How to Draw a French Bulldog | Step by Step Tutorial

1. Introduction: Hello. Hello. For those of you that don't know who I am, my name is Brayden. Messer. I am a terrible artist. And youtuber, basically, I just teach my drawing techniques on the World Wide Web. In this collapse, I'm going to be taken you guys through how I approach the drawing of a French bulldog. So the cool thing about the technique that I teach is it's what I call the three layered methods. So, basically, what it is is I draw with three different grades of charcoal. I use soft Turkle, a medium charcoal and ah, heart charcoal. Throughout this class and and through these different lessons, I'm gonna be showing you the differences of each one and how to use them in tandem with one another. So, for example, I'm going to be showing you the Raimond reasons as to why I use soft charcoal in the base layering of each individual section. I'm also going to be showing you the subtleties of giving what they call retrieving and saving higher values with your eraser work. And then I'm gonna be showing you the ins and outs of using medium Sharples and hard char coals for detail. work and kind of the the rhyme and reason as to what makes a medium charcoal better for, like, saline work like define lines versus using hard charcoal is for like, really finite detail work. So that's pretty much what you're going to encounter in a nutshell, and I hope that you can draw along with me. So with that said, I will see you in class. 2. Basic Shape | Form Framing: Okay, So first, we're going to be using graphic pencil AP until click research and a mono zero in research . Yes, We're also going to be using a number two and a 3/16 smarter. We're also going to be using a soft, medium and hard rated jerk opens a sandpaper strip and a extra piece of paper. This is for checking our tones before we lay them down onto the paper. And last but not least, the brush. Good old brush. OK, so of course, the first step, when it comes to any drawing is weird. Want to refer to the reference image? And we're going to start outlining the basic shape of our reference image end up going to be doing this entire class in real time, which is, believe it or not, The first time I've done that. All of my other classes I have kind of sped through places here and there, depending on what it is exactly that I'm doing. But for the sake of this specific class, I wanted to do the whole thing in real time so that you could get a sense for, um how slow? Um, some of my hand motions are, but here's you can see I've outlined in the year, and now I'm continuing to outline the left side of the dog's face. And the big thing to remember with this step is to go slow. Take your time when you are drawing out a line like, say, this center Wrinkle dogs forehead. Just focus on laying out that line only. And then here there's another wrinkle and then the beginnings of another. And by going slow and focusing on each section of the dog's face, um, you tend to be a lot more accurate with your proportions right off the bat versus having to go back and erase entire sections of your outline. But if you do have to raise, just understand that that's part of the creative process of drawing, and that's nothing to be ashamed of. But here what I'm doing is I'm actually don't like that. So I'm just gonna race that real quick boom done. I could do that, making mistakes, the crucial part of the of the drawing process, so don't let that get you down. But the big thing when it comes to the step, is to just take your time and understand that when you are drawing out the outline with your graphite pencil that you are using very light pressure control. So here you have to go back and erase it. If you don't like it, you can do that. And you're not going to be leaving residual graphite onto the paper because sale it. You pressed too hard, right? And that is a prime example of why you want to be very light handed when it comes to laying down your graphite outline. Now, a lot of artists we use methods such as the grid method for their proportions. I don't use the grid method. I like the challenge of trying to nail the proportions and get them as close to the reference images I can by my free. But that is something that you is the individual Kim, decide for yourself. But here what I'm doing, just like with you. But the left Here I am simply drawing out the outline of the writer. And then here. If you actually look at the reference image, you can see where there are going to be subtle variations in value. Um and so I want to make sure that I separate where those mid values were going to be on the inside of the year. And then and then as you look at the reference image, you can see out. The value gets higher as we move out towards the outside of the year. That's why I put that line there. But then here, right about here in the center of this wrinkle. If you look at the reference image, that's where this next skin wrinkle on the dogs, the beginnings of dogs, muscle starts. So I just want outline that and then write about their center with the here and then down. That's right about where that I is. And that's a proportion trick that you can use. You know, when you look at the reference image, the center of that I lines up about with center of years, so that allows us to go in here and solidified right about where that we want that I to be . But just remember, like none of this. None of this is set in stone for the cool thing about this part of the drawing process is that you are not committed a metal, so I don't think that you are okay that I'm actually not going to outline any of the center of the eye. I just want the basic shape of the I. I'll outline center detail work with the graphite when it comes time to lay down sharply for the I in here, there's a nice little so crease difference in value there, so we definitely want to highlight that with our graphite. Then right about here, there's another another wrinkle in the skin, right above the dog's nose. And as you can see from the reference image, what I'm doing is I'm simply outlining each individual. Wrinkle the top line in the bottom line over that wrinkle begins and where it ends and again, as you were doing this, if you find that your proportions aren't exactly where you want them to be, you can go in with. Your models are racer, and you can. You can erase some and ran, reset and and redraw with your graphite. It's not here. Here's the bottom of that wrinkle, very tiptop of this French bulldogs knows. Yeah, someone right about now right about here. I just want to bring this this roll over and then drop it down a little bit right there, something like that. And remember, when you're laying down your outline in graphite, essentially, what we're doing is we are framing in the drawing for the charcoal to come. So just because your outline doesn't look exactly like your finished drawing, just understand that the reason wise because it's a lot like building a house. You know, when you when you see the framework of a house, it's just the skeleton writes, the bare bones will think of your drawings, especially if you're utilizing the three layered method, which is the method that I'm teaching you here. Just understand that this initial step, the outline and then the form framing, which I'm going to show you here in a little bit, is just the preliminary steps. Okay, then hear what I'm doing is a step lining the nostrils. Can solidifying exactly how that nose is gonna sit on the top with dogs. Muslim. Yeah, something like that. Okay. And then right about here, there's a slate slight crease. And that's the other thing with this Step two, you can one of things that ideo was. I put my graphite down onto the paper wherever there's going to be a lower value. So if you look at the forehead, there are some some rolls of skin. They're much more abrupt. They're much more defined and actually have some height to them. And then there are other parts of other kind of like ripples almost in the in the skin of the dogs forehead that are quite raised. But yet I still want to lay down graphite right there because for me, that tells me that, Hey, that's where I need Teoh. Lay down a darker tone, a lower value with my charcoal when the time comes. So just just keep that in mind, Okay? Now we're getting pretty close to outlining exactly where I want the other eye of this dog to be. There's a lot of low value in this portion of the dog's head, so I want to keep that in mind as I'm framing where I want this I to be. But first I want to get this this skin wrinkle here, get that out of the way. It's more or less outline exactly where that's going to be. Something like that There. Here we go. But I hope you guys, we're seeing that the outline there. There's a lot that there's a lot that goes into it, and and it does take it does take time. And in my experience, the longer you take, especially when it comes to outlining your reference image and really framing and prepping your your drawing for the charcoal to come, the more accurate you proportions will be and the higher quality of product you'll be able to offer to to your clients. So just keep that in mind. Of course, every artist is different, and there will be those of you that this part of the drawing process comes very naturally to very easy and you'll be able to move it a much quicker pace. But if you are not one of those artists and you like to take your time, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that at all, because I am one of those artists. I like to take my time, and I don't like to be rushed through any part of the drying process. The whole process, from beginning to your signature at the end, should be enjoyable. It should be enjoyable, so just keep that in mind. Then here is you can see right about. Here's where that dark value kind of starts on news. I was going very, very lightly, kind of outline where I would lay down that that charcoal for a lower value, right and right in between the dogs, I that that skin wrinkle right about here is where I'm going to find the bottom. The bottom of that dogs are right there. Bring it up over this dog's eyes were kind of kind of deceiving, because if you actually look, the reference image that dogs I itself is is very around. But then there's a huge, low value lip eyelid right above the dogs above the dogs I and so it almost gives it like a just like in elongated shape. So here, even though going to be putting a lower value island on top of these eyes, I'm just going to outline the actual then here, wherever there's going to be a break between lower value and high values immediately under the dogs I and then to that role on the dog's cheek, I want to make sure that I lay those lines down so that I have a good idea of where I'm gonna lay that charcoal and here a little bit of cleanup. I don't like that line. I don't like this line here. Clean that up. And because I used a very light pressure control when I laid it down initially it lifts off the paper very nicely. And here I was gonna bring this over a little bit. Re outline side of the dogs re outlined the bottom of the dogs cheek er, something like that that looks more accurate. We go and then here on the right side of the dog's muzzle, we do have some form that we need to make sure that we consider when the time comes to lay down our charcoal so much like how I was telling you, I like to lay down graphite in places where there are going to be lower values when it comes to the charcoal. I'm doing the exact same thing for the dog's muzzle. If you actually look at the reference image, you can actually see along the lines where the whiskers come out all right, her a lot of lower value. So I want to make sure that I frame that was appropriately with my graphite pencil. Then here in the chin. What I'm doing is I'm just looking at it, and I am putting lines down where there is going to be significant breaks between my high values and my lower values. That's the big thing with this stuff. When it comes to charcoal, when you look at your reference image, always try to outline where those differences were. Those where that contrast is right between black and white, low and high values. Because that way, when you go in with your soldier, are you going with your charcoal pencil? You'll know where to start on those lower values and build those first. Remember, I always say, Build your lower values first, and then you can spread that other charcoal Teoh to those higher values right then here is gonna clean this up. These lines don't need to be there. Clean this one up as well. Okay, so now this is the second step in the initial lesson. This is what I call form framing. And the cool thing about this step is that it is completely subjective to you. Think of form framing as kind of like kind of like the train wheels on your first bicycle, right? The whole point of laying down these these very late lions is for you to more or less frame the underlying form of your drawing. And I started to do this with a lot of my drawings early on in my practice, and I found that it actually helped me. A lot of help me remember exactly which ways that underlying form is conveyed in my drawing . So say, for example, you'll know which way to pull the charcoal across the paper in order to convey around it look or a flat look. Or you'll know where to really focus on building a lower value to create almost like an indented look, which I'll show you how to do that stuff like, say, when it comes to the years and stuff kind of how you have that kind of that pitted look right? But the cool thing about this is you can Ada's little, um, framework to the underlying form with your trying or as much as you want to their artists that I've drawn with that. I don't like doing this at all, and that's perfectly fine, because then there are other artists that absolutely loved this trick and and it works for them. So see, here's the rules. You just kind of rolled up. Start high, roll it. Stop. That's pretty much it. Like I said, you can add as many of these form frames as you want or as little of these form frames as you want. But now we're going to be going to lessen to, and we're going to start laying charcoal down on the left ear. 3. Base Layering & Detailing Left Ear: Okay, so we're gonna grab our tone check paper. What I've done here is I've taken my sandpaper strip and I've cried. It's, um, soft and some medium charcoal onto it. And here I'm taking my brush, and I'm just loading up one side of it. Some soft charcoal do a little tone ship, and we're gonna start laying down some charcoal. Now, the big thing to remember when it comes to this step in the three Larry method is to always put your brush down where the low values are first. Because as you lay down more and more charcoal into the paper as you put down more strokes , there will become less and less charcoal to go from the brush to the paper. And so, essentially, what's happening is as you work the brush more and more, your values become higher and higher, so there's no sense in starting where there would be a very high value. If you have a bunch of charcoal on your brush, that's only going to convey a low value. So just keep that in mind in the second part of this technique you need to be made aware of is use extremely light pressure control. And the reason why you want to use extremely light pressure control is because the next step in this technique is your going to be going in with our mono Zahra racer. Which, of course, is our detailer is room and we're going to be doing what they call retrieving are higher values. And this is a step in the layering process. And, uh, it's also a step in conveying detail work. But here I'm using a very light pressure control. I'm not pushing the charcoal into the paper whatsoever. Now you can start to push with more pressure control with your smudges when it comes to really starting to convey those lower values when it comes to detail. But, um, but only do it with smugglers. Don't do it with your brush work in case we got a nice even distribution of soft charcoal with our brush. And now we're going in with our models. A racer. Okay, now we're looking at the reference image, and we're just lifting the charcoal, which in turn is conveying a higher value. Or the eraser hits the paper and lifts that charcoal of off the paper, and you can see, this is the reason why you didn't want to use heavy pressure control with your brush. I have done that before. I've made that mistake where I've really gone in. And I've pushed the charcoal into the paper with my brush work. And then when I go in to retrieve mid and high values with my mom, Noser Racer, I've I've kind of backed myself into a corner because then the charcoal is much harder toe lift off of the paper. And because of that, I wasn't able to get as high value as I would like. So learn from my mistakes, okay? Don't make the same mistakes that I make. I would see no. Here, check this out. So if you actually look at the reference image, there's a lot of very, very, very fine in very short hairs, um, on the tops and inside of this French bulldog. So this is a way or you can go in and you can and you can convey that that really short looking hair