Drawing Techniques and Materials

1. Techniques intro: Hey, everyone. So this class is gonna be more focused on using various materials to explore different kinds of drawing techniques. And so I'm gonna introduce some different materials that you maybe have never used before. And I'll show you kind of how to use them and kind of experiment a little bit. I'll show you a couple of different ways that you can tone your own paper using various inks on, show you how to apply them. And then I'm also gonna show you a couple of different uses for charcoal and graphite powder and kind of how you can use those to your benefit and alter your drawings. From there, I'll show you a couple of different ways that you can practice experimenting on some toned paper and how to use some of the various materials that we talk about. And lastly, I'll show you kind of just a quick portrait sketch that I put together. And just so you can see how I'm gonna ultimately use this in a more polished project and hopefully it'll give you some ideas about how you can use these extra materials to kind of experiment and trying new ways of drawing that you maybe have never tried before. So follow along and grab some of your tools and thank you for watching. 2. Drawing Materials: All right. So before we get started, I want, you know, obviously gonna talk a little bit about the materials that I'm gonna be using. And so a lot of this you may already have, um you know, obviously, you know, in terms of, like, pencils are anything like that, that's not gonna be any different than any of the other classes you've seen before. So I'm still gonna have, you know, my regular grades of pencils on everything like that. But there's gonna be a few other items that I'd like tohave when I start playing around with different techniques or anything like that and so things I may not normally use, um I'm gonna go ahead and just maybe spend a little bit of time talking about for this class. And so obviously, I'm gonna have different grades of pencils on everything like that. So, again, I typically like toe have, um you know, mostly HB h two h pencils. That's kind of my primary range. And occasionally I'll slip in a B. But I don't find that I need anything too much darker than that. And so, you know, and I'll have, like, you know, my normal you know, things like kneaded erasers are anything like that or these plastic erasers as well. But where I may start deviating a little bit is in some of the other materials, and so and it's really just more for convenience. And so I love these little kind of click erasers a lot only because you can get a really fine point that is sometimes a little bit more difficult to get with a kneaded eraser, because it doesn't hold its shape very well. And so, having these different shapes, this is kind of more of a rounded around the tip racer. This one is more rectangular on DSO. I like the variety because Aiken, with these little sort of, uh, specialty erasers, become like it's almost like a drawing tool in and of itself. So it's not just to fix corrections or anything like that, but you can actually draw with these and sort of kind of, and you'll see that in the demonstration about how you cannot go about using those. And so, um, the other thing that also introduced, though that I like to use a lot, is I do have a tendency to like working on toned paper. And so I'll do a demonstration so you can see how, exactly I toned paper and and I'll kind of explain what these These materials are a little bit more as we go. But this is, for example, is just an ink. So this is a Walnut Stain Inc It's basically like a rich like a rich brown, almost like a C P, a kind of ink, and you could also do a black. This is just kind of a basic India ink. So if you wanted a great toned paper, you can use this. If you want something a little bit more warm that has a nice brownish tint to it. You can. I always like using something like this, and you could also use wash or watercolor. If so, if you wanted a specific hue of color. So like let's say, you know, read or like the yellow ochre or something like that. You can definitely use like a water based pigment, like a watercolor or wash to get a desired effect for the tone of your paper. Um, and so I have a tendency more, more often than not, to use things like these with a lot of the drawings I do. These is just cause it's nice toe work on something that's not white paper on and just have a little bit of variety. Um And so the other thing and these guys here that I will also show you how to use is this is just a powdered charcoal, um on. And then the other one is a powdered graphite eso You can kind of essentially intermix the to the Onley. Obviously difference in terms of the materials that you know, charcoal and graphite are a little bit different. You get a little bit more sheen with the graphite powder, and I find that it doesn't spread maybe as well as the charcoal. But they're all intermix herbal, and you can kind of, you know, you don't necessarily have to have both And, uh, you can just use one or the other. And honestly, one of these jars will essentially last you a lifetime because a little bit goes a long way . And so I'll show you how a tone paper with these items and how we can kind of, you know, use them to kind of get more of a painterly effect in our drawings. And so, and that's where a lot of you know these other tools that I have, like this is I always have a couple of bristle brushes to help spread around the charcoal. Aziz well as paper towels. Aziz. Well, to basically just move it around because, you know you do want to be mindful when you're using some of the powder materials because it does get into the air and you don't want to be breathing that stuff in. And so it was an alternative. If someone does not want to deal with the mess of any of the powders, and I do recommend having some vine charcoal on hand, and you can easily, um, especially with a soft, divine charcoal. You could easily kind of scrub in ah lot of charcoal on the paper and then smooth it out with the brush. Andi sort of create that same tonal effect with buying charcoal rather than having to resort to the powder. The powder is nice because you can kind of get something in super super quick on very unfairly, even. But again, it's it's all personal preference, and I would