Several apple sketches later, I came to the conclusion that using pencil, ink, washes, and needing to erase makes the cotton or cotton rag papers my best choice. However, with some care, all of these beautiful papers would be a dream to use. If I stick with pencil only, the all-purpose cotton would be my choice.
I’m trying to decide how much paper, what thickness, etc., before I place an order.
My husband had this wonderful old photo and mentioned it would be an interesting graphite drawing. I gave it a try, taking over two weeks to complete it. It measures 9″ x 12″, and I used Canson Fluid multimedia paper. Maybe the bright leaves on the bottom right are too bright, but after hours of gray, gray, gray, I went a little overboard with the electric eraser.
And here’s the original photo, which measures 5″ x 7″. I just love it. A photo like this is awesome as is, and I wouldn’t normally try to copy something like this, but as I learn more about landscape drawing, it was a perfect exercise in foliage and also creating atmosphere. It was fascinating to take a photo of this and then zoom in. It revealed a white chicken way down the road, a detail I left out of my drawing.
Not my best work, but I’m experimenting with graphite. It can cover well, lift nicely, create a moody atmosphere, has a great range in value, etc. Here, I’m doing some sketches that take some thought and some time, but I still rush through much of them as shown by the strange trees here and there. Some of these are tutorials from Smoothie77’s Patreon channel, and some are from my own reference photos, like the one directly below. Lighting makes a huge difference in how photos turn out, so some are on the blue side and others on the warm, yellow side, but they’re all done with the same pencils on the same paper, Canson Fluid multimedia (which I wouldn’t purchase again for graphite).
These miniature pieces measure just 2.5″ x 3.5″. They’re the same size as a wallet photo, just a little bigger than a business card. They’re on Ampersand Claybord tiles, and I used ink, colored pencil, and scratchboard techniques. I have a feeling this is my new favorite thing, creating very small paintings.
