Prismacolour colour pencils - Picture Feedback

Brian recently sent us his Wife's picture of our Cairn Terrier Pastel Pencil project. She chose to do the picture using Prismacolour Coloured Pencils and asked if we had any tips for her. Here's Brian email.

Hi Steven and Colin,I am a full time subscriber to your website and my wife has just gotten into drawing and has asked me to ask if Colin could critique her drawing of one of Colin’s art projects? She just wants to get some kind of professional opinion and see if she is headed in the right direction, It’s always very hard for a spouse to critique the others ones work if you know what I mean.Looking forward to your reply,She actually did this drawing using Prismacolour colour pencils.Sincerely,Brian

 On the whole this is quite good, but the problem is it looks like a blue coloured paper was used here therefore it dulled the white down. I can understand why the coloured paper was used as anything lighter would not have shown up at all, white coloured pencil is not a strong a tone unlike the white pastel pencil. Also the grey shading used particularly under the head is too hard and would have been better with a more graded effect.This reminds me of the very first pictures I produced using coloured pencils although I when in needed a white tone I never used a white pencil as the paper would have served as the white tone, similar to a watercolour technique. I hope this helps.