exercise some caution when using the powders and and I'll kind of show you how I do it because I don't like to breathe this stuff in either on and so I'm always very careful about how I go applying some of these materials. So that's more or less it, though, in terms of actual drawing materials, I will spend a little bit of time talking about paper because there are some maybe papers that you might want to consider prior t getting started with any sort of project. But most of these drawing materials are gonna be fairly common, especially the pencils, the kneaded eraser, the only ones that are going to be a little bit trickier to find our some of these sort of clicky kind of erasers. And, um, you know, your best bet if you don't have a specialty art shop around you is you can just find them online. Um, the brand is a mono is Tom Bo mono And that's kind of the pencils I like using as well. And so they make these really cool erasures that are super handy. But again, you know, kind of not necessary toe have. But, um, a nice little tool to help you out. And most of the other stuff, like I said, is gonna be fairly easy to find, and you'll most likely have most of it. 3. Choosing Paper: So in terms of paper, I'm gonna make a couple recommendations. And obviously, you know, it's not something that you have to follow, but in terms of the materials that were working with, I do have some recommendations that I think will make it a little bit easier. And so that's kind of why I'm making those recommendations. And so a lot of the paper I have a tendency to use and what I've been using for probably the last 56 years is is strictly hot pressed watercolor paper. And, um, I just find in terms of durability and, um, you know, flexibility over all to be sort of the best, at least in terms to what I like to do in the sense of drawing. But, um, you know, there's lots of other papers out there that you can try, and depending on whether you prefer charcoal or you know, or graphite or what have you. You know, there's just there's just a myriad of papers out there, and so, But I found that you know, for what I like and what I need to get out of my drawings, that the hot pressed watercolor paper, you know, sort of works the best, and I can kind of mess around with it and not worry. You know about how it's going to react. And so what I have here is essentially, This is a Fabbiano artistic, Oh hot pressed watercolor paper, and this top sheet here is just kind of a plane. Why, it's it's typically most watercolor papers are if you don't get him in sort of like a multi sheet pack. There's a lot of the better ones are sold in large sheets. And so even if you pay, you know, for $5 a sheet, you know you can easily cut that cheat up into, you know, at least you know, 3 to 5, you know, different size, you know, pieces of paper to get out of it. So it's really it's fairly cost effective for what it is. And so just below that is the same. This is the same paper, but I've toned it with the the sepia ink that I showed you earlier on, and so he kind of This is a fairly lighter tone, but the paper, because it's watercolor paper, it takes, you know, different pigments very well. When applied with a brush. And so, in the nice thing about the inks or by toning your papers, you can kind of dictate how much tone you really want. And I find I like doing this better then perhaps buying colored sheets because you could find sheets of paper and all sorts of colors. But, you know, sometimes those papers might be a little too thier than than what you want, or it just may not be compatible for your technique. So but it was taking a paper that I like and then toning it myself. I have a little bit more control on, so I kind of like that. And below that is the same sort of This is the same paper. But I used a darker stain, um, of the CBS Inc. So I basically stained at once, wait for it to dry and then stained it again. Um, and so this paper is durable enough t kind of handle that, And so that's kind of another reason why I like this hot pressed watercolor paper. But, um, you know so again, just kind of I would find something similar, but again, I would, you know, if you have a paper you like always stick to that. The only reason I recommend something that has a little bit of to to it is that some of the powders that I'm gonna use the truth, your papers have a tendency to absorb, um the materials a little bit better versus if it was a paper that had a really slick finish. Or sometimes you would hear it called like a plate finish, which just essentially just means it's a very slick surface. Eso things like Bristol or anything like that. The materials don't it here quite as well. And so that's why haven't tendency to avoid anything that super super slick or if it's described as a plate finish in the art store or you know, or online. I tend to avoid those kinds of papers. And so, lastly, um, this is again a hot pressed watercolor paper, but it may be hard to tell on the camera, but this one is is staying gray. And so I used the India India ink on this, but I just used a light wash, and so it's kind of like a medium grey over all, and again, it's the same thing. If you wanted to work on a slightly, you know, darker grey. I could just stay in this paper again. I find with Grey's, though, it's better to kind of stay light. That way you can still retain some of the lightness of the paper and then, you know, build up your darks in your other materials. But, um, so I like to do both. It's just kind of depends on how I'm feeling, and so, but I do like toning the paper a lot, because just again, it's it's kind of nice. It's the equivalent of of kind of staining your canvas in the same way you're just kind of killing the white. And then, if I need to reintroduce brightness into the drawing, I can either darken my values down even farther or use white chalk, you know, or something like that Teoh to bring the brightness back. And so I'll make one other recommendation. And if you don't, I want to buy individual sheets of paper this Strathmore 400 Siri's drawing pad. This'd still like my go to paper for a lot of just really simple sketches. Um, you know, because it's very inexpensive, you can find it in just about any our store. The paper has a good too. So you can do a multiple. You know, like you can use the powders on these. You