with with the race for work, this is, uh, a way of working backwards, in a sense, yes, but I have found through trial and error and drawing a lot of dogs that when it comes to really, really fine, really, really short hair, this technique works works really well. It's ah, it's a technique that conveys the right kind of aesthetic. I feel that, um but I know for a fact a lot of my clients enjoy. And I'm sure now if you start to do this for you, your animal portrait's where you're drawing dog breeds that have very short finite here. I'm sure work for you. But the big thing here is just just go in. And if you need to take a break and sharpen your tip on Jor Mona Zahra Racer, go ahead and do that. I've done that a couple times and just make sure that your eraser tip is clean. Um, I don't recommend cleaning it with your fingertip because your fingertip has a lot of oil on on it. And when you rub that onto the eraser, that in turn is going on to the paper and charcoal tends to latch on to the oil from your skin. That's one of the reasons why we're a glove is to keep my skin, um, contact off of the paper So what I do is I take my models or a razor. I'm trying to make sure it's clean, and I just rub it on my own, my pants, my pant leg when I'm drawing and it takes the charcoal right off and there's no oil on it. When I go back onto the paper, Teoh continue, Uh, retrieving those was higher values, so just keep that in mind. But one of the big things with this step is just just to go slow and take your time. And also also be aware that underlying for, like, this section of, uh, of the drawing here, if you actually look a reference image, you can see how there's a little hair that rolls off the top of the dogs for it. And then it goes up this side of the dogs here. But here with the eraser work, we've successfully conveyed that little bridge and out here I'm gonna take my size 3 16 smarter and was gonna load it up with in charcoal, do a little tone check. This is a soft charcoal. And remember how he's talking about when it comes to smudge your work you can. This is where you can start, Teoh, use a heavier pressure control. You can really start to push that charcoal into the paper. This is it. This is the step. So here I'm using a mid heavier pressure control and think Here is. As you can see, this starts to really showcase the value scale, the full extent of value scale from complete white to complete black. Now, the thing with these ears that you need to keep in mind is that they are extremely soft. There's there's so many implied lines when it comes to Animal Portrait's and not so many defined lines that will be defined lines around the nose and the eyes of most dogs. And sometimes you can get away with the fine lines when it comes to the years. But but just keep that in mind a lot of times if you build up. If you build open implied line like here, like this land on building up on this side of the dogs here, a lot of times, that's all you really need. So you hear this? I used to get a little darker, so what you do is you can flip it. See, there's no charcoal on this side, and then you can start toe, start pushing and smudge that existing charcoal it's on to the paper and then push it pushed into the paper. It was nice, tight little circles while keeping this merger on its side. That's the big thing. Just keep it on its side and go back and forth. They will flip it back around. If you looked, it looks like there's a little little line here. So we pulled outside and flip it again and then use that same motion that we used to lay down the charcoal. Push it, smudge it, and that's what this does. This softens up that shadow while at the same time still very much staying true to type of shadows that you see in the reference image. Don't be afraid to use both sides, your smudges clean and, uh, and all trickled up. So flip it around a little bit more mid tones there, flip back, just kind of blend. This year, as you can see, both ends of that smudge, Ercan give you different looks onto the paper, So just be aware of that. And the more you use your smothers, the more second nature, these little nuance tricks will become for you. It'll be like second nature. You don't even think about it. Just do it. It just takes practice, That's all. Yes, something like this was gonna kind of blend this. Okay, I'm gonna take a medium charcoal. Remember how we were talking about define lines? Put a nice mid mitt light weight line right up right up to here. But I'm not gonna go all the way up to the top of this line. Go to write about right about there. Yeah, that's it. I'm not gonna go any higher, and I don't think I'm gonna put one. The world is up a little bit of implied line here. This is just kind of breaking the line up a little bit. Now what I'm doing, because I've swapped out my medium charcoal that I laid that applied lying down with for a heart charcoal. And so this is another layer in the main difference if you're not too familiar with the three layer method, is that hard? Char coals have more binder infused in them from the manufacturing process than a medium Charcoal does See you soon. I'm doing right here. See that short, short little polls making sure them there's adequate spacing between between those poles cause I don't wanna. I don't want them to be so lumped together that I basically do away with all of the high value retrieval that I just did with my Mona's over Racer, right? Yes, so hard. Charcoal has more binder in it, infused in it from the manufacturing process that medium charcoal does, and the same is true of medium too soft charcoal so soft Terkel has the least amount of binder in it, which is one of the reasons walking. We used it in our initial layering with our brush because it blends across the paper really well because there's no bind during it or very little of it were able to lift that charcoal up off the paper when were retrieving her high values with our monasteries. But when it comes to the hard charcoal, there's so much binder in it that it actually throws amid to hire value, and it sticks together extremely well. So in the wake of detail work, especially hair, right, it is perfect. It is your detailed charcoal. You can get away with detail charcoal with medium, depending on exactly what it is that you're trying to draw and what kind of value you're trying to convey. Soft charcoal I very rarely, if at all, use soft charcoal for detail work, so just keep that in mind. Soft charcoal for base layering, right kind of getting that initial layer on that underlying form. Then go in with your Mona's or racer. Hit all of your higher values and then painting out exactly what it is that you're drawing . You'll either use a medium charcoal or my favorite, the hard charcoal. A lot of times detail work. You're working in very tight areas, and you need pinpoint control for most detail work, right? And so because of that, you want to have a charcoal that has a lot of binder in it so that you don't get broken tips. You know, if you're tryingto convey a little bit of a lower value, pushing a little harder on to the paper, the last thing you want is the tip of your charcoal pencil toe to break on you. So just keep that in mind. But yeah, so basically, that's what we're doing here. Was going in We have a lot of pinpoint control when it comes to the brush this merger inter pencils as long as your pencil tips or sharpened extremely sharp. Um, you have the most control with your pencils and then seconded by your smelters and then 30 by your brush. But then he was gonna get this rolling. So this is a way to get the right amount of great Asian and cross your different values while at the same time being able to convey a very soft look for your for your and drawing . I'm just just be careful with with your brush work because you can pushed too hard and you could do away with all of the detail work that you just spent. Who knows how long conveying. So just just keep that in mind. But this left here of the dog is just about done. So lesson three, I'm gonna be taking you through, and we're gonna be drawing the right here. So 4. Base Layering & Detailing Right Ear: Okay, So as with the left ear. So with the right here, I'm just loading up my brush. You know what? I'm news. I'm gonna follow these lines that I laid down during my initial outline phase with my graphite pencil. I'm just gonna start building these lower values first. Same thing applies, as with the left here. As I was saying, whenever you're laying down the initial soft charcoal, you want to put it in areas where you were drawing will end up conveying a lower value overall. And then as that charcoal becomes less and less on your brush, you can take the brush and you can smear those higher values in areas where they need to be . But again, big thing with this step isn't Don't press hard. Don't press hard. I'm a big fan of letting my tools work for me. The brush wants toe wants to leave that charcoal onto the paper. Your racer wants toe lift that charcoal onto the paper, so let it do what it wants to do. Everything in the drawing process should be fairly effortless. About the only thing that really needs to have any kind of find it whatsoever is maybe when you're laying down defined lines because those actually do need to be no somewhat defined, of course, but they have their place in the drawing or when you're doing a lot of implied work like these ears, for example, um, you don't necessarily need toe. I need to use a lot of pressure control. So just keep that in mind. I hear notice. Notice how for the portion of the inside of dogs here where there's a very high value, I put hardly any charcoal in that area at all. And that's an example of. Remember how I was talking about retrieving high values with the left here? Well, that's a That's an example of doing what they call saving high values. Those are the two approaches that you could use you. Can you that retrieve? Or you can save? Um, you'll find through drawing a lot that when you retrieve your high values, that is going to be something that you we'll run into way more than, um saving, especially when it comes to drawing animals. When you draw people not so much, there's actually a lot more times where you'll find yourself saving areas of high value versus retrieving, so just keep that in mind. But then here, what I'm doing is there's a little bit more fluff buzz here at the beginning of the dogs here than there is on the dogs left here. And so what I'm doing is I'm just staying true to what I see so you can see that the length of the hair right here that I'm retrieving and pulling out of the soft charcoal is a little bit longer than the hair that's actually on the inside of the dogs here. So as we work our way up the top of this year, those polls but the models are a racer. They're gonna become shorter and shorter, and that's just something to be aware when it comes toe. Drawing any dog is that most dog breeds have 3 to 4 different links of here, just on their ear between their ears and their and their face and their neck. It'll be different lengths of for, even though it might all be the same texture, it will be different lengths. So that's up to you is the artist. Identify those variances in length and and adjust your eraser strokes to them so that you were drawing can be as accurate as possible. But here I'm doing exactly what I did with with the other here. Onley difference here is that if you look the reference image, this right here of the dog is going to be there's gonna be slightly more detail in it than the dogs left here. One of the reasons why at the very end of the last lesson I hit the dogs left here with the brush was toe just to soften it up and kind of take away a lot of that abrupt contrast between my high values that I retrieved with my models or a racer. And my hard charcoal work that I put down is because by the by the reference image, it's it's not nearly as defined, whereas the dogs right here is much more in focus with the camera lens of the photograph. So that's a way that you can stay true to, uh, so what you see in your photographs, you know, most most clients where you'll be drawing a pet of theirs. You know, pets are pets or family members, right? So you want to make sure that you try to get it is accurate as you can, and that's Ah, that's a way that you could do that. And then here this is another little trick that you could do, and you can just kind of more or less just pull up in, around, up and around. This is a way where you can convey kind of, ah, a softer look, while at the same time it's not the same type of look that you see at the top of the dogs here, So but there's lots of different lots of different techniques. When it comes to eraser work, you just gotta play with your eraser. Okay, so now swap the monitor out for a 3/16 sweater. And just like with the year before, what I'm doing is I'm using amid toe heavier pressure control, and I'm just going in and and laying down any of those lower values within this specific year. Granted, there's not a lot of them, but there are some lines that I want to make sure that I am speaking to. And then here's some detail work in the years to pull this up like this and notice how I didn't use my pencil for any of this because by nature it's It's pretty soft so I can get away with laying down these initial layers. Your lawyer's gonna building up kind of that imply it. Line on the edge of the dogs here. I don't like that lying there with my mom is a razor sums Gonna hit it, Clean it up. Um, done. And here was gonna kind of bring this up a little bit and check this out. So you see it where there's that shadow on the reference image. So this is a way that you can convey shadow work in in fluff And then, just like with the other side, I'm flipping this around of the the cleaner edge. It's more or less kind of blending it wherever that that shadow kind of hits that hits that Dogs here. I wouldn't have wanted to have done this with the other side because then I would have a whole mess on my hands. So a lot of times you can get the same kind of effect with your smudge er as you do with your brushwork. Only difference is this much your offers you more pinpoint control So just keep that in mind then here. I'm just building up these lower values the bottom of the year. Then he sure I'm taking my hard charcoal again. You want to use a hard charcoal for a lot of that, Those finite details, you know, any like in the hair and whatnot Because, especially when you think about the value scale with this, for especially in this part of the drawing, it's it's a It's a very high value. It's not even a mid value it so it's a high value. I remember how he said, There's so much finder in the hard trickle that it actually throws a mid to high value on the on the value scale. That's why we're using our charcoal for this. But here I'm just doing very, very light strokes, because if you if you look at the reference image, you don't have to press very hard at all. The big thing here is that you're highlighting those mid values immediately, next to those higher values that we just retrieved with our models or a razor, so it doesn't have to be very defined. It just has to be defeat up, you know, lower value low to mid value immediately next to those high values and then rinse and repeat right over and over again, just like this. And this is a way that you'll be able to really cash showcase the look that we see in the reference image. But one of the big things why I mentioned that I wanted to do this entire class in real time is because I wanted you to see my hand speed and in the motion of my hand and how I actually hit and strike the paper with my tools. Because I feel like this will really give you a much firmer handle on exactly how that technique has performed. Of course, you might draw a lot quicker than me. You might draw a lot slower than me. That makes no difference at all. The only thing that's important is this strike and how you actually touch the paper. So but every strike counts. And now here, as you can see, I don't want to go all the way down into those high values in that center piece center portion of the dogs right here. