Amanda Mullins

I was always drawing as a child, mostly animals and birds, and was given plenty of encouragement by my parents and art teachers at school. I discovered that I liked using colour pencils, especially for drawing fine details, such as fur, and creating realistic drawings.

After attending college, I received a BTEC National Diploma in General Art and Design with an intent to pursue an art career, but I decided to continue drawing as a hobby instead. Over the years, I have been commissioned by friends and work colleagues to draw their pets. At the time, I was only using watercolour pencils on white paper, but I have since learned (many years later!) that using several different types of pencils and paper, creates many different effects.

I recently learned some techniques that I hope will improve my artwork and I am currently working on a drawing of a dog on black paper (see “Dog WIP” photo attached). I had used white paper, mainly because I had never been taught to use anything else, but I really like the effects that can be created using colour pencil on black paper.

After viewing the members gallery, I can see there are so many talented colour pencil artists and my artwork requires much improvement, but I enjoy learning new techniques and hope to do more drawings using different coloured paper to see what effects I can create.