda Dicksion is a highly-acclaimed professional colored pencil artist and workshop instructor, and the editor-in-chief of Ann Kullberg's COLOR Magazine. Rhonda's style incorporates full-spectrum color and outlining to create a unique and graphic look. She created American Spirit for artists to celebrate and own the symbols shared by all.
About In-Depth Tutorials:
Created by master colored pencil artists, each In-Depth tutorial features comprehensive instruction and focuses on teaching you why and not just how the artist applies their technique. No book or video comes close to the amount of instruction in an In-Depth tutorial. Art instruction books typically contain 4-6 steps per demo. That just scratches the surface! With large images many more steps, In-Depth tutorials truly show you exactly how the artist works, making it easy to truly learn new colored pencil techniques and achieve success.
Note: Drawing paper and pencils not included. See images for complete supply list. Polychromos pencil name changes can be found here.
Publish Date: August 2020.
Draw... Frame... Bask in your talent!
- Reviews
- Questions
- chest
- grandson
- half
- show
- bird
- back
- feathers
- Rhonda Dicksion
- instance
- areas

Very difficult
Very difficult tutorial for a neophyte colored pencil person. Not enough detailed instructions. A lot of it was basically “do what you want”. One good aspect of this tutorial is the use of both sides of the vellum paper. The effect was very definitive and dramatic. Not all colors called for were on the color chart
Ann Kullberg
Hi Dave, Thank you so much for taking the time to submit your review, we truly appreciate the feedback - and for a novice, you have done exceptionally well! I might suggest our JumpStart tutorials to start out with, if you're a true beginner - you can view all them at this link: https://annkullberg.com/collections/jumpstart. This particular In-Depth, American Spirit, does allow you more freedom in how you want the end-product to look like. We really appreciate you letting us know there were a couple colors missing from the supply list - we'll be sure to get that updated as soon as possible. And we're very glad to hear the technique of using both sides of the film turned out well for you - we hope you'll be able to use this technique with your future colored pencil drawings. Thanks, again! Best Wishes, Priscilla Summers annkullberg.com

American Spirit: In-depth colored pencil tutorial
I have only completed half of it so far but am enjoying it.

A FIRST PLACE WINNER!
This tutorial by Rhonda Dicksion was fun to do and I think it turned out wonderfully. Thanks to Rhonda for an "easy to do" and "easy to follow" tutorial. I followed it exactly as stated except that Rhonda allowed a couple of areas where I could do some of the art my own way. For instance, the wings and the bird's white feathers below the beak to the chest. I noticed when I colored on the back of the piece, that it definitely became much brighter. I made this piece of art to give to my grandson for his 20th birthday in August. I noticed that the Keizer Art Association was having a "Celebrate America" show in July. I entered this piece in the show and won first place in the 2D section. I did include a note on the show title card that the pattern was Rhonda Dicksion's art. My very first "First Place" award! Thanks, Rhonda!!

Not what I expected
This tutorial was not what I expected. Usually the tutorials on this site go into great depth and the pictures are clear and relevant to the instructions. I get that some people are better than others explaining things, but I don't know how this artist expected anyone to follow along. The pictures weren't always related to the instructions. The instructions were vague at times. The progression from one picture to the next didn't always make sense, it was like she left out an entire step of written instructions. The instructions to color the eagles feathers, are useless, you're literally on your own there to just figure it out. The main thing I was hoping to get out of this tutorial was not just the how but the why, why are we coloring on the back sometimes instead of just using the front? There was no explanation, it just said on the back use violet in this section and on the front use warm grey. If you're an advanced artist with experience using drafting film, this tutorial will be fine for you. If you have never used drafting film, you will walk away with more questions and still not know how to use it after you do this tutorial. I have since purchased other tutorials on using drafting film from other sites and they were 10 times better than this one.

American Spirit
I haven't started it yet, but I have read all of the instructions,.

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