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna start building up those lower values and texture here. So already went in with my with my smarter, But here I have a little bit more pinpoint control. If my pencil So I want to go through. And this is where I can really streamline that Look that I want go up and stop right there , but perfect. Then you're swapped up for a medium middle midline waiter. My medium charcoal is gonna pull up. Take your time. Pretty new. These the fine lines. You don't need to go quick, so I'm actually taking this line moving it in. Did you see how soft and implied that piece of skin is That comes off the dogs here, Right there. I don't want to hit that with a medium charcoal. I want it to look soft on paper like it does in the in the reference image. So that's how we could do that. Let's clean this up a little bit. Do you kind of clean this up as well? I'm on a zero. Sweet. Okay, so I was gonna hit this. Just really liked my brush. I'm looking at the reference image. I'm seen where that shadow is. You got shadow it strikes the inside of the year and then goes up over the top. That's what I'm tryingto bring out. This, uh, portion of the drawing here down here is kind of blood slow boot. But like I said, be very, very light with the rush. I swapped that out for my heart. Charcoal pencil counts could continue, kind of bring these down, do a little bit longer strokes, and I did before a little bit longer. But I'm also not gonna be going all the way down so more or less just to kind of refine that that short, that short, thin hair look that we see and the dog's ears here. It's very easy to, um, over work the's years. But by looking at the reference image, you'll see that the majority of the time spent with our charcoal onto the paper is going to be in the dog's eyes. Of course, the dog's nose and then the dog's muzzle is his cheeks that dropped over the top of his chin. So that's where we spend the majority of our time. We don't want to spend too much time on these years because they are many things in this reference image, but they are not the focal points. Got it all. So when it comes to our drawing, we also want to make sure that we don't have a ton of detail in the years when there's really not a lot of detail in them Beacon with with the reference image. So just keep that in mind. Most all Pet Portrait's. You're going to spend a lot more time in the eyes and the nose of the dog than anywhere else. Okay, this is coming together quite nicely. Excuses are smoldering gains in the last minute blends in shadow work here. In there, this one's pretty good. We can run that smelter along the edge, and that gives us a nice round. It look almost like the years is ending. All right, So moving on to lesson for doing the forehead base. Larry and the left Eye 5. Left Forehead | Soft Charcoal | High Value Flow: okay. And us to the fun part. This is where we start, Really? Throwing some charcoal around. Some was taken by Russian. Just loading it up here. A little tone check, making sure it's the tone that we want. Okay, so, no, we're gonna start here on the skin. Wrinkles started the bottom of the wrinkle. And then while we have a lot of charcoal on this brush, we want to go through and we want to start running that charcoal along those those graphite lines that we framed in her outline First and same principle with the year as that charcoal dissipates on the brush and those are values become higher and higher because there's less and less charcoal on the brush. That's when we can start going over this skin wrinkles and start start pulling those those higher values. But as with the years burn mind, as with the years, we're not pushing hard. We're not pushing hard at all. The detail work in the for of this dog is a multilayered process, but also burn mind that we don't want our initial layer of charcoal to be too little, right? We don't want it to be too high and value because then when we go to retrieve those higher values with our racer work, they're not gonna be nearly is visible. Right? So that's that's something to keep in mind. Because if you're looking at this now and you're thinking, Wow, that's that's really dark like That's too dark like Howard like you've already watched the drawing, right? Well, no, no, we haven't. This is what we want. This is intentional. We want this to be slightly darker than it actually is in the reference image, because it's going to be, uh, lightened up when we retrieve our high values with our research work. Cash, loading this up little tone check. Same thing if you look the reference images were really low value right here, so there's nothing wrong with throwing down a good amount of charcoal. Start laying down the base for the's skin wrinkles, pulling here, pulling there big things. Just make sure when you're doing this step in your drawing process that you were pulling the charcoal in the direction that you would want your hair tell a all right. It's like here with the face, were pulling down because that's how the hair is actually going to be laying when we retrieve the hair in a higher value form with our Mona's er a racer. But this is the same principle for the entire forehead of this dog. But we're only gonna be doing into a part right here in this lesson. We got this little skin roll right above the nose. Okay, now, the fun part has with years. So with the face now, the big part on the way to get this accurate Zacharias you can get it from the reference image is to make sure that when you pull, you're pulling in the same direction that the hair is actually flowing in the reference image. It's like for this skin role here. I wouldn't want to pull straight up and down, right, that that's not how the hair actually flows. Reference image. I want to pull like this. All right, because this is that initial layer. I'm going to be going over this again with the hard charcoal to kind of set those mid toe lower values right next to the high values that I'm retrieving right now, just like I did with the years. Only difference is is that my polls with my pencil and my monitor racer are going to be different links. And those links are gonna vary depending on the right match with the dog's face. But here is gonna pull them right to left and down a little bit, just like this. You know, normally, in a normal tutorial, I would be speeding through all of this. I would probably kick this up to, like, 152 150 times normal speed, because what I'm doing is I'm doing the exact same thing. I'm just doing it in fluctuations. Right. But here you can see at the exact speed that I'm going and you can see the subtleties. And how way? Position my hand onto the paper. How I actually pulled my model Zahra Racer tip across. See how the angle has changed here. Now, when I look at the reference image that hair's coming straight from the year of the dog straight towards the center of the dogs for him. So I want to make sure that I stay true to that. Here we go. And then just like that, just kind of start your race or tip a little bit in to where you left off and then just pull it. And what this does is this makes it where you don't have a line, right? You don't have, like a dark line in between the differences of where you stopped with your Easter work and where you began an IMF. That's a problem that a lot of younger artists will run into. So that's the trick toe to beat that I didn't get that look that you want. But then here, the big thing to remember what this step is. We want to try to keep those areas of where the wrinkles are, where there is that lower value. We want to try to keep those as much as possible. Now, that doesn't mean that you avoid them altogether. Definitely hit them with the model zero raiser. But, um, what kind of respected with same time? And don't don't get rid of them completely now. This isn't the final aspect of those dark values. I'm going to show you how to use a smudge. It really bring out and in streamline those lower values in the skin wrinkles a little bit , but we put him there with the brush worries and just like when we highlighted where those lower values were going to be with our graphite pencil during the outline phase. Because that's what's going to give the viewer that sense of those skin wrinkles when they look at this drawing when it's all said and done. But all the while I'm referring to my reference image through all of this, and I'm pulling my mom knows or racer in the right direction. Now. Also, this this part of it doesn't have to be perfect. But just know that if you do pull it in the right direction as what is seen in your reference image, you're only going to help the the realism of your final final product. Worst case scenario. Let's say you're retrieving your higher values and you're not pulling. Your models are a racer in the proper direction. You can go in with, ah, hard charcoal and fix that somewhat. But it's better aesthetically if both your high values that you retreat with your mom is a racer and your heart charcoal strikes in unison with one another, meaning that they're lying in the same direction. So just keep that in mind. But that's what I'm doing here was going through and making sure that those lines lay it in the right direction. Because this is the second layer. First layer was the brushwork. The model zero racer is, uh, second layer, and every layers is crucial to the next. For all, they're all intertwined. There's no one layer that's more important than the other. They're all essential. Okay, now has promised. I'm gonna take my 3/16. You gotta pull it here. You know, Layton, that that value up a little bit now, remember how I said we could go in and we could streamline exactly where those those skin wrinkles are? Well, this is how we do it just like this. But the cool thing about this step is as long as your smudge er is loaded up with a decent amount of charcoal, you can go in and you can kind of more or less tap the paper. And because you retrieved those higher values with your Monzer research when even when you touch it, you still keep those value relationships that you've created between your high values and your your mid to low values. So this is a way that you can go in and you can really start start to streamline those wrinkles, clean that up of it, just like this year. Just kind of run it. Some are right there. That's it. Just like that. For these ones, you can kind of set your smudge on side drop down to a point right here. It's like there's like a little little heart wrinkle on the dog's forehead right there. Something like that, the area and see how you can actually push and pull. You could actually create more shadow effects with your smarter work, which I would actually recommend You use this merger versus the brush because again, this merger does offer you more control in that regard. Just kind of build up These lower values here went right along the top because the value is pretty low right above that wrinkle. And again, we'll be going in with the models areas. You're really, really setting this up, making it look as realistic as we can. I'm gonna run this along the bottom of the wrinkle kind like that, and what this does is by running. You're smarter along the bottom, and the top of the dogs wrinkles it gives the wrinkles form, right. It gives them that that rounded look so they don't look so flat. So one note. So just keep that mind You're barreling about him. He looks flattened, likes this there me go all of a sudden starting to look like it's a little round role, not a flat rule here. Oh, the I I don't want to run this merger right next to the I kind of like a bass player there and pull down. But this is just a bass player for the detail work. Because I'm gonna be going in with my medium pencil, and I'm gonna be you building this I up and making it look around in. So so here we are. Take a medium charcoal and I want to use, uh, well, like amid pressure control. But I don't want to press too hard. I just want to run this lineup top. This is what they call a defined line. Right? Pull that there. I remember I was talking about how I'll thick those. The islands are when these dogs pulled out there. No, a pack this in Wasn't dark, dark color, very low value. Like like that Carrie but I'm gonna take my head's going to start from this point here. Pull it away. Across. We're crossing up. Keep building. Keep building this. His French bulldogs have really relief. Think islands tuck in and underneath the eye. So okay, line up there. That gives that I kind of that rounded look sitting inside head there continue to kind of fill this part of it in. And I want to use a medium charcoal for this stuff because the medium has it doesn't have nearly as much finder in it as the hard does. And because of that, it throws a much lower value onto the paper. But it doesn't have too little binder in it, as you see with the soft charcoal, so that if I need to go in and lay in some defiant lines, which every I, of course needs I could do that. And the pencil tip is not gonna shatter on me, And it's actually gonna hold a really nice line weight. When I go to pull my define lines. Greedy. There's I hope that, uh, that looks good. Okay, so now remember, I didn't do this in the outline phase. I wanted to wait until I had built the outside structure of the I. So I'm just taking my graphite pencil, and I'm just more less highlighting or those high values they're gonna be. I'm gonna be saving these high values, right? Not retrieving these. There we go. OK, it's no Swapped it back for my medium charcoal. And I am highlighting these outlines here, here, in here. So now this center, the dog's eyes, the lowest value. So I want to make sure I go in and gonna fill that old in because what I'm gonna be doing, I'm using my smudge, er, I'm gonna be pulling all of this from the center to kind of build the the overall form off that, uh, the dogs. I just Then just pull this straight out C that I'm pulling it straight out from the center . That's what you want. And by doing it this way, what you do is you You convey a like a rounded around it. Look, Versace. If you're just to go in and start, maybe say pushing the charcoal from the outside in it just it wouldn't look the same. It wouldn't look quite right. So So make sure you do it like that. Okay, It's looking pretty good. Pretty good. Okay, Snow here blend this year. And the thing with eyes is I've always said is you can overwork him, so just just make sure you don't do that. Get in, lay down What you need to lay down and then get out. So you're just laying out a little bit more charcoal here. You see how there's that It's dark immediately under the dogs, I but yet it's, ah higher value than what's immediately below it. So that's this is how you're able to convey that. That look with smelters. Yeah, And then, just like immediately around the I could just you could use your 3 16 smudge, and you can just more or less push and pull. And what will happen is a lot of that charcoal, because it's medium durable that you laid down around the eye. It will come out and you can, and you can go in and you can add all sorts of detail, work if and when you want to. But this is looking pretty good so far. Lay that down there. I mean, in the more you play with your smugglers me, and the more techniques yield you'll uncover, you can get away with. It's not here. I'm just going to with my medium Turkel. And I'm just kind of more or less gonna pack in this in making it a little darker, a little darker. And then here I'm some very lightly heating the paper here very lately because I want to give the look of some detail in the eye. But I don't want toe overwork the I. So here, on the very top, there's a much darker, much lower value. Then there is anywhere else in the eye, kind of dark in that up a little bit, and that makes the I look, look rounded. All right, so that's what I want. And if it looks good, you see how it kind of looks creepy If it if it looks great, he don't worry, because I can go in with the smudge er and I can kind of blend that so it will give me a lower value. But it won't look gritty, right? It looks smooth, just like this year. You take 3 16 Go back and forth. Nice taste, little circles if you want, and it. It blends it. It softens it all up. Really nice. Here we go. Something like that. A good trick when it comes to rises, draw the same I three times and then draw different I three times and then draw third eye three times. Make sure they're different, though, and you can swap back and forth between humanize animal eyes. But one of the things you'll find is all of a sudden you'll recognize your own approach, how you feel comfortable drawing out, and I and it will really help you. So it's a technique, um, that actually written a book in the drawing book once my practices and it really worked out for me so it might work out for you, too. But then here, Hinduism's gonna built out the dogs shoulder here. It's truly it's gonna hit it with some soft charcoal pull down one way another way. Here, kind across hatchet. In a sense, if you want to call it that being Bata Yes, I like that snow. All of a sudden, we have the dogs head in conjunction with his shoulder. So now listen, If I were to be detail in this whole section that we just did 6. Left Forehead Detail Work | Medium & Hard Charcoal: Okay. So as with the years, I'm taking a hard Terkel pencil. I'm starting with this skin role here, and I'm just going back and forth. I'm using very light pressure control. There's no need to push hard in this step. If you press too hard with the hard charcoal, it'll, um, give us a little bit too low of a value. And if you look at the reference image, yes, there's texture on this part of the dog's face, but there's not a lot of low value texture. There is little value here in between this skin wrinkle and then the skin wrinkle next to the dogs I But that's it. So and then here it's gonna lift up. They're kind of blend this just like that. This is a fun step, because this is really where you is. The artist get you get, start to solidify exactly what um, this Ryan's gonna look like. But here you see how a lot of these hairs on this skin role of this this part of the daughter or the short you're really fuzzy. So what