Drawing Technique

Pencil can be used to draw fine lines but the technique I like best is ‘blending,’ which gives realistic tones . Very smooth paper is required - I use Bristol Board 250gm. paper. The pencils I use are Derwent, Faber-Castell and Staedtler mechanical pencils.

‘H’ pencils are hard and light-toned while the B’s are soft and dark. In general, though, I employ 4 pencils from 2H to 2B, calling on the others occasionally.
After plotting a rough outline, I then apply an ‘undercoat’(2H). This is blended by rubbing with a soft material such as tissue paper. I then switch to a darker pencil (usually B) and apply several more layers, blending each one until I reach the desired dark tone. The final tone is not blended, so as to show texture. The darkest areas are then applied with a 2B.

I then decide what amount of pencil to remove from the drawing. This is done by a), a rubber cut into a fine chisel point, the strokes of which highlight hairs and raised areas such as cheekbones. Method b) consists of daubing areas with Blu Tac, a ‘pencil magnet’ discovered by Mike Sibley(www.sibleyfineart.com), which absorbs graphite and does not release any back to smear the page.
Very fine white lines : before the drawing begins, I decide where these lines will be. Then, with a thick needle I draw scratches across the page, making an indentation. Dark pencil then applied will not enter these ‘furrows’, leaving the white exposed.

Finally, in the case of eyes, I remove all pencil to highlight the white of the eye. In many drawings, this white of the eye is all that remains exposed of the original page.

Tonal drawing requires lots of patience and many of my pieces take 40 hours or more to complete.