can use fine charcoal and pencil. It takes a lot of things very well. Onda again, Like I said, you can and you can find these pads in several different sizes. So if you wanted toe work smaller or larger, they come in all kinds of different sizes that are, you know, pre spiral bound on and everything like that. And, you know, if you don't, if you mess up on drawing or anything like that, you don't feel too guilty because the paper is not terribly expensive and you're not buying individual sheets. And so if you don't want to go the route of the watercolor paper, this is something I would recommend again just because you can. You can pretty much go to even Michael's Or, you know, like a just that average arts and crafts store that might be near you and probably find, um, you know, something similar to this or this. Exactly. So that's all I really have in terms of paper recommendations again. If there's something that you like that you views and you feel comfortable with. Always go with that because I think the familiarity of your materials is makes the drawing process a little bit easier. But again, these are just kind of my preferences over all for what I like to do. But, um, the only thing I would again I would recommend is a paper with a little bit of tooth, because you're gonna get a little bit better Adhesion of the materials versus a slicker paper. So, um, from here, I'll kind of go ahead and show you how I like to tone paper on, and then we'll move on from there. 4. Toning Paper: Okay. So as you can see here, um, I just have a drawing board that you can obviously tell that I've been used this to kind of stain paper on, um, from all the excess marks. But, um, before I actually stay in the paper, I want to talk about kind of. However I go about doing it, and so I always, you know, So I have I'm gonna have I'm gonna use my walnut stain that I mentioned earlier. And so, um, it has a little dropper built in. That's why it has this little top here. So it's a little dropper, and I always have to sort of containers one of just regular water. Um, and then one empty container, Because what I end up doing is I'll put some ink into the empty container, and then I dilute it, so, you know, and it really there's no right or wrong. First say, um but so go ahead. And, you know, I just put in a few drops. It doesn't. It's really you want to just want to put in enough, You know, it depends on how dark you want to go with your stain. So I'm gonna probably just put in a little bit more. And then there's no reason you technically, I mean, I don't use the stain just pure. I always dilute it. So I will always just kind of ad, you know, just a little bit of water. And the and the truth be told, is I really don't know. Um, just how much dilution. And I know what this particular stain, because I've used it a lot. I don't need to dilute it. Ah, whole bunch. And I would always recommend airing on the side of going a little bit lighter with your stain. And then you can always darken it afterwards. But you can't go. Obviously, if you go too dark too soon, Um, you can't go back. And so I just have, like, a broad sort of It's like a you know, just like a watercolor brush, essentially. And so I'm gonna talk about you know, how I go about putting the stain on, and there's a couple of reasons why I go in this procedure. And so, ah, lot of times you know I have. So here's my papers. The you know, the watercolor paper. I always do a light wash of just pure water first, because by doing so, it enables me to not get streaks in the actual application of the stain. And so you could very well, just staying in it. But you run the risk of having, you know, in this case, because I'm using a flat brush, I could very well get these very distinct straight lines. ST Marks, which I'm not necessarily a fan off. And so always use a little bit of water. And the trick here is you kind of have to work quickly. And so, um, I kind of just again, I'm gonna just kind of brush just pure water. And, you know, I apologize for the glare. It is when it is just because I need the life. So I can just quickly brushed the water on, um and I make sure that, you know, it's watercolor papers, so it's meant to handle it. Um, and you'll see why I do this and because think of the this initial layer of water. It's kind of like we're prime ing the paper, if you will, and so I kind of just once I get a decent amount of water and it kind of make sure that it's for the most part covered, and then I'll go ahead and start applying my stain. And by getting that initial water, you can kind of see how the stained kind of bleeds a little bit. But by having that water on there, it will eventually even out. And, you know, obviously, yes, the paper will curl a little bit. So it's one of those things where if I if I know I'm going to stain paper, I kind of do women bashes, you know, so that we don't have to constantly, uh, pull everything out again. And I feel like, you know, that's that's probably, like, good enough. And so I just kind of just do a back and forth and just making sure that if I see any sort of lines or anything like that, that I kind of just brushed through it while the paper is still, you know, fairly saturated. And like I said, it's just you could do it without the initial water application. It's really not that important. It's just more me just kind of for the sake of cleanliness, Um, I like to have uneven tone, Um, that way. Everything just kind of looks a little bit more uniform, and that's pretty much it. You know. So again you can kind of see on camera that the paper is very wet and that's OK. Like I said, what will end up happening is the paper will start to curl. It'll start to curl up a little bit on, and that's okay. What I'll end up doing is once the paper is fully dry, all kind of wedge it in between some heavy books. That way it kind of straightens and flattens out a little bit. Um, and again, this is a fairly moderate stain, so it's not. It's kind of like an average, you know, kind of medium light brown. It's not super dark. If I wanted to go a little bit darker, I could have a diluted my stain a little bit more. Or if I really wanted to. I can. Even while the paper is still wet. It's sort of in a open state, if you will, and I could basically add more. Um, you know more of my stain and make this a darker mixture, even while this is still wet. And so again, it's kind of a personal preference. I would go about doing the same way with the India ink. Um, although I again with the black ink, I would error on the side of going a little bit lighter cause it gets it's very, very dark. And he always wanted give yourself a little bit of flexibility overall with with a dark grey stain. But anyway, that's kind of it for the for the, uh for the walnut stain that I'm using. And now I'll go ahead and show you how to do the same thing, but with charcoal powder. 