that means for you is when you're going down toe, lay down that detail work you want to use really short, really short little poles, and in some instances you just want to press the paper touch to a point and that's it and then move on. But this is one of the reasons why I was saying the direction of where you poll for your high values when you're retrieving them with your monitor. A racer is so important because if you can get both of those, both those high values and then here with your medium too low values. If you get get both of those to line up, then you got something and then it looks aesthetically. It looks, looks accurate and looks appealing something like that. And as you can see, this doesn't take a long time. No middle, and this does not take a long time. It'll the biggest thing is just being aware of the direction that your polling, because of course, that is going to convey underlying form. And remember, what I always say in these tutorials is underlying form is one of the hardest things to to convey because it's it's something that you have to be conscious of, and everything that you do onto the paper So that's why those form lines that I showed you how to lay down in the initial step are so important is because those air meant to act as a za guide, much like training wheels on a bicycle for your first time riding a bike are meant to help you. Hey, look, this is what you need to be aware of. This is what you do. Make sure that you're conveying so. But then here, So so much of this drawing is using extremely extremely light pressure control this whole line here between the dogs left eye and then it's here. That's all implied. So I'm not gonna be going in and putting a defined line down. So I need to make sure that as I am running my heart charcoal here away from the eye, I need to make sure that I'm trying to convey that that furry nous right that texture of the for because it's the texture of the for that is really the only differentiator between that part of the dogs forehead like his temple. And then the year. And now I hope that you can start to see why we went so dark, right? why we laid down such such a low value with that initial brushwork before we went in with their models are razor because the darker that step is, then the more texture you're able to convey with, um, with your higher values. But then hear on the news. I'm just more of the starting to solidify this, this next role here that comes underneath that the bigger one that's immediately under the eye. And if it looks like you can't really tell the difference between where those roles are, don't worry about that, because I'm going to be showing you a really cool effect with your smugglers that you can do. And you can use Teoh really kind of bring out the contrast between each role on the dog's face. And not only that, but it will build some form to the dogs, skuh, skin rolls, skin wrinkles and and you'll be ableto to see how much more realistic it looks. But I'll show you that when the time comes, you can go in and you can start toe add detail work to even areas on the drawing where there are a lot of lower values, like right here, like right by the right by the I Then start doing short, short little throws or you touch the paper. Then you pull. But again in this part of the draw and you want to be you want to be very careful with exactly how long or short your polls are so that you are staying true to what is actually in your reference image. But just like this short, short little pools and do whatever works for you. Sometimes I find painting of where I'm at in the drawing that when I'm throwing down those short little polls with my heart charcoal that sometimes going like this, going from left to right from bottom to top is more comfortable. And then other times, if I want to pivot around, I want to start pulling from top to bottom like, say, right to left. I could do that, but I only ever pivot when I need to, depending on how that hairs flowing across the face of the dog. So just keep that in mind. Well, I say here, for example, just just short little throws and one of the things that you'll find will actually work to your benefit is if you actually start on the edges of the wrinkle right where there's those those slightly darker values, you know, we're like a wrinkle comes up to a wrinkle. If you start pulling with your hard charcoal their first, you'll get a really, really nice look starting from the edges edge, isn't it? I'm working my way up. And if there are places you parts of forehead of this dog where you think wow, that's little to that looks a little too chorus, right? Hasn't look soft enough. Don't stress don't stress at all because we can go in with our brush and we can hit those sections, you know, if need be. I'm very quickly hit him very lightly with our brush and that gives us Ah, nice soft gradation and it and it gives us a soft look as well. So blends our values together, and, uh, it smooths the overall aesthetic very nicely. But again, especially this part of of the drawing, you want to make sure that we're pulling in the same direction as a reference image and this and like I said, this is a real time here. This is not sped up. It all this is This is how quickly you could draw with this technique. Um, and all you need to know is just the subtleties of it. Most do. You probably draw faster than me anyway. So very slow, Very slow artist. I like to take my time with with each and every stroke. It's the process that I enjoy. Okay, that's coming together. Pretty, pretty cute, pretty good. And now, in some areas of this, you can actually go in with with a medium charcoal if you want Teoh, um, for the whole top of this forehead, I would kind of advise against it, but say, for example, around the eye, you definitely build up detail work with a medium charcoal and then right at the top of of the big role that's immediately underneath the dogs. I You can build up a lot of value there as well. In here, it's gonna more less cross hatching went down around and then kind of just across. That's another technique that you can use if you want to try to get that that aesthetic. Get that look. But But here's that trick out was telling you about with with this much or So So the 3 16 I'm just going through. I'm just very lately kind of hitting any part that I need to hit. I kind of get next blend onto the paper. And also, this helps me, um, convey a form a swell and you congrats. You're smudge. Or run it sideways like this and that I give you a nice A nice blend onto the papers. Well, while at the same time not doing away with all of that, that really finite detail that you laid down and then you're gonna nudism is running this much or along the edge of that of that that wrinkle and see what it does kind of gives it some form, right? Kind of makes it look around. This is this is that trick and you don't have to hit this very hard. It'll one or two touches all of a sudden it's a little round recall. So a little here, little there, no, wherever, Wherever you think, wherever you think that it needs it, where it needs that blend, because this is doing a couple things. This is not only bringing out that that underlying form between each skin wrinkle, but it's also blending and putting shadow on the wrinkles where it needs to be put. And that's not gonna do anything but help your viewers. I pick up the forming Beck. Wow, that looks That looks really, really realistic. Doesn't look flat, right? It doesn't look two dimensional. It will make your drawing look three dimensional even though, And I've said this in other lessons, no drawings are only ever going to be in two D space. So here, this is a medium charge. Remember how I said you could use the medium charcoal for this level of detail work? This is This is exactly how you do it. What I'm doing is I'm referring to the reference image in and right here. There's a lot of areas in the for where you do have a love breaks and and the thing with the medium charcoal when you make sure it's sharp and you're conveying thes thes details in the fur is your accentuating the value scale right? Which I've said another and other lessons se on my YouTube channel is this is really what makes a drawing, you know, kind of pop kind of kind of jump off of the paper compared to compared to other drawings is when you have a drawing where you're not utilizing complete white to complete black and everything between. Sometimes you'll get a drawing that looks looks kind of flat where if you do utilize everything between complete white and complete black, like the three layered method which I'm future, you know, it allows for that, Um, you basically are getting a drawing that that does jump off the paper. And so I care. What I'm doing is I'm just real lately hitting the drawing and I'm pulling. I'm making sure when I touched the paper that I'm pulling in the direction of the wrinkles on the skin. And so what this does is this gives us a nice gradation where there needs to be gradation. But at the same time, it's also blending and softening up, uh, for so and here I can go back in with the hard charcoal. I can follow those lines, and I can just refine this look. Aziz much or Aziz little a Zay want Teoh, and that's one of the things that I really truly do love about. The three layered method is that it's a method that allows you to put in as little or as much detail work as you see fit. It's also a technique that is extremely forgiving. So if you mess up nine times out of 10 you can fix your mistake very quickly. And so it's It's definitely a method for, um, for beginner level artists, maybe someone who's trying toe figure out, um, a good way to be ableto continue to build their own skills while at the same time, even though they're not quite where they want to be, yet still be able to make some really, really awesome drawings. That's That's one of the reasons why I love teaching this this method. But this is coming together pretty well. So, like say here, for example, I want to actually make this role a little bigger. So I'm gonna hit right there, kind of erasing that I'm gonna rebuild it, re re put where I want that wrinkled to be. That's all it takes. It's literally a fix. Could be as quick is that when her home was taking my medium charcoal and I was going in and putting some dark hashes wherever they wherever they need to be short, short little dots. It's pretty good. And you can use muggers for this part of the drawing if if you want as well, we just kind of depends on how much detail, um, ward a little detail. You want to have just follow that line up something like that. Wonderful. From the right down here. Same thing. So what I'm doing is I'm basically looking at the reference image and anywhere where there is a lower value, I'm taking my medium charcoal, and I'm basically putting in that that detail work. I'm using the same and gestures emotions as I use with my hard charcoal on Lee. I'm using the medium charcoal, which, of course, has less binder in it, and it conveys a lower value. You're actually I want to make that still a little bit a little bit bigger. So this is a prime example of messing up, right? Make this a little bit bigger. So it's gonna be like that This a little wider, too. Then go in with my medium charcoal. You see that? See, I was able to make those a little bit bigger with very, very minimal effort. That's literally all it takes and that's that forgiveness With three leered method, you're mistaking my medium. Charcoal is kind of building this portion of it up, putting some texture runnin utes dogs. I making this look is around as I can get it something like that and want things that makes this drawing, um a little bit more challenging than other drawings is the fact that you have a lot of implied lines. And most all of these implied lines are conveying the overall underlying form of the French Bulldogs face. So, I mean, if you can get if you can get good with with implied lions and utilizing your value scale to its fullest potential to convey that underlying form, then you got something. So and here I was taking my brush was gonna kind of blend all this real quick and this whole side of faces just about just about done here. I'm just taking my models, the restrooms gonna lighten this up a little bit, See that that's literally old. Takes real quick boom. All of a sudden I have Ah, nice little islet or anything. I just like that. That's pretty much the end of this lesson now. Lesson six We're going to be going over the right side of the forehead. We're gonna be doing base, Larry, and the second I 7. Right Forehead | Soft Charcoal | High Value Retrieval : Okay, so now what we're doing is we're taking our size six brush, and I'm loading up with some more soft charcoal moving up on both sides so I can apply the charcoal on one side. And then, as my value gets gradually higher and higher, I can flip it over, and I can have a low value again. But the thing here again is to just focus on building up your lower values. Uh, first, that's That's the the big trick with the brush. If you can remember to go after the lower values in your drawing first, the rest of the drawing, meaning your mid to high values will take care of themselves. So just just always remember that, as you can see in this section of drawing the skin, wrinkles on the Bulldogs forehead are a little less prominent, so we still want to do this year. We still want to indicate where those wrinkles are slightly, Um, but, uh, we also don't want to push too hard, so we just more or less want to. I want to very lately show where those lower values are, where those wrinkles. So let's say here, for example, we're starting on that line. If you look at the reference image, you can see how the I in the temple of of the I is pushed forward, and then the rest of the the forehead of the dog kind of goes back towards its here. So we want to have a nice, nice medium value all the way back towards the year. And remember, this is just simply our base layer, because we're going to be going in with our Mona's or racer, just like we did to the other side, ever going to be retreating those those higher values. A lot of times people will get well, go get kind of unsure when it comes toe brushwork because the margin for error, um, is increased because you have less control over exactly where that that charcoal is going. But if you just treat it and use your brush work for two parts of your drawing. One part is this part here. What we're doing now that that initial base layer in with soft article and then if you use your brush for, you know, just doing gradation and shadows smudges after all of your other layers you put down those air Really the two parts of the drawing that you utilize your brush the most four in this three layered A technique. So but now here we are same principle as the last lesson. Now that we have the base layer of soft charcoal, um, put down now we can go in and we can refer to a reference image while we do this and we can be sure of the links of our different polls with our models or Racer. We want to make sure that we're pulling in the same direction that the hair is flowing with our reference image. And that's really all you have to worry about in this step. It's just direction, length of poll. Because, remember, this is but the second layer in 3 to 4 layers five layers if you count the brushwork on the gradation method that we use, the kind of blend it all together here. But as you can see, I just went over that lower value with my models or a racer. But yet you can still see where that lower value is, even amongst the texture of the hair, just like the reference image in that same location. So that's That's one of the reasons why I use this specific technique when it comes to trying to convey those those different wrinkles in the dog's skin. And this same technique will work for, you know, an English bulldog. It will also work for like, say, a shar Pei, you know, because they're very wrinkly and they're famous for their for their wrinkles. Any dog, any dog that has a lot of excess skin, this same technique with with the brush and then using your smudges like we did to kind of accentuate the the skin rules on the other side of for it in the last lesson. That's one of the reasons why I use this technique is because it works that here was going down, bringing out those higher values and in this skin role here for skin wrinkle, whichever. But. But the big trick, as with any step in the overall drawing process, is to just take your time. You know, accuracy so much of the time in drawing, especially requires time, requires a finite focus. Um, you know, if you rush through your drawings unless you're confident in your abilities to maintain accuracy and And what not with your speed. Um, just be careful. But the cool thing about about this technique is that it does allow for you to move slightly, slightly fast and at the same time not having to sacrifice on the quality of your work. For those of you that have been following Mr Creations for a while, I mean, you guys already know how seriously I take the quality of my drawings. I am by no means the best artist out there. There are many, many artists out there that