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 […]

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 build the colour, develop the values and finally add those little wispy flyaway hairs right at the very end. The lovely thing is, creating realistic hair isn’t about drawing hundreds of […]

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.

Learn how to draw realistic fur with coloured pencils. Discover the key differences between drawing long fur and curly fur, plus simple techniques to create depth, texture and realism.

Join Bonny Snowdon for her May coloured pencil art update, featuring an African safari adventure, Coloured Pencil Week, new tutorials, Ignite updates, studio improvements and a new furry family member.