5. Toning with Charcoal: all right. And so now, in terms of using, you know, any of the powders that I mentioned earlier I'm gonna show you how I apply these. And, you know, there's really no again kind of right or wrong. You could use a brush to kind of apply these, um, you know, But I have a tendency to use I think a paper town gets you a little bit more even of a of a tone than a brush, because you don't get the street Penis of, like going of going back and forth with the brush. Um, but it really depends on how much you want to tone the paper. Um and so what I'll talk about a little bit is if you're going to stain, um, or tone your paper rather with charcoal, depending on the kind of peace you're making, something you may want to consider is if depending on, let's say, like the lighting scenario of your piece, you may want to consider conserving, you know, maybe a portion of the paper, and maybe not tone it as much so that you can retain a pure white of a paper again. It really kind of depends on the scenario, so it doesn't, You know, it's not sort of like a one size fits all approach, but it is something to keep in mind so that let's say, if you're gonna have, ah, very bright or very sort of, uh, you know, Luminant, you know, portion of your drawing that you're making, you might consider conserving a little bit of the white of the paper. Or you may have to resort to using some sort of like a white chalk to get that brightness back. Um, but I will say one thing I like to do if I if I know that I'm gonna stain the The whole paper is kind of what I mentioned a little bit in the material section is you know, something I'm very cautious of is the fact that you know it is a powder, and these things can, uh, you know, they get into the air and you do not want to be breathing this stuff in eso. I always If I know I'm in a kind of tone, a paper, I always kind of lay it flat on the ground. Um and then that way, because I know sometimes with brushing if you're if you're working on an easel and your paper is upright, Um, you know, there's more of a tendency for the stuff to go in the air and, you know, it's just it is kind of the natural thing that's gonna happen at some point, but it's just kind of again. I just wanna be mindful, you know of that and be very cautious and, you know, just be careful with the stuff you know, a little bit goes a long way, and that's why I wanna show you that this is why I have the little blade here and you can use a little plastic spoon or something like that is that I always kind of just scoop a little bit out of the jar. Um, and then I kind of just, you know, just kind of drop it down and you'll see that you don't really need ah whole lot and this is my even be too much. And so once it's down having a nice sort of soft paper towel and you're just gonna just kind of move it around and you'll see it kind of it kind of piles up, and you just kind of you can kind of keep spreading it and really again, kind of depending on if, you know, you know, if you're doing a portrait or somebody that you can kind of have some fun with your paper towel and you can very distinctly push, you know, think it's almost sun about your pushing paint around. And if you know that you're gonna maybe have some sort of abstract backgrounds or something that you can kind of get a little creative in, how you're pushing, you know the charcoal around, and that's just something to keep in mind as well you can. You can go back later and do it with a brush to, um, but you know, it's something that you can kind of take into consideration. And, you know, I won't necessarily cover the whole thing, but I just wanted you to see so that what is happening is you can get a nice even toned with a paper towel. And if you wanted to go darker, you could always go on. Add more charcoal on top of it to get a little bit darker of a stained again. I would always err on the side of sticking a little bit lighter that way you can always make those choices afterwards on. Especially in the case. In a lot of instances, I would actually stay light. And then, you know, maybe once you're drawing is kind of established. Is that then you can go ahead and read darkened areas with your powder, and you know, this works the same. Just if you're using the graphite powder instead of charcoal powder, it all kind of works the same. I do have a tendency to to find that the charcoal powder is that you can get quite a bit darker with it because charcoal just, you know, in and of itself will go naturally darker than graphite pencil would, Um but that's that's pretty much it, um, And if you're opposed to using the charcoal powder, I'm gonna show you how to do the same thing with vine charcoal. It does kind of lend itself to a different effect, but you'll see what that looks like. Okay. And so same thing again. Here is this time I have some vine charcoal and I get like I said, if you don't want to do the, um, the Viner, I'm sorry the powdered charcoal. You can still kind of get the same thing with with the vine charcoal. And you kind of just kind of have to scribble, Um, you know, kind of just, you know, common. Just your coating the paper. You can kind of just get really loose and sort of abstract with it. And it doesn't have to be, you know, anything. And so I'm using a soft grade buying Charbel, and I and I wouldn't recommend using any of the heart anything harder than a soft, Um, and you kind of just want to cover, and you know, that is that you can kind of And this is sort of the only reservation with using vine charcoal is that you can lead. You can kind of get some streaks is you can tell. And so if you eventually kind of put more and more down, you can kind of alleviate that, um, you know, so as you can kind of fill in things and it's just it's a little bit