are way better than I am. But the thing that I have always tried to to do, for my own sake and for and for my own sanity when it comes toe when it comes to drawing is I've always tried to do the best work that I can and and, you know, is the individual artist. If the work that you're putting out is is the best quality that you can produce at that time, and there's nothing against saying that you won't get better. Of course you'll get better only after he was practice, just like anything in life. Just do it over, over, over and slowly the habituation of doing it over and over and over again. We'll turn you into a master. You know, it might not happen overnight. It might not happen next year, but eventually one day you'll wake up and you'll be where you want to be is for us the quality of your if you're drawing. So so here. I'm actually gonna lighten this up, like how dark that is. But getting here I'm still tryingto try to convey a little like a medium value here. And this is another trick that you can do. You can take your smarter and you can kick it sideways. Pull left to right. Left, right, left, right. And what this does is this kind of this much is the charcoal, And it kind of gives you a softer look while the same time Still kind of give me those breaks in value, you know, high to low, high to low. And it actually does give you a form of hair texture, just like this year. See that? See, all of a sudden we have a wrinkle. We barely had to touch the paper. Smugglers are an absolutely wonderful tool because there's so many different ways that you can use them. Cam's gonna go in some. I'm gonna go back and forth real quick. Here we go. Get that. They're all right. OK, I got my medium charcoal. Right. We're going to solidify this. I This dog needs another. I I'm just gonna pull this define line here. Nice medium. Lie in. Wait in here. Start from the corner. Slowly. Pull it. The big thing with this step is make sure that the pace that you start with us, the pace that you end with and what that will ensure is that launcher and nice, consistent line Wait from the beginning to the end. A lot of times, if you start slowing and fast, what you'll see is you'll actually have a thicker line at the beginning, and then you'll have a fitter line at the end. So just just keep that in mind. Just something for you to be aware of. And for those of you that that aren't aware, like when I say line quality, what I'm saying is is the thickness or thinness of a line like I was saying with different speeds, you know, by varying the line quality of an artist can so form in a drawing with just three use of simple, simple line work. Like like what we're doing here again, this thes French bulldogs they have. I have a pretty thick, thick eyelid that kind of can it curls in. So that's That's one of the reasons why we have this this low value immediately above the dogs I and then also, while we're on the subject of lines while we're putting in this I. There's also a term that they call line weight, which is basically used to describe the relative strength of a line, or how light or dark it appears onto the paper. It's not here. I'm just taking my graphite pencil, and I'm just kind of outlining the detail that's going to be going inside of the that center of the eye. It's kind of hard to see in this reference image, but it's someone right about here and in this situation. You see how if you look at the reference image, it's really hard to kind of pull out exactly where that center of the eye is. You can use the other I in the drawing as a reference point for this one. Because so much of the time when animals or even humans we're looking at one specific object in a photograph, those eyes will line up for the most part. So it's a little trick that you can use when it comes toe drawing out your eyes and then just like the other I What we're doing is we're taking the medium charcoal, which holds a a lower value than a high charcoal wood. So we're just packing that in the first outlining these these high values her right about there was going to use the light. Okay, now I was taking my 3 16 smudge, and this is the small size of this merger, and I'm just doing the exact same thing they do with the other. I'm start pulling and smudging the charcoal from the center, and then I'm working my way out. And if you feel like the center of the eye is becoming too light in value or too high in value, if we're being true to definition, don't worry about that, because you can go back in with the medium charcoal and you can you can pack that charcoal in there and you could lower that that value in the center of the But the biggest thing with eyes is you want you want eyes to be soft in here. Um, just solidifying that that lower that lower part of the And if you actually look at the reference image, you can see how this is all lower value immediately under the eye. But then we have a nice kind of line, if you will. Immediately under the I were the value itself. It is a little higher right on. Then there's a streak where the value gets its lower, just like the other side. And so this is a way where you can start to build the layers with your smelter, work to start to bring out that that form of the I. But everything, everything in this in this approach is simple layering. It's layer upon layer. It's just knowing what toe layer and win toe. Layer it. We're taking that medium charcoal. I'm just I'm using a very light pressure controller. I'm just kind of having the charcoal lay on top of the charcoal that I've already smudged down, just like I did with the other I. And this actually adds detail work as well. But then hear this What I was talking about before I was taking my chart, and I'm packing in that that medium charcoal into the center of the eye. I just can be tricky because you can overwork, and I very, very easily. And since I was with soul of any subject, we want to make sure that that we do them justice and that we don't don't overwork them. Okay, so you see this here, see how light that high value actually needs to come over a little bit. I'm using the eye itself is a reference point. There we go. That looks good, Alex. More accurate. I was gonna build this up a little bit more. But when I get that with the Montezuma Racer, that's a prime example of why you want to use a very, very light pressure control with your hand. Especially when you're laying down that initial layer with your brush so you can lift lift that lower value right off of the paper and really start to streamline what you need Your arms. Take him a medium Charbel amusing amid toe. Have your pressure control. It's more or less kind of stock in the sin because this part of the dog's face has a very low value. Yes, I want to make sure that I'm being true to that. And the cool thing about drawing dogs. As you can see, even though I have laid down this charcoal straight with the pencil, it is kind of a kind of gritty, which in this case, actually works toe our advantage because of how short the hair of this French bulldog is. I was gonna pull this down and then I want to take my medium charcoal and I want to use ah , mid pressure control here. I just more or less kind of glide over all of the soft charcoal that I smudged with with my 3/16 much er, but I don't want to go all the way up to the because here, after this is laid down, I can go ahead and hit this with this much, and I can blend this and I want to keep that that lighter value. Now I'm using a very, very late pressure control here, and I'm going and kind of ah, kind of around in motion, right, because that's the shape that's the underlying form of the island. But yet I didn't press too hard. And so when I go to smudge this, I'll have a lower value immediately underneath that high value that's immediately underneath the eye. Just like that comes this much at work. So now you can you the do tight circles or just kind of go back and forth? Whatever works best for you, whatever works best for you. But here, what I'm doing is I'm is I'm pushing. I'm pushing the charcoal into the into the paper. Now, when it comes to smudge, it work. Just realize that the longer you spend on one particular part of your drawing and you keep smudging and you keep smudging the lower and, uh smoother that specific area is going to look. So it's much. Your work is a lot like when it comes to laying the trickle down onto paper right a little bit of first, and then you can always go back over it and smudge it a little more. Smudge it a little more, smudge it a little more, so just make sure that that's the approach that you use, and you'll very rarely overworked paper because I mean, let's face it. The last thing you want is you don't want to sit there and smudged people this much the papers, much papers, much the paper and then all of a sudden really go. Well, that's that's not what I want. And you have to go back right and you try to lift and bring a higher value out of something that you just completely overworked. So just be aware of that. But then here I was taking my smarter, and I'm more or less solidifying where I want the bottom part of that that's get wrinkled to be okay, So moving on to Lesson seven, we're going to be going over the detail work for the forehead and the I. 8. Right Forehead Detail Work | Medium & Hard Charcoal : Okay, so now busting out the hard charcoal right? And, uh, the big thing to beware of in this step is the sharper you keep. You're hard charcoal. The more refined that and aesthetic is going to look. And especially when it comes to dogs such as a French bulldog, more like an English bulldog or any dog breed that has really short, really worthy course here like this. You're going to want to have a more refined look. Now, if this was like, say, a golden retriever, then you would actually want to use a lot more smudge or work a lot more eraser work, and you might even be able to get away with medium a charcoal in the wake of your detail work. But when it comes to really, really short hair of the margin for error is is, uh, very small, right? So you want to make sure that you're hard char coals and your medium circles, if you want to use medium circles for this step, are sharp as you can get them. The thing with charcoal, though, is that the tips tend to I tend to get worn down fairly quickly. So if you find yourself needing to take breaks every 5 to 10 minutes just to simply sharpen your pencil. Then go ahead and do that because you want to have pinpoint control. When it comes to your detail work of all the parts of your drawing, you want to have pinpoint control. You want to have it in your detail work because that is where you're really refining your drawing and bringing out those subtleties that that the human eye picks up subconsciously but that a person won't actually notice unless they are really, really looking at the drawing. So just just keep that money. But the same principle applies for this step as what applied when we were retrieving all over higher tones with promoters or racers, right? It's the direction, the direction of your strikes and of your polls that will eventually bring out that really nice, accurate look. But for me, I've been doing this for a while now, so I know where I can get away with jumping around and doing a little here and doing a little there. But for you, if this is, say, maybe your first time drawing a French bulldog simply simply focus on one skin wrinkle at a time. And and really look at your reference image and just analyze the direction of the flow. You've heard me say in past videos that I'm not a fan of drawing things. Picture perfect and one of the reasons wise, because I like the idea of an artist, someone who draws. I like the idea of having the creative freedom to be able to kind of manipulate your medium , however you see fit, and if it works for you, then then it works for you. So the cool thing about having creative freedom is that you don't have to worry about what you're actually doing onto the paper. And if it actually looks exactly like you're drawing, I know it's kind of an unorthodox way to look at drawings. It's It's a viewpoint that has actually been criticized by other artists, but that's that's totally fine. That's totally fine. The beauty of art, in my opinion, is that it's subjective beauty, all right, What's beautiful to one person might not exactly be beautiful to another, but that doesn't make it so. But what we're doing here is I'm simply doing short little throws, a short little throws. But the big thing is, when you're going to do this, just make sure that when your pencil, it's the paper, you have an honest strike. You hit the paper and then you pull in the lift, hit the paper, pull you lift, and then here it's gonna take my number six brush. And I'm just gonna very lightly very lately hit the paper and just kind of get get some good blends going on where they need to be. With this step, you can just barely touch the paper. It's more less. Just do like a little press here, A little press, They're a little pull here a little pull there, See that? What happens is it blends the charcoal and it gives you that soft look. But as long as you have a really light pressure control, you're not gonna wipe away all of the detail work, all right? It's like here we're gonna start from there. We're gonna kind of pull a little bit a little bit here, a little bit there and then here to set it, pull it just like that. It really lights one or two passes one or two passes this just kind of darkens it up. Kind of blends it all together and it gives us great Dacian Gradation is huge with this technique. Okay, I'm gonna take a medium charcoal. And if you actually look right around this I there's lots of little places where we can get away with with implementing nice little low value dots, Short little strikes. Right. But again, just like with our hard charcoal pencil, we want toe have really sharp pencil, right? We want to have pinpoint control and one of things you'll find as you detail with your medium charcoal is because there's less binder in the medium charcoal as compared to your hard charcoal. What you're gonna find happens is that the tip on your medium charcoal is gonna wear down twice is fast. Is your heart terrible? So just keep that in mind and because there's less binder in your medium charcoal pencil and there isn't your heart charcoal, you actually don't need to use nearly as much pressure When it comes to your pressure control. You'll find that the medium charcoal wants to throw a nice low value for you, and you don't really have to do much of anything but see here Arms kind of running it along where that lower value is immediately underneath the eye. So it goes, I high value and then lower value as we move down towards the cheek. Something like that. Then hearing wanted a graphite pencil. This nose is a little out of wack, so I'm just gonna take it right here. Read. Situate my line right there. Bring that around. Boom. That's it. I don't think my soldier, it's gonna blame this. And Boylan There we go. See how easy that is. That's one of the reasons why I love the three layer method is because if you make a little mistake like that was a proportion error, right? But yet it was easily correctable. And that's what I want to show you guys. I don't want to hide my mistakes from my students. I want you guys to see that I'm just a human as you are, and I make mistakes in my groins all the time. And this is something that that I I love to do. I love to draw, but yet I make mistakes in every single drying that I do. Like I said, there's no such things. Perfection. Not in my mind. You know, if your life was perfect all the time, you would probably wouldn't appreciate, you know, the good times. You know, if all the times were always good there, you never had any bad times. You wouldn't know the difference between a good time in a bad time. It's the same and drawing. If you never had a bad drawing, you wouldn't know the difference between man. I really nailed this drawing versus man. I don't ever want to draw one of those again, so just keep that in mind. Okay? So we're gonna be moving on to lesson eight. We're going to be in the right cheek and based clearing for on the nose. 9. Right Cheek | Nose | Smudger Tricks: Okay, so we're taking our number six brush loading up on one side here with some soft charcoal. Now I'm going to start here at the bottom again. I'm starting where there is a lower value, and then I'm just running my brush, the center of the mouth because if you look the reference image, that's where the lowest values are. But that's the big thing with your brush work, lower values and then the higher values will take care of themselves. I know I'm probably repeating myself a lot with that, but honestly, that is what it takes to become affluent in any artistic method is you just have to do it over and over and over again, right? You've heard me compare the form framing in the initial lesson to training wheels on a bicycle and the reason why I compare it that ways because I truly believe that that's that's some very good analogy that we can use. But if you look at that, you see how we have a base layer. We clearly have points of contact where there