Several Shades of Grey

Several Shades of Grey

Light and shade, the most important and possibly the most difficult thing to create effectively in a pencil drawing.

Some of my drawings are quite detailed others are less so depending on the result I am looking for.

I drew the cover picture for this post of Michael Jackson, mainly to practice with light and shade; I found a photo in a magazine of him looking up at the stage lights.

The one of John Lennon below was for the same reasons.

The reason for some of my work is to satisfy my fascination for getting a likeness without showing too much facial detail; also my detailed work satisfies my passion for getting it as real as I can.

I normally use an off white watercolour paper for my drawings, it has a really good feel and it’s heavy and robust and has a rich look about it, but if I particularly want a brightness or the dramatic difference between light and shade, like a bright light shining on all or part of a face then I use brilliant white paper.

For this type of drawing I shade the piece that I am working on by rubbing a cotton bud on a piece of graphite and using it like a paint brush, then I take a pliable eraser and use that as a paint brush for the white.

My style of drawing is like a building process, I start off with the outline.

Then add a little detail.

Now I rub over it with a cotton bud.

Then use a pliable eraser to 

get rid of the excess graphite.

The same applies to the facial lines; my idea is that dark is further away getting light as the object gets closer. So I apply that idea to the lines of a face, for deep lines you will need quite a dark line outlined by lighter shades to get the texture.

Then I keep building by smudging, erasing and drawing until I get some sort of textured look of real skin.

I've had no formal training in art so you probably won’t see any of my methods in textbooks but I have a great passion and desire to create, so I guess the end justifies the means in this case.