more work, but if you want to avoid the powder, you know, kind of getting into the air, and I can totally understand why someone would be kind of very wary about, you know, using the powder. This is just another alternative to kind of me to keep it a little safer again. It's a little bit more work, I think. But it isn't options, and you can still kind of get the same overall effects. But it's just also being aware of you know that, Yes, you're gonna You're gonna kind of encounter some of the, uh, streaking nous. And so you can also, and I and I really only have these thin sticks, you can get those really large soft sticks. That might be, um, a little bit better, but and I would say the only instance where you may want it. You know, if I wasn't a stain this with all with buying charcoal is the drawing itself, my end up being a charcoal drawing versus let's say, like a charcoal and graphite drawing. You know, they generally blend pretty well into one another. But if I was gonna tone with vine charcoal, um, I might as well just do the whole thing with my in trouble, because then, by keeping the material the same, they're gonna blend in a little bit better. Overall so, But again, it's just that I just want to give you a Zeman e choices, as you know, as you can kind of work with, and so the effects can still be the same. It's just a different means of getting to those effects. And so this is just another option to consider, Um, because what I want to do going forward is I want to show you how you can use, um, the toned paper to your advantage in terms of maybe working in reverse and using erasers to draw with and then building up things on top of that. And so I'll do a little short video on some techniques using the eraser, using some pencil and using the brush on. And then ultimately, I'll show you, you know, maybe a little vignette. And so you can kind of see how the techniques kind of come together and again. It's all of just about creating variety and looking for different ways to solve, you know, a drawing. And so and I find that I have a tendency Teoh kind of do these things. If I feel like, you know, maybe I'm kind of just I've been doing the same thing for too long. And so I kind of need to maybe just approach something differently just to kind of shake my mind up, um, and maybe look at drawing in a different way on, and that's kind of really the whole point of this and kind of. By using some different materials, we can hopefully kind of venture out a little bit and try some different approaches to get maybe a different effect in our work. 6. Head demo 1: So I've already stained my paper with some charcoal powder, and I've left a little bit of white, you know, or like an area that I left untouched so that I could still retain some relative brightness . And that's something that you may want to consider. Um, depending on your light lighting situation with whatever subject matter you're dealing with . And so I'm going to start out with just a very simple sketch in, and this really isn't intended to be like a full on portrait from start to finish. It's really just more of like a short vignette that I've put together. And I'm not really chasing anything in particular with the portrait in and of itself, you know, like likeness or anything like that. I just want to show you that how by using these other materials and kind of starting out a little bit differently, how can it affect your overall end result? And so to get started, I'm still gonna at least put a little bit of information just to kind of give myself something toe work into. And so I'm not gonna get overly involved with the construction because I want to let some of the tone kind of assist me with that. And so the nice part about having some of that charcoal powder on there is that it really does act like a middle tone where you can you don't necessarily have to fill in everything . And so I'm just gonna lightly stumble in some features and you know the accuracy. I'm kind of just being very loose and undefined, because if I need to, I'm staying light enough at this stage that I can still kind of push things around with my race or quite a bit in by having you know that that charcoal down on the surface, um, I can always add more or take some out. And so I'm just I don't really need to really worry as much if it was a pure white piece of paper, and so how far you take your construction is really kind of up to you because you want to strategically think about how much information Um, do you not have to put in because of the tone that you've established early on in the surface and whether it's charcoal powder on or if you just kind of go with a, um you know, one of the ink stains or anything like that. You want to be thinking about how that middle value range is solving a problem for you. And so, in this case, by having the charcoal powder kind of laid down, I can get away with putting less information and still have everything more or less come together, especially early on. And so one thing you'll see me do a lot throughout the demonstration as I take my bristle brush and anything that maybe looks out of place. Or if I need to just knock something back because it might be a little too harsh, I'll go ahead and use my brush quite a bit. So that way, as I start to put my eraser down, those those eraser marks are gonna be a little bit more distinctive. And then anything that I feel like is creating too much noise. I'll go ahead and use my brush to kind of just gently knock it back. And so, with the general kind of construction established, I'm gonna just start picking out a little bit with my kneaded eraser. And I'm a kind just want to establish the general lights of the overall portrait. And, you know, that's kind of one of the reasons I left a little bit of white paper there towards the front of the face when I stained my paper with the powder so that that wakened at least retains some purity of brightness. And so again, depending on the overall lighting effects that you're trying to go after, you may decide to do that as well. And so I know kind of going forward that a lot of this will get kind of reworked and, you know, have to retake out some of the eraser marks again, even though I've already put them in cause because of the powder, you'll find yourself maybe smudging a little bit more, um, with your