are lower values, and then we have points where they're going to be higher values. But now when we go through with their models or Eastern and we start laying down that initial layer of hair texture, those differences in values are going to shine through that texture, just like the wrinkles on the forehead. Just because it's a different part of the drawing doesn't mean that principally the approach that we're utilizing isn't the same. It is very much the exact same thing. The difference comes in the subtleties of what we do, such as the direction of our eraser polls, where were retrieving those higher values or say the direction of our medium and hard charcoal strikes and polls. When it comes to bringing in mid toe lower values immediately, next to our mid to high values, you know the viewers, I will see what it wants to see so you don't necessarily have to have your drawing be picture perfect as long as that it is very similar. That's that's really all you need to do. But that's for you to decide. But the big thing here is I'm just taking my models or Ari's room, and I'm just going back and forth, almost like in a w motion, just like up and down up and down, but I'm actually keeping my pencil strike on the paper. I'm not I'm not lifting up while I almost like a zigzag, right? We just pay attention to where those hair strikes are Now, see how if you look see how the hair in this section of the reference images growing down where when I started up top, the hair was growing up, right? It's that level of attention to detail that will really make or break, um, a French Bulldog portrait. So just just be aware of that. Okay, so now switch it up. This is a size 3 16 smoke, and what I'm doing is I'm building up the low values. First, something's going in them, doing the basis of low value for the nostril here and then also the way. The way that she kind of comes off of this knows there's there's a lower value here. Then it kind of kicks out like like that. That's that's good enough that I can I can play in this year's I can pull up, pull up from it, and then you can start from the bottom and you can pull up when it comes to any when it comes to the edges of anything in charcoal. Always build the boundary first, and then you could pull up and over. You could pull charcoal away from that boundary. And not only does that give you a boundary, but it also gives you kind of, ah, kind of around it. Look. But I was able to accomplish all that was so much work. And then here you see how there's that lower value. In the end, we can go in just like we did with the wrinkles on the top of the dogs forehead, and we can start kind of solidify thes thes, lower value points in the cheek, um, up this dog. And remember, with this step, the smaller you're smarter and smaller, your your smug, your head like, say, for example, this is a 3 16 which isn't the smallest, but it's pretty small. The more pinpoint control you have, it's the same principle. If you of sharpen your your pencil like super sharp, right, you have really, really a small area of pinpoint control, which is what you want, especially for for detail work. So just keep that in mind. But this is an opportunity misstep here for you to go in and really kind of accentuate those those wrinkles and exactly kind of how that that sheikh flows when it comes to your overall aesthetic, it was continuing to build up the edge here. Then here's another trick. You can just take this on its side because if you notice right here is where the hair kind of actually kind of stops. There's not a lot of hair right right here, right underneath the nose. So this is a way where we can still convey texture, just a different type of texture. It's like it's like skin without hair. And now we're gonna go in and I'm gonna start laying down foundational layers of charcoal for the for. The Frenchies knows here, but that's really the That's really the big thing when it comes toe drawing with charcoal is just focus on those on those lower values first and again, this is just a simple base layer. I'm gonna be going in with a medium charcoal and hard charcoal, and I'm really gonna be bringing out the shape of the snows. So say here, medium charcoal. There's a pretty, pretty defined line right here, sums. Gonna hit it one concise, pull right up the middle and then write about here. This thing gets a little little whiter, then, right? Here's where I can go in and start to finding the nose from the cheek. I'm outlining the nostril, comes right in here, comes out, comes out and then up, and then just lift up as you pull up. That's a And then here we want to get some definition between the nose and that. That wrinkle pulling the sober about like that where we are all of a sudden. What that does is that that brings the nose forward while at the same time pushing that that skin wrinkle that's on top of the nose back a bit, right? So that helps with our with our dimension and our and our form noses right about right about there. But see, here's more of an implied. It was like a raised position of the notice. Rather than putting a line there, I'm just gonna go back and forth a little bit of I don't want to put it to fine line right there. The dog knows is air. Actually, some of some of my favorite parts of doing dog Portrait's. I feel like every dog has kind of like their own, their own knows, You know, it's kind, like their personalities, very individual, like us There were. That's starting to look good. Now the cool thing about this part is, even though it's it is greedy. There are places where I'm going to be going in with that 3/16 merger, and I'm gonna be hitting this and blending it so that it does have a gritty look. Yes, like a porous look, right, like most like like most noses. But at the same time, it's also going to It's also going to have some form, and it's gonna have that the look of of of a nose. So but here's Phar is like the shadows and stuff we can start to lay down kind of a greedy , greedy base layer with the medium charcoal. The cool thing about the medium charcoal is kind of like soft charcoal, because there's a lot less binder in it than, say, the hard charcoal, and we go to hit it with this merger, it'll smosh in it'll it'll blend into itself and the paper fairly easily so we won't have to fight it so much. But here we take that 3 16 just kind of run around the edges first and speaker, if you don't overdo it. If you look, there actually is. A lot of places on this knows where it's more of a high value. Right then. It is a low value, so the big thing is just trying to convey form here. Duncan Bay on a convey for. And if you find that, you know if you find that you overworked the nose and there's just a lot of places where it's more of a little value than it is a high value in places, don't worry about that because you can use your Mona zero racer and you can go in and you can lift that it that up fairly, fairly easily. The thing with this step here is just make sure that you're using a lighter pressure control, right? Like I said before, the medium circle has less binder in it that this was if you were trying to so much us with hard charcoal and it wouldn't lift off the paper nearly as well. But because we're using a A medium charcoal middle lift off the paper for us, but then your arms running this along right along the edge here. And that's giving the skin wrinkle. But immediately behind the nose a little bit more dimension. We're slowly, slowly blending this, but that's about it for the base layering for the right side of the muscle and the nose. We're gonna go into lesson nine now, and we're gonna do all the detail work on the nose in the cheek. 10. Right Cheek | Nose | Detail Work: Okay, It's now this is a hard charcoal, and this is what I'm gonna be doing. See this and hit the paper. Have short, short little polls upon my strike, just like this. Hit paper and then pull hits paper, then pull. The cool thing about this is when you look at the reference image, this specific section of the dogs, a picture, one things you'll notice is the We do have, ah, contrast in values not only from the residual of our brushwork, but we also have mid toe high values with our model zero eraser work. And then we have extremely low values, especially on the edge of the cheek that we put in with our 3/16 sponger. So this this hard charcoal that were putting over all of it is essentially, it's bridging the gap, right? It's it's bringing all of this together. And of course, the big thing with really making this part of the process work for you as the artist is to just make sure that your strikes and the length of your polls are going in the same direction as you see in the reference image. And it's literally that simple as that. And again, this is real time. This is actually evolved its story ALS that I've made here on skill share and then over on my YouTube channel. This is the 1st 1 where the entire lesson is done in real time. And I wanted to do that because there was a lot more detail work in this drawing. Then I've put into some of my other drawings. And so I just wanted to show you that it is possible to get this level of detail at a fairly, fairly quick pace. And like I said before, I don't I don't like, um, hustling through, um, my drawings. I like to take my time. Um I mean, I'll hustle through my job for someone else, but when it comes to my drawings, this is where I want to be. This is this is where I want to spend my time, and then here, see how it just kind of more or less, just kind of going back and forth. So this is a way, if you're trying Teoh, speed up the process, Um, you can you can zigzag. That's That's what I call this step. Call it zigzagging, but also be careful with with zigzagging because you want to zig zag Onley in places where it's appropriate. So saying other parts of the drawing instead of zigzagging, you might just want to do one one quick, one straight line pull right? But that's that's really yeah, that's really gonna kind of boil down to you and what in what you see and the kind of aesthetic that you want to convey. But just know that there are slightly different techniques that you can use to. You kind of bring Bring out that that look, because if you notice the hair that is towards the bottom of the cheek of this dog is very , it's straight and it's laying straight down. And then as you move farther and farther up, the hair actually goes from laying down, and then it starts to kick out sideways. And then, by the time you're up by the nose, the hairs actually at an upward angle, right, even though they're a bunch of tiny, tiny little hairs, the overall direction of the flow does change. So that's something Teoh to be aware of. And then here, this is just for textural purposes. I was taking my heart charcoal, and I'm overlaying it over the the soft charcoal that we laid down. And the reason why I'm doing this year is because there's little to no hair in this part of the drawing, so I can go ahead and hit this with smudge or in certain areas and brushwork, and will actually blend and getting the A really cool, dry skin look, which is what we see in the reference image, and then see how they heard just kind of it kind of fades. It kind of blends into that kind of fits often enough. But then here what I'm doing is I'm taking that zigzag approach because the hair up here on on these skin wrinkles is in a different, different direction. It's slightly different texture. You could get away with that zigzag approach up here if these wrinkles right next to the to the nose that your mom's gonna defining that that second, that second wrinkle exactly where I want that to lay something like that. But a lot of broken lines, right? A lot of imply it lines, so that's looking pretty good. It's more more zigzag work, something like that in during this step. If you actually start to lose, you know, kind of those those wrinkles. Don't worry about that, because you can go back in with, say, or 3 16 smudge. And just like we made skin wrinkles on the forehead of the dog pop and the wrinkles, I'm here on the cheek pop. We could go back in. We can bring those wrinkles out. The cool thing about bringing the wrinkles out like that is that we're not going to take away from all the furry detail work that were laying down here in this step with our hard charcoal. It's all subtleties. So here we are. Let's take that 3/16. Let's start to do so some smart your work here. So this is that blending that I was telling you about, that you can you can dio. Then here it looks like there's some porous holes for the whiskers. Hit this and spin it. So set this merger down and then just twist, set it down and then twist. That's a It's literally all it takes. And this is what I was talking about. How if you lose kind of where, where those wrinkles are just going real quick and just really just bring him back out real subtle and see how you're bringing out where those wrinkles are. But at the same time, you're not really you losing a whole lot of detail. This is why I love this technique right here. This is that This is that forgiveness again. Then here, take the brush is real. Like, really one or two passes is all it takes. Very light pressure control. It's kind of blend this, see how it Smoothes it out. But yet it still retains those variances and value between high, high and low. That's what we want. Then here on the edge, we can really kind of lower this value writer. See that? Lower it, weaken. Smooth it out many places in the nose where we need to go in and we wanna kind of solidify the nose weaken. I could do that with our with our smarter. You wouldn't want to use a big smooch her for this. So that's one of the reasons why I'm not using my size too. Right now. It's using my by 3/16 because I don't want that pinpoint control in this step that's looking pretty good. Then you're just gonna kind of blend this. Here we go. And here is taking my my charcoal is gonna lining this out again. This is pushing that I in the side of the face back, and it's bringing that skin wrinkle on the muscle forward. Okay? It's not swell yourself for the medium tropical. Less binder, right, Lower, lower value, More or less refining the look on this nose. See, there's that poorest. Look, this is how we get that we just more or less very light pressure control. We let that charcoal rest on top of all that, that's much your work and base layering that we laid down with with are soft Sharples and something like this little darker here. The light strikes the side of the nose a little different. So because of that, I really want to bring out that that lower value, right? Here we go. A little defined line right there. This brings that knows forward. Here we go gives you that gradation, but by dabbing it, you're a lot less inclined to lose the the definition in your detail work so again was going through kind of blending all of this this is giving Just give me that. That refined look, extra fighting. That's all it is when it comes to detail. Work with thriller method you can spend as little or as much time on. You know what I call refining your your piece. Aziz, you want the biggest thing with the step is just do a little here, do a little there. Don't do a whole bunch of one spot because you'll overwork the paper. So not moving on to Lesson 10. I'm gonna be showing you the subtleties and intricacies of drawing the chin. 11. Chin | Layering Soft, Medium, & Hard Charcoals: Okay, so now what we're doing is we're taking our number six rush were loading it up on both sides. We're looking at the chip, so the chin is going to be immediately underneath each of the cheeks. So we're gonna start from the left side. We're gonna work our way to the right. So again, this is a bass player. And what we want to do is, as we look at the reference image, we can see many subtleties. We could see contrast between parts that are more on the right side of the dogs chin, where we have higher values. And then we can see parts where we have mid toe lower values. And then, of course, we have a lot of texture across most all of it, except for the parts where we do have a lot of very low value. All right, so this is how we're gonna accomplish that. We have the base layer and so much like with the actual, um, forehead and the muscle. The dog we're going in and we are retrieving are high values with our mono zero eraser. Now, the chin is gonna be slightly different in, um, application with exactly how we convey the kind of texture that we want. But the principle is the same principle is going to be the same base layer of soft charcoal retrieval of high values with more Missouri razor and then a mixture of medium charcoal and hard charcoal work detail work that we can use to really bring out those value relationships that we see in the chin of this reference. And then, of course, smudge your work to really get in there and blend and bring out those contrasts where they need to be, and then brushwork to kind of bring it all together and to have a solid gradation. So here, this is a medium charcoal I was going in, and I'm running in the charcoal immediately alone the, uh, top lip of, uh, the dogs cheek. But the thing about this that's a little bit different than