It’s International Dog Day today, and I can’t think of a lovelier day to tell you about something very special I’m doing to support The Yorkshire Rescue – a wonderful charity local to me here in Yorkshire!  From 21st- 25th September 2026, I’m holding a very special charity coloured pencil workshop and I’d absolutely love […]

Choosing a reference photo might sound like the easiest part of starting a coloured pencil drawing. If you’re working on a commission, it can be fairly straightforward. Your client may send you a handful of photographs, have a favourite already, or one image might naturally stand out because it has the best composition. But what […]

Cream-coloured fur can be one of the trickiest things you’ll ever draw. At first glance it looks simple enough, but when you really start looking, you realise it’s anything but! Is it yellow? Beige? Pink? Grey? Sometimes it feels like it’s all of those colours at once. It’s one of the questions I’m asked most […]

When Faber-Castell announced 20 brand new Polychromos coloured pencils, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on them. Like many coloured pencil artists, I already have my trusted favourites, so I was curious to see whether these new additions would genuinely fill gaps in the range or simply look nice in the tin. After swatching […]

One of the biggest turning points in my coloured pencil journey wasn’t buying more pencils. It was learning how the colours I already owned worked together. Once you understand colour relationships, choosing colours becomes much more intuitive. Instead of relying on someone else’s pencil list, you start making your own decisions with confidence. That’s when […]

If you’ve ever wondered how to make hair look soft, shiny and realistic with coloured pencils, I’d absolutely love you to join me for my Hair Workshop on Sunday 16th August. Hair has always been one of my favourite things to draw. There’s something incredibly satisfying about watching it slowly come to life as you […]

When we think about drawing realistic eyes, it’s easy to assume that every tiny eyelash, highlight and reflection needs to be included. But that’s not always true. In fact, when you’re drawing a full animal rather than a close-up portrait, the eyes are often much smaller than you realise. Trying to squeeze every little detail […]

One of the most common questions I hear from artists is: “Why doesn’t my portrait look realistic?” It’s a frustrating feeling. You’ve chosen the right colours, the proportions look good, and you’ve spent hours adding details. Yet somehow the portrait still feels a little flat. The good news is that it’s usually not your pencils, […]

One of the questions I’m asked most often is:“How do you know which coloured pencils to use?” And the honest answer is… there isn’t a magic formula. Choosing colours is a skill that develops over time, but one of the biggest mistakes I see artists make is assuming fur is only one colour. Black fur […]

Discover why confidence and mindset matter just as much as drawing techniques.