hands and so you may have to kind of re establish things that you're race once, you know, multiple times. But that's just kind of something that you'll know going forward as you progress through the work a little bit more, just like in any other drawing, I'm gonna slowly build up my values. And so I'm gonna be still very cautious of how you know I'm not gonna just immediately slam in a dark value or anything like that. And because even though, you know, I have the extra tone on the paper and everything like that, you know, with any drawing, I'm never just gonna immediately go for that jet black, you know, contrast. Because I'm still kind of establishing, you know, the overall drawing from the very beginning. And so again, this is kind of a word of caution. You know, you might do that. If you know that an area is gonna be strictly background and it's not gonna affect the actual drawing, You might decide to put in a darker value, but in areas of interest, like that head and, you know, are the focal point. I'm still going to just like I would with any other drawing is kind of avoid getting too dark too soon. And so I'm gonna indicate some of the strands of hair, but just the ones that are closest to the face. And I kind of knew going in that the back part of the head was something I was just gonna leave atmospheric and kind of end of and yet there and so really with kind of the majority of the face that I intend to draw is more or less established. I'm going to start slowly darkening down and building up. My value ranges within the face. And you know, as I go, I'm gonna have to clean up things is my hands much is over it and and maybe re establish some of the lights and slowly start adding details. But I still have that base of powder on the paper itself that is going to establish a lot of my middle value ranges. So the primary focus off kind of how I'm gonna build it up is more to do with the lights and then putting in darker darks. 7. Head demo 2: And so as I'm kind of slowly establishing the features, it's one of those things where I'm gonna just kind of suggest, Ah, lot of the information early on and and cause I wouldn't want to do is I want to take advantage of some of the tone I've already established on the paper. And I want to see what I can potentially get away with without having to put in every single little detail and, you know, in like a particular feature or anything like that. It's really more a matter of, Well, what? What can I get the most out of by putting in the least amount of information? And, you know, obviously that's gonna be sort of a very scenario dependent thing, depending on what you're drawing and what you're trying to achieve. But, um, for me again, it's it's really a matter of taking advantage of that toned background so that it fills in those little gaps and makes me work a little bit less than I would have to if it was just a pure white piece of paper. Now, obviously there's there's things that consider, in terms of the overall sort of look of the drawing on that you're trying to achieve. And so kind of what I was saying earlier is for me, this is kind of just an experiment, and it's gonna look, you know, quite a bit different than what I would normally do. And and that's part of the reason I wanted to kind of go with this approach just so that it forces me to think a little bit differently and on and ultimately end up with a different result once the drawing is completed. And so since a lot of the darks are really kind of concentrated in the cheek, it is one of those things where, like I said previously, I do want to slowly creep up on those value ranges, and I'm not gonna by no means heat them. You know, the full value that I C s. So they're not gonna get super super dark because it's such a large area in that particular space that if I were to go with the more accurate value range, it would take away from the focal point, which in this case is gonna be kind of the features. And since it's a profile portrait, a lot of I want to put a lot of that emphasis on, you know, especially like the eye and the nose in a little bit of the mouth. But it's a smaller. It's a smaller component, but so a lot of the value ranges in the shadows. I'm probably going to cheat a little bit and make them a bit lighter and so kind of starting from a dark portion of the hair. I'm just gonna let that creep in to the cheek. And and once once I kind of have that cheek shadow more or less established, it's gonna allow me toe kind of bleed into the lights and kind of create a slow rolling effect. And, you know, again, I'm gonna go a little bit lighter so that that shadow feels a little bit more atmospheric. So just by building up enough value range, so it's gonna allow me to be a little bit more flexible as I start establishing the lights more. And so the hairline here is gonna be fairly important again because it's kind of that bridge into the face. And so that's again well, put in a little indications of the hair just because it's the closest to the actual face, and a lot of the back part of the head will remain someone atmospheric and again. So I'm just kind of gradually adding value. Uh, still not going to over commit too soon. And, um and I feel also by doing that, it kind of gradually allows me to see how much focus I want to put into an area. You know, again it depending on what? You know what your focal point is. You maybe want to concentrate more attention in those spaces, and, um and then leave everything else maybe a little bit more suggested. And so I'm kind of just going back here with my eraser, you know, because of the powder as your hand goes over the surface. Like I was saying earlier, you're gonna have to re establish the lights, probably, you know, fairly continuously throughout the drawing. And that's OK. And if you really need to reinforce them at the very end, you could probably use some white chalk. But that's something I would save until, like the very final stages of the drawing, right? So I'm going to kind of just slowly start to darken, and the I a little bit and, you know, because it's a profile portrait, you know, there's not a whole lot of information that I can really squeeze into the eye. So I have to be very deliberate about what information is in there so that everything reads collect correctly in them. You know, the