I want you to be aware of is look at how I'm laying down these low values. I'm striking the paper and I am feeling in the paper, but I'm also making sure that I have line breaks in between each one of my polls more towards the bottom here, right here along the lip. Everything is pretty much one solid low value right, One color, that's black. But as we move away from that, all of a sudden your pressure control needs to get later and later because the value is getting higher and higher. Yes, even though they're mid values, those values are going to get higher and higher, especially as we gravitate towards the areas of the drawing where we've retrieved pretty much weight. Right with our models are racer. So this is a way. This is a trick that you can use to get a lot of value relationships and a tight space while at the same time still conveying texture, you know, drawing. But the big thing here is as I'm looking at the chin, I want to put my medium charcoal in places where I know the value is mid to low. Okay, it's mid to low, and I want to keep my medium charcoal away from places where I know that the value is going to be higher mid to top toe high value, right? I'm gonna show you a trick. The subtle differences between, um, hard charcoal in medium charcoal when it comes to help how we work this this dog's chin. But right now it's all medium charcoal. Okay, I'm just I'm more or less defining the big differences between the high values and the low values. See others kind of that kind of that wrinkle right there just brought out with medium charcoal here was taking my graphite. And I actually want to kind of kind of redraw this. Gonna bring this back into proportion a little bit. Something like something like that. Looks good. Just clean that up. Wonderful. Okay, so here's a number two. This is our number two smarter. So now what I'm doing is I'm more or less more or less blending this now with this step. You don't have toe press very hard at all. You don't wanna press too hard because I want to be able to go in with my models or racer and bring out any mid values if need be. So this is kind of that That sleight of hand, right? This is that that's subtle to you that we see they're real and see others that subtle difference in value. We have slightly higher value, even though it's a low value you are like a mid value on the lip, and then we have a really, really low value in the chin, and that makes the lip look like it's resting on top of the chin. So it's not so one note. But then here. Basically, what I'm doing is I'm blending, blending this, but I'm not pressing very hard at all. And if this looks a little bit too flat like there's not enough texture, don't worry about that, because we're gonna be going in with the models are racer yet again. And we're also gonna be going in with Hard and Medium Terkel's again. No, we're really going to be bringing out the texture in this dog's chin within your own doing is I'm just gonna standing it on its side, standing this madrone inside. And I'm just more or less putting an implied line on kind of the under the under chin Here for this dog looks like a little little role here. I bring this up right here. I'm gonna leave these as implied Ramos soft like this. I don't I don't want to go in with, you know, a medium charcoal or ah, hard charcoal and put solvent lines on her because that's not what they look like in the reference image. They look very soft, and so this is a prime example of implied line work. And as you can see, you can put implying lines down with the with the simple smudge er, kind of like what we did for parts of the of the Frenchies ears, in case is looking pretty good. Pretty good. What the are you starting to see how we have that same type of look in the difference between high mid and low values in the chin? So now going back in with Eirmalasare, sir, and bear in mind for this step if you want, and even more like refined look, you know, if you want a lot of pinpoint control, you could actually take your models or racer, and you can use like a pair of scissors or like a razor, and you can snip your race your head at an angle so that you have one word of the sharp side to work with it. In that way, when you take your mom's that race, when you standing up on end, you can get razor thin line work, but that's up to you. Bridges know that. That is that is a trick. That is an option that you can use. Okay, so, no, what I'm doing here is I'm taking ah, hard charcoal and you can see the difference on the paper between the hard charcoal and medium charcoal. The hard charcoal is holding together much better, and it's actually throwing a slightly slightly higher value. And this is perfect. This is what we want. We want that full contrast across the value scale from complete wait to complete black and everything in between. So the hard charcoal allows us to be able to pursue that which is short, short little throws upon our strike. Just that's it. Just like that. You see how that texture starting to come out again? A big focus. Focus on how that hair is flowing even though these hairs air super super Sure, they're flowing a certain way. So just make sure you keep that in mind. Some are long, some are short. Some are on top of themselves, somewhere behind others, just paying attention, toe. So that detail. Okay, so now I've swapped it for the medium charcoal. Now can you see how much darker the medium charcoal is? It's much darker, but there are parts in the for of dogs. Chin, where we do need toe have short little throws in that that lower value. So this is what I was saying. We're gonna be going back. We're gonna be driving our models eraser again. We're gonna be grabbing our charcoal again. We'll be grabbing our medium charcoal again because that's what the chin of this dog dictates. So but it's just it's it's a lot of it's a lot of tiny detail work, especially especially when it comes Teoh to the chin. But the cool thing about this is, once we finally get the detail where we want it to be with the chin work of this dog there , we're gonna go in with smudge of work, and we're really gonna pinpoints where those differences are and make it look as as close to the reference images we can. And then we're gonna hit it all with a brush. We're gonna kind of dark in the overall value relationships of the chin. And what that will do is that what kind of metal kind of soften it kind of make it look like it's resting underneath. Um, the muzzle and the cheeks cheeks of the what? The Boulder Nets. And that's what ultimately that's that's the look that we're that we're going for. That's that's what we want. So here's this much of work. That's basically where we're just going in and trying, trying to get variants and in softness, even though even though this thes hairs air short What? Not that they are. They are course, but they are fairly soft because they're so small. So this smudge work gives us gives us that that kind of look and then here on these on these define lines, we can we can we can build these up if if need be so soften. Remember, the more you work on the software will become, and the more the that the charcoal will smudging into paper. So just just be aware of that really tryingto trying to streamline. See how I can go in with my monitor. A racer like kind of bring out a little bit higher value brings out some contrast. Now you have swapped back for a medium charcoal, doing short, short little polls, short little pulls here short little pools there. And then here I've grabbed another medium charcoal that I have made sure that that tip is extremely sharp. Remember how he's talking about pinpoint control? Right in point control is his. It is crucial, especially when it comes toe, especially when it comes to detail work. It's kind of solidify that line there. It's looking good. All of a sudden we're starting to have. Ah, a chin looks fairly similar to the chin in our reference image, So we got the big. The big thing with the chin in this drawing is just continue to swap between your medium and your heart. Charcoal is so that you can get that that full except accentuation of the value scale. That's the big thing. That's the big thing in this step. So, but the more the more you work in, the more realistic it will become. I would actually like how this is. This is turning now remember, when it comes toe when it comes to this technique, it's It's the amount of time that you give the drawings and in the more accentuation you have in your value scale, from complete black to complete white and everything in between, the more more that drawing will pop. But here's the big things. Make sure that you're using your smugglers and your blending out anything that needs to be a slight, slightly darker right cause we have a lot of shadows that are hitting of the chin of this dog. And you can also hit this with the brush if you want to. Just just know that the big difference between the brush and this measure work is that the smelters just give you a little bit more control, which is nice in a smaller area. Um, such as such as this. You see what we have those it was more defined lines with for And then, of course, we have thes. We have these implied lines for the rest of the the skin on the, uh, kind of the underbelly of the of the dogs Chin here. So that's pretty much it for the chin. Now, in the next lesson, Lesson 11 we're gonna be doing base layering of the cheek and a side of the dog's face 12. Left Cheek | Brush & Smudger Work: okay, Size six brush were loading it up for another base layer of self juggling. Okay, so again, starting where there is slightly slightly lower value. But at the same time, I also want to make sure that I have enough charcoal on the paper and areas of high value where I'm going to be able to retrieve those higher values with my models are racer and definitely be able to see that that detail work shine through for those individual hairs. So again, when it comes to the base, Larry always use late pressure control. You don't want to push the charcoal into the paper you want. You want the soft charcoal to rest on top of the paper, and that will also help you when it comes to retreating. Those higher values. Then here, there's some lower value here. Something's gonna person charcoal trickle there while I'm here. Then there's a wrinkle the side of a dog's face very lightly. Put that in there. This doesn't have to be perfect in the step. We're just more or less putting the trickle down. And because we're not pushing into the paper, we're gonna be able to go through and we're gonna be ableto to streamline this with mono zero racer work and in detail work with our hard charcoal Z as we go toe put down that texture. So then, here we have a slightly slightly low value, right? So I just want to go ahead and put it a liner and then pull this out like this. This kind of gives us the the foundational base for wrinkles on this side of dogs muscle. Here is one of nice, nice light base layer so that we can go in with our models are a research and retrieve these higher values. You get my favorite part, it's going in. And actually, if you look, this texture on this side of the dogs faces a little difference. Or rather than going in quick little strikes, short little throws, I'm actually gonna go in. I'm just started zigzagging. That's what I'm doing here. I'm just zigzagging, and this is this kind of at that attention to detail. That I always preached to you guys is just Just be aware of what that texture looks like, because just because the texture looks one way on one side of the dog's face that doesn't necessarily mean that that texture is going to be the exact same in the same spot on the other side of the dog's face like, say, for instance, this is a prime example where or the texture is similar, but it is slightly different, so you can get away with using different, different techniques. And as you can see, the zigzag method for retrieving higher values is its. It is slightly faster not by much, but but, But it is seen as how this this whole classes in real time. The hope with that is that, you know, if you guys want Teoh, you'd be ableto draw on with me, or this would be at a pace toe. Or maybe your your insurer. Maybe if you're just starting to tackle pep works for the first time, you'll be able tow digest these techniques and amusing for yourself. I'm hoping to see some really cool projects from you guys. That would be awesome. I have done a handful of classes on Skill Shirt and I have yet Teoh have anybody post one of their projects using the three layered methods. So I'm really, really excited for that. Looking forward, Toa so the 1st 1 So who knows? Maybe that will be you. Okay, but then here, as we move towards the actual face of the dog, um, technique changes right now. I'm not zigzagging now. I'm just doing very, very light pressure control. And I'm going in kind of a swooshing motion because if you look at the reference image it, that's what this part of the face calls for, right? So always be aware of the length, direction and motion of your strikes, especially when you're retrieving, um, those higher values with your monasteries. See there, see how I hit that. But I didn't actually go into the low value that he's going to show that that rolling us, especially when we hit this with a brush and soften it. There's something like that. Wonderful. I was gonna go in here and now all of a sudden, um, I'm zigzagging again. See that in here, starting from the outside that I'm working my way in and this is a good example. You can see how if your if your polls are too close to each other, how they almost get lost in each other, right? So that's something to be aware of. Okay, so now I swapped out the models, a racer for a hard charcoal pencil, and we are layering. We're putting those mid to lower values right next to the high values that we just retrieved. And here what I'm doing is I'm actually defining the edges of this skin role here. So I want to find that so that it actually pushes the eye than the sight of the dog space back. And it brings that that skin role in the muzzle forward just like this. Here I was going back and forth, and you can use the same kind of motion with your heart, Charles. And as you did for your models of Eraser, you know, that's exact motion you can. You can do the same thing here just like that. And honestly, the big thing to remember when you're doing this part, when you've gone through and you've done your base layering and then you retrieved your high values with tomatoes are eastern. Then you're either on your medium or your heart. Charcoal. The highlight the the high values is to just think of it as what you're doing is you are putting your low value immediately next to your high value, because what that does is that that brings out contrast between your high and low value. And and that is really what will make that contrast jump out to the viewers to the viewers and I because when you think about it, if you were to put your low values just on top of your high values and you didn't make a conscious effort to to highlight the high value where you want to put it next to the high value, all of a sudden you kind of be just taking a step backwards because you're really not doing yourself any favours when you do that. So that's one of the reasons why it's important to always subconsciously be thinking about how you are highlighting those high values you want. Contrast, contrast in value or what they call value relationships, especially in charcoal drawing is hair amount. It's a huge deal, and it's one of those things that a lot of younger artists especially overlook because it's it's very easy to overlook it. But if you always keep that in the back of her mind until yourself, you know what in this drawing in this section, I want to accentuate the value scale or, on a highlight, my value relationships. I want to make this drawing pop in all aspects. Then what? You'll what you'll find is you'll be consciously aware. And when it comes time to do those subtle highlights like what we're doing here on the side of the face and what we've been doing on the muzzle of this French bulldog, you'll you'll have that you'll have those value relationships you'll have. That contrast, and you're driving will be better for it. So just just keep that in mind. But the big thing here for this, uh, for this part of it is just try. Try not try not to overwork. Um, the paper. That's that's the big thing. But with this method with going in in with the idea of layering, it's actually it's actually hard to overwork the paper because you have you have a process , right? You have you have a function that you need to follow, whereas if you're just going in in at it blindly or with no no process, that's when mistakes can be made and you can spend way too much time on on one portion of the drawing when compared, uh, to another. So with you can. So now I'm doing, I'm taking my models or are a certain number going in? And this is standing texture. That's what I'm. That's what I'm trying to do here. If you look at the reference image, this skin here immediately under the dog's nose, there's there's no hair on it. But yet there is subtleties. There is differences in, uh in the tones that you see across the you know, the values. So it's one across action there with my Jose Reyes. For now, I'm just gonna take my size 3/16 merger, and I'm just gonna go in and I'm gonna start hitting some of thes thes points of of lower of lower value. And I'm also going to be hitting that part that I just ate with the models of a racer with some brushwork, too. So it'll it'll soften up. Give me a nice, nice gradation as well. So just be aware that that harems highlighting these these wrinkles, right, just like I did with the other side. Now that we've put down that detail work, I can go in And if I need to bring out any points in this part of the face or those roles exist, I can definitely do that. That's not a problem at all. As you can see it, it takes very little effort. It's kind of hit it on this merger. This measure wants to work for you. This mother wants to smudge that Sharples. So it takes very little pressure control. And, um and you're able toe bring out that that kind of detail work that here was gonna grab some, perhaps a more soft charcoal. I'm just gonna kind of beef up beef up these edges here, I guess, Um, some points that I want dark enough and see how by dark ing up the edge All of a sudden, it kind of gives that lips, um, almost like some some roundness, right? It's the same principles. When I hit the skin wrinkles with this much on the edge, all of a sudden, it makes it look around. It's the same for anything that's round when it comes to drawing. So now I'm just touching the paper and I'm doing quick. Little quick little swirls. Quick little spins add some texture for the whiskers of this dog. That's very lately. It's gonna hit this with my brush. This part of its kind of kind of dark or so just a couple passes you don't You don't need to hit. You don't need to hit the paper very hard. It all here just just a couple of passes to kind of smooth it out. Okay, so now we're gonna move on to lesson 12 which is we're in a detail this out. I'm gonna show you guys shading tricks. 