gaze looks right. A lot of it will be just a matter of emphasizing the lives because the iris and pupil and all that stuff are gonna be, you know, kind of more or less, not really seen because of that profile angle. And so one thing to come in that I'm always keeping in mind is that as I'm kind of creeping up on my values, if if anything needs to be adjusted, I still have that flexibility. And maybe it's not something that has to be erased per se. But maybe if I overstate something, I can still go back in with my brush or stump and kind of just gently touched over the surface, and it will kind of knock it back just enough to where it's gonna make doing a correction a little bit easier. Um, again, because I have that base of powder to kind of work back into. And it's not just a pure white piece of paper. And so is, um, adding information here. You'll see me put a lot of emphasis on the profile edge, and again, it's just because for this particular angle, that's really what the focal point is gonna be. And so I can kind of let the rest take a back seat to these front portions here, and it's kind of just going in. And I know I'm gonna have to probably take over these spots again with my racer, but I'm going to just slowly pick certain things out, and then you know, again what kind of work my way back, over and over again to the same spots. But, you know, there's little tiny details that I can use my eraser to do the drawing for me rather than using pencil to make some of those little tiny things more obvious. And so if I can get away with using the tone of the paper to describe information for me and and maybe just trim little things here and there with my race, or I'm gonna go ahead and do that, um, the background and, you know, kind of that middle tone is just as much. Part of the drawing is what I put in with pencil. So if I can get away with it without having to add extra lines into the drawing, I may go ahead and make that choice and and you can see here. There's really not a whole lot going on so far. And as we continue again, I'll develop things a little bit farther. But even now, is it ISS? We're almost there. 8. Head demo 3: And so I'm just gonna kind of add a little bit more information in the hair. And I want to maybe established just a little bit where I see the ear, but I'm not gonna take it too much farther than that really again. Want the focus to be on the front part of the head? And so that's just kind of more of a design decision that you'll see me handle throughout the rest of the drawing, and I'll put in little bits of information for the hair. But it's gonna really come and take a back seat to the front part of the face again, just kind of building up from the back part of the hair. That way, it's gonna give me a little bit more range in the lights, and I'm still gonna be fairly conservative with the value overall. So that way it doesn't take away too much from the front part of the face. But I do want to build it up a little bit more so that it's not just a flat tone towards the back there, and so I'm kind of cross hatching quite a bit with the pencil zone. I'm not trying to model the same way you may have seen some of my other drawings and some of the other classes, and so I'm being maybe a little bit looser and kind of using more, you know, kind of linear strokes to define some of the form. And again, that's just a way for me to kind of break things up so that I'm not getting too obsessive with the modeling and and I'm kind of I'm still thinking about form overall, but I'm I'm just using linear description to describe it rather than a really fine, uh, you know, smooth modeling. So is the drawing kind of goes back in this middle range. And as I need to start expanding things, I'm gonna just kind of start with my focal point and again, in this case, it's gonna be the I, um, in the portrait. And I'm not always gonna start their first cause. When I look at the drawing overall, that's reading the portrait. I should say, Is it that is my darkest, you know, sort of area in terms of a focus. And so I want to start there and then let that bleed out into the rest of the portrait, and I can kind of decide from there as well how much extra information needs to be and let's say, like the nose or the mouth. And you know, how much information can I intentionally leave out so that it really drives home the fact that the is gonna be the focal point? And again Because because there's such a it's such a small sliver foreign I and a portrait angle You I in this case, I have to be really careful about what information I'm putting in because they're really realistically in a profile. I there's really not a whole lot. You really just have some leads in a tiny little bit of the actual i itself, and you have to be very selective. And the nice part in this particular case is that allows me to focus on design on DWhite information. I include as part of that I shape. And so that was kind of the fun part, at least in kind of working through this and seeing well, what can I get away with in terms of design and have it still looked correct? But, you know, in this case, maybe leave out quite a bit of information you can see here. I mean, there's really not a whole lot going on, But you can see where the face is kind of slowly evolved from very little from where we started. And it's not like I have drawn a whole lot in terms of, you know, information. I've still there's still a lot of that original tone that we started with in the beginning is still there on I've just kind of added the necessary information in terms of the features and kind of the relative, you know, sort of shadow shapes and things like that. But the drawing in and of itself is still fairly simplified compared to if I would have started from, you know, no tone, no background, nothing. And I kind of had to build up everything manually. And that's kind of one of the benefits of having that starting tone and, you know, again, whether you decide to do the powder or the stains, um, having that middle value kind of it gives you a little bit of a head start, you know, and then you makes you think of solving problems a little bit differently and That's really what I want the intent of this practice to be for you guys again, Just kind of going to reestablish I there in, you know, I mean, realistically, like, you know, they're still gonna be more than I'm gonna add to the portrait. But even this is just being a little simple sketch that, you know, really didn't take very long. In actuality, I could feel satisfied in terms of what information I do have on here at this point. And, you know, again, depending on what you want to do with these exercises, you could do really simple sketches that maybe only take you, you know, 30 minutes an hour or so, and we can do a fully fledged peace and make a nice finish piece of work. But, um, what you kids hopefully see is how much you know, more expedited. The process became because I kind of started with that middle tone and on and what information I'm not having to put in because I kind of have that as a starting point versus starting from scratch and just when going from, you know, a blank piece of paper. And so I'll spend a little bit more time, kind of polishing this up and you'll guys see what that looks like in the end on, then we'll go from there. 9. Head demo 4: So as we're kind of getting close to finishing this off, you know, I'm gonna still kind of add a little bit more detail. You can kind of see, Like I said, from where we started at the very beginning, with just kind of the loose, you know, charcoal powder is there's really not a whole lot of excess information that I've added. And I've kind of used the powder to sort of fill in the gaps for a lot of that extra information. And, you know, depending on you know, the again the effect that you're trying to achieve, you can use more or less material and kind of just play around with different effects and and see kind of what you can create. Ah, lot of this, you know, at least at this particular stage is just is more or less just adding extra little bits of information to kind of just flush things out a little bit more so that we get to some, you know, agreeable finish. But, you know, depending on the subject that you're working on, you can easily, you know, like any other drawing, go as far as at as little as you see fit, and so all kind of just kind of noodle around a little bit more, just so that I got to develop, you know, some of the hair and the ear, um, and finish off the rest of the drawing. So a lot of the information that's kind of near the ear and you know, it's more or less kind of gonna be a lot of hair. And so, like I was saying earlier is I'm not gonna put too much emphasis on the majority of the hair and I'll just add some information that's closest to the face. But the rest of it, I'm gonna kind of leave the tone of the paper and just haven't feel a little bit more atmospheric. And because that's kind of sufficient, at least for me and kind of what I wanted to do with this drawing. Um, you know, But that's something you know. To keep in mind, too, is if there's areas in your subject matter where you don't need to have a lot of information, or you can kind of get away with a more atmospheric effect. That's kind of where the powder can really come into play and on and kind of solve some of those problems relatively quickly. Because if you think about it, if you were to do it with manual shading, that would take, you know, an obscene amount of time just to fill in a large portion. And so in that case, the material, um, and or powder or even a stain can kind of solve that for you much, much faster. And you can finish your drawing and you know, a bit less time and some conscious nit picking little things at this point cause I feel comfortable enough at this stage where I can say that, you know, for this particular sketch, it's more or less completed, you know, for the most part. And, you know, obviously I could spend a bit more time developing things. But as I kind of mentioned at the very beginning of, you know, the classes, the reason for using a lot of these materials is to just kind of explore and kind of have fun doing things a little bit differently than I normally would. And and I found that in the past is if I've gotten too comfortable with an approach or anything like that, Or maybe I just kind of, you know, I kind of got tired of doing things the same way. I always found it beneficial to kind of just pull out some different materials, change my approach and kind of see what I come up with. And, you know, and so if you were to compare this sketch to some of the other stuff, if you've seen any of my other classes, you can see that stylistically, the drawings fairly different and it kind of has a different effect overall. And and so this is something that I'm personally focusing on with. My, you know, with my personal work right now is where I feel. You know, in the past, I've had consistent results with a certain approach, and and although it's, you know, it's a very sort of academic approach, I feel like I've just been wanting to play around a little bit more, not caring too much about finished result. And that's kind of even. What this sketches, you know, for the most part, is it's It's just, you know, the total time that this sketch took was really only a couple hours on, and and that's what it was for just kind of like a fresh, you know, exercise that, you know, didn't take too long on DSO. Then I can move on to another exercise and play around with a different experiment. And so what I'm really hoping is that you at least kind of try some of these materials and kind of experiment and play around and see what you can come up with. And, you know, if anything, it it may just expose you to new materials that you maybe have never tried before. But by using them, you'll hopefully maybe come up with a procedure or do something a little bit differently that it may cause you to think differently. Or it may create, in effect, that you never created before. And hopefully that will trigger something in you that will maybe open up your mind to trying some new things out and maybe achieve a different result that you haven't before. So hopefully you know, with the examples you have some ideas that will inspire you, and I'll kind of show you just what this finished drawing. Um, looks like here, you know. So overall, it's a fairly simplistic drawing in terms of what was actually drawn versus what was applied with the charcoal powder. And so, hopefully again, that gives you some ideas on that. The other examples makes sense to you. And thank you for watching.