13. Left Cheek | Detail Work | Smudger Tricks: okay, So continuing on with argue to work here seven medium charcoal. One of the reasons why I'm using a medium charcoal right here is compared to the other side is because if you actually look at the reference image the, uh the late the way the light is actually hitting dog's face, um, calls for some lower values, some lower value detail work. And so I'm making sure that my medium charcoal is sharpest. I could get it. And I'm doing, uh, uh, very committed strikes and short little polls. And I'm also making sure that I am pulling. He's in the right direction. Now I'm gonna be showing you some skating tricks that you could do with a brush work so that you don't actually have to overload your paper in certain areas with, say, a bunch of medium charcoal, right? You just you lay down what you need to lay down, and then you hit it with a brush, and it kind of brings that gradation across those value points, and it gives you a nice shade while at the same time, um, not letting you overworked paper. So and this is the thing here, if you actually look at their efforts. Image. You can put shade work down with medium charcoal or even hard charcoal, and you don't necessarily need to use a smarter. Some artists will do that if they're working, saying a tight spot or if they don't have any smudges available to them at the time. But you see here, see how I'm basically highlighting where I put all that so much of work down with my medium charcoal pencil. I'm still following the shade. You know, that lower value that I laid down with mice merger, but I'm more or less highlighting a mid to low value with a low value. So just like you highlight high values, you could do the exact same thing with low values. And that's the other side of value relationships in the wake of highlighting them, bringing them together. But now do you see the whole left side, the whole left side of the dog's face, that that cheek on the left side we did all of that detail work with hard charcoal and now the majority of the dogs right side. We're doing a lot of this detail work. We did half of it with her charcoal. But we did the half that, actually, with late strikes it. And now the other side where the muscle starts to fade off into the cheek were highlighting all of that with a medium charcoal, which is giving us a slightly lower value. And this and this is just that subtle differences, you know, subtle little shaking tricks. So now here, see how I'm taking my sweater and I more or less blending all of these lower values. I'm kind of bringing that up right here. There's some spots where there's a little a little lower value. Just go ahead and hit it real soft. Though I want this, I want this look to be very soft. I don't want the I toe spend too much time on this part of the drawing. The detail work is in the Muslim, the nose in the eyes. Everything else is secondary as far as the viewers eyes concern. And that's the way that I wanted. You know, as the artist, you get to dictate where your viewers I spends the most time. They called it called the Focal point our focal points in a piece. So just be aware of that. Okay, It's now what I'm doing is I'm taking my brush. Number six was gonna load it up here, just like we do with the other side. I'm just gonna go ahead. I am going to put in a bit of the right side of the dog's neck here. This is all implied. Was gonna pull it from right to left, just like this. I got pulled in blend. I want this to be soft. I also want this to be a little bit darker value, so it looks like the heads sitting on top of the neck in here. It looks like there's a little a little skin role in the neck. Pull that Poland blend. Could pull it from right to left. It's ever so slightly. Maybe that's looking nice, but all implied. All implied. Do not use your pencils for any part of this of this neck and shoulder. This is Oh, this is all brushwork. Fresh work only. Okay. All right. No, that's done. It's gonna go back or would continue to utilize her medium Charcoal. No, not our heart. Charcoal medium charcoal for this point. And we're just going in and we're spending a little bit more time in areas where we want to bring out those those lower values. Okay? And you see how when we start to lay down those medium charcoal strikes immediately, next to each other and you start to see what do you see, what starts to happen? See how it starts toe convey a very, very low value in one place. So this is another way where on the other side, because the value was was mid to high. I showed you how you could do that with a 3/16 much er right. You just hit the paper and blended That's it now on the opposite side because it is a lot darker. We need that variance between the really low value on all the other values to be lower still. So that's one of the ways that we do that it's not have swapped it out for a hard charcoal pencil because now we're starting toe starting to get away from from that point in the drawing, or those values are lower, but much like with the underside of the chin. If you want a hard charcoal immediately next year, medium troubles, you could do that as well. That is your call. Okay, then here was pulling up and over up and over again very, very subtle and wants to be settled that I was gonna hit it with the brush real quick. A couple passes, nothing to have you. And here's the couple passes. I'm not I'm not pushing hard. I don't want to smudge any of this. I just more this one of blended in places that it needs needs to be blended. And then here, this is another shading. Trixie, this this what I was talking about. This is where you can hit it. And because there's a lot of medium charcoal, it has less binder in it. It's smears much easier. So all of a sudden you see how we have. We have a nice shadow effect that's in the reference image. That's how we do that. It's a very subtle trick. Now that would work with Hard Charco if he would have done all that hard charcoal. But it wouldn't have worked nearly as well, and it's very easy to get carried away with your brushwork. But But just understand only on Lee hit your brush work in places that will help you don't hit the whole thing with your brush. There are parts of this where you want it to look course, and then there are other parts where you want it to look soft on. A lot of times you can use your brush work to convey form, not so much texture. OK, so just be aware that in here there's just going in and using my 3 16 smarter. And this is just to convey the form of the of the skin rules that's looking. That's looking pretty, pretty good. But when it comes to detail work, I'm actually a big fan of jumping around a lot. I like to jump around because when you ever you jump around, you're obviously killing multiple birds with one stone. But at the same time, you're not overworking the paper in any one place. Okay, so onward to the last lesson. Finishing touches and thoughts 14. Finishing Touches & Thoughts : Okay, guys, we are just about there, but a little bit about my own drawing approach with any drawing that I do especially commissioned pieces that I do for clients. One of the things that I do towards the end is when I think I'm done. I sit down and I give myself one last session. And in this session, this is what I call my detail session, and it's more or less fine 92 or what they call finishing touches. And so this is a non opportunity for me to go back through and just give my drawing one last overview, you know? So I look at every single part and I started over and I basically go back, and I look at each section of the drawing. Remember how we drew this French bulldog in sections? So I'll look at the year and then I'll go over that in any finite details that I need to add such a smudge, your work or maybe some subtle brushwork, or maybe some subtle light work. Or maybe there's an area where I need to go in with my mom, knows a razor and bring out some some higher values right. This is the part of the process where I'm able to do that. Think of it as you are basically refining. You're drawing. And this is the part where you as the artist are basically able to sign off on the drawing and go. You know what? I gave that a really good go. And I sat there and I didn't rush through it. And when I thought I was done, I went back through it again. And I really brought out those subtle details that I wanted to bring out. Or that maybe I might have overlooked had I just said, You know what, I'm done. I don't want to work with it again. So this is a way to help yourself. Kind of kind of elevate. You're drawing. Come at the last minute. Now you don't have to have ah, last minute detail session if you don't want to. It's simply a approach that I use, and I have found by by practice that it works for me. It's it's really nice. It's something where if you need to build on lower values, you could do that. If you want Teoh touch up and I or if you want to refine, refine some underlying form. Um, you can. You can do that as well, but one of things that I've always tried to to stay true to when it comes to drawings. I've always tried to make sure that that I learn one or two things, whether that's techniques or approaches or some kind of philosophical take on what it is that that I'm doing or what it is that that I'm drawing. So but, like stay here, for example. What I'm doing is I'm looking at the reference image I've noticing that there's there is a little bit of greediness to that, this part of of the muscle and and one of the things about detail work is that it really gives you the opportunity to bring out those subtle details. You know those things that that you know your viewer might not even notice, you know, but but for them and for other artists, other artists know what to look for in your drawings. And so it's a way for you to kind of kind of honor yourself in the quality of product that you put out there on Teoh onto the market like, say, here. What I'm doing is I'm just going through and I've I've looked at the left ear. I've looked at the right here. I looked the forehead, I've kind of analysed both eyes. Now I'm looking at the muzzle the dog, and I'm just doing small little things. Small little things here, small little things there and like like I mentioned before, one of the reasons why I'm a fan of jumping around my drawings and, uh, streamlining them in in this way is because I find that it helps me to not overwork one part of the drawing over another, you know, kind of like with eyes How I always say, Well, you don't make sure you get in and then get out. It's very much the very much the same principal. But as with any drawing, you can add as much detail work as you want, or you can add ASL. It'll detail work as you want, but I hear what I'm doing is I'm taking a medium term, and I'm just going in and I'm just adding a little whiskers. Little subtle hairs here, little subtle hairs there. The big thing with this is make sure that when you go to strike the paper that you're committed and when you hit it. As you poll, you lift up, poll and lift up. That's that's the big thing. State it. Poland left just little things here. Little things. There looks like they're some here support like that, Like that barrier. That's what we want. That's looking pretty good. But stay here, for example. But if I look at the reference image, it's it's kind of kind of gritty. They could do with some more texture. So what I'm doing is I'm using a very light pressure control. I'm still following the same form that I followed when I laid down these base layers of charcoal with the smudge er. But I want to just give this skin just a little bit of subtle texture. So I want this charcoal touch lay lay on top of the base charcoal that's been smudged and hit with a brush and softened right. So I have those those subtleties in texture that work together to really give me a really nice, uh, aesthetic of the skin in this part of of, uh, the drawing. But then see out here you can go in and you can you can just with literally the touch of your smudge. Er, you can change the entire look of your drawing literally in a second. I've been known to spend upwards of 20 hours on 1 11 inch by 14 inch piece, and that's another thing that a lot of artists tend to overlook. I feel is that they try toe do two big pieces. I've always been a fan of balance with everything in life. Moderation is another way toe to say that. But basically for me, if you've ever been curious and sitting there thinking man like, what would be what would be a good dimension for me to kind of adhere to for my own personal brand personal practice, where I could crank out a lot of quality drawings that people wouldn't mind paying a couple $100 for a while at the same time, not overwhelming myself or my studio, and one of the dimensions that I found worked really well for me was 11 ege by 14 inch pieces. I found that I really liked that I found that they were too small to where people would more or less just kind of laughed and said, Oh, well, I'm not gonna pay $100 or something that small, right? But it also wasn't too big toe where it was like, Wow, like this took me so much time and raw material, which, of course, is your product overhead. Right, So 11 inch by 14 inch is a nice medium that that I have found, um, works for me. So, you know, that's something that you've been thinking about are wondering about hopefully that hopefully that helps you figure that out for yourself. But then you're just just settle brushwork here, settle, settle brushwork there with the brush. Always remember, hit it very lightly very lightly. You don't want to overpower the charcoal that you just laid down. Here's dad ing Cem meetings and dot some some whisker dots here, some whisker dots there this bold hours getting pretty close to being done pretty close. But yes, so all of the tools that we used before this class are listed below, uh, have links you guys can use Teoh. Pick any of these tools up for yourself if you don't already have them in your studios. Um but but I hope it helps. Ah, I do. All of this on mixed media paper I have found for me. And for this approach it works. Works the best. Um, I have drawn some criticism for that, which is fine. I have nothing against that. But for me and for my approach and for the approach that I'm teaching you in the three layered method, I am here to tell you that conventional charcoal paper simply does not work for this method . It just sucks up the charcoal where the mixed media paper. You know, your charcoal goes farther, right? And if you're charcoal goes farther, your overhead all of a sudden becomes a lot less because you're making your raw materials work harder for you and give you more product to have when you go to open markets. So but that is pretty much it. Guys, I hope that you enjoyed this class. I hope you learned one or two things from it. Um, if you really enjoyed this class, please be sure to follow Mr Creations your own skills shirt. And if you want more classes, be sure to follow us on YouTube or we have a whole array of step by step drawing tutorials just like this one. I hope the salt and good luck in your future drawings