Transcripts
1. Introduction: You've landed on this video because you're wanting
to learn how to draw, or you may not have drawn for many years and you need
to sharpen your skills, or as I like to say, you're
sharpening your pencil. This project that
we're going to be doing is not a long project. It will take you less than
an hour to complete it and guaranteed you're going to impress the pants off
yourself amongst others. In case I haven't
met you before, my name is Jane and I am the multimillion colored art
teacher and Illustrator. I live on the Gold Coast,
which is Queensland, Australia with my husband
and my three chatls. Have you heard that term before? That's when they start
to get into their 20s, but they're still at
home. I like them. I teach local sketchbook classes here on the Gold
Coast along with online classes on
my patrion page under the business name
of misses Red's Art Room. Please jump along there because
those classes are free, as well as a paid tier in
watercolor and doodling. Okay, let's grab our
pencils and dive on in.
2. Project description: Okay, so this project, we're going to start
with tonal scales first before our main drawing
of a tennis ball. So once we've done
the tonal scales, and I'll explain that in
the first few videos, you'll choose one pencil. In my case, it was the two B, and we're going to draw from a reference image
of a tennis ball. I found this image on Unsplash, which is a free free
photography image site. You don't have to pay
for these images. The photo was taken
by Ben Hershey. So why a tennis ball? Well, it's a circle that
we're going to be drawing and you don't need too much skill to be able to trace a circle to
start a drawing. There's also really
nice texture on the tennis ball and it's
drawn quite simply, so you'll feel very clever. There's also an awesome shadow
which grounds tennis ball, turns it from a flat image
into a three D looking image. So there's not much required
for doing this project, cartridge paper or
cartridge sketchbook, a few different weights of your graphite
pencils, maybe a HB, a two B, and a six B to do the tonal scales in a
sharpner and an eraser. I want you to post your finished tennis balls in the project and
resources area. This, I get notified
when you post it and other students can also see what you have done
and you can see what they have done and everyone
has to start somewhere. Please don't be afraid to post
your work in that section. I will offer you some
constructive feedback. The tennis ball image is also in the project and
resources section. There's no real need to actually print this one out
unless you want to. Or if you're on a relatively
small screen and you're watching the videos
and you can't access the tennis ball
image at the same time, I may put it in the videos. I haven't edited the videos yet, but another way to do
that is to download the image and then bring it up on our second device
like a mobile phone. It's a very simple image. It's a grayscale image, so we're not needing to have a look at
color, et cetera on it. Enough of me abbiing on, I think the next video is the material list.
Let's get to that.
3. Material List: Onto our material list. Like I said earlier,
there is not many items that you need
to complete this project. I have here all my sketch
pencils in a tomato tin here, and this is actually acting
as a double purpose today, one to hold my pencils, but two, because we need a circle
for a tennis ball. So this is the perfect
size tennis ball. Um, sorry, perfect size for the tennis ball that we need for this project. Don't
want it too big. This sketchbook is an
A five sketchbook, and it is just cartridge paper. So it will only take dry media. It's not intended
for watercolor, gache or acrylic painting. Uh, pencils that we are using or the ones that I have used
here for the tonal scales. So I'll explain those as
we get into the project. Is a four H, a two
B, and a six B. If you have not
got these pencils, just choose three
different weights. Preferably have a two B or a HB handy for the
drawing project. So that's the three pencils
that I've got out there for the tonal scales. And then the following page is where we have
our tennis ball. That there. And the
other thing that I've got here is just a
scrap piece of paper. Obviously, torn this
out of this book. And this is for a
couple of reasons. When you're actually
doing your drawing, especially if you've already
put down your shadow, you can protect your hand and not start smudging
around the page. And secondly, you can see that I've done another
drawing underneath. And so it's also good sometimes just to have a
piece of paper that you can put underneath if you have drawn on the next page at all, because then it just
disappears and you've got a nice clean
page to start on. So Oh, actually,
and I don't have it in front of me, but hang on. Here we go. An eraser. I have used a kable
eraser for this, but it's actually packed in my pencil case that I
take to my art classes. So if you don't have
the Nable eraser, it looks like a
blob of Blue tack. If you don't have one of
them, one of these erasers will work perfectly as well
and a pencil sharpener.
4. Tonal Scales: All right, let's get started
with our tonal scale. So we're going to go from
four H to two B to six B. Let's start with
our four H. Now, how we do these is
you press down. You don't have to put
pressure on your pencil, but you have to be firm. And this is being a four H. It's quite a sharp hard graphite. So I'm really not putting
a lot of pressure down to get that darkest dark. And as I come out, I'm going to start
slowing down a bit, but I'm also really
conscious of, making a really light mark. And when I get
really, really light, you may not be able
to see it anymore. Okay. So I'm fairly happy with that. You can also go over and just make it a
little bit smoother. Okay. And we will
write on the end here for H. And then we're going to go to two B and
do exactly the same thing. So putting down that
same amount of pressure. Excuse me, for a phone
call coming through. Okay. I have my phone on silent, but it was sitting
right beside me. So, which is what
I tend to not do. I tend to put it
off to the side. So you may have heard
that vibration. When you get really light, you're literally just tickling
the surface of the paper. Just wanting to smooth this
out a little bit more here. Okay. And that is two B. And then on to six B. So we're doing the same thing, same amount of pressure. And this one is going
out a long way. I'm gonna have to
really slow it down. I am literally just
touching the paper, and I can still see
quite a darkness there. So with your very
dark bee pencils, you really cannot use them
if you want that real, real faded Mark six B. Okay, so there we have three examples of three
different weights of pencil. Where we genuinely genuinely sit when we are drawing
is in this area. About here. And again, here. And again, here. So that's where we are
generally sitting. The great thing about doing a tonal scale before you start drawing is you can see how far you can
push these pencils. So for the four H, you're still getting
a really dark dark. If I put my finger across it, you can feel the impression
it's made on the paper. And you really can't feel
the impression that you make on the paper when you
get down to a six B pencil. So when I'm teaching, I'm generally telling people, this is the area you're in. You've got to get more lights happening and more
darks happening. And that is going to help your drawing have
that three D look. It's going to have texture, it's going to have
form and the value. Alright, so we will now go
on to a tennis ball example, and we're going to be
doing that in the two B. So we'll we can keep looking
at this example here. We're going to be
getting the darkest dark right through to
the lightest light.
5. Sketch up TB: I Okay, let's get started
on this tennis ball. So you just need something that is circular and not too big. So I have the tin of tomatoes that holds all
my graphite pencils. And when you place it down, so I'm using a portrait
sketchbook, a five sketchbook, you don't want to place
it in the middle of your page because you've got a long shadow on
this tennis ball. So we just want to place
it slightly to the left. And if you are doing
landscape ways, you'll just place it slightly to the left again there, right? So you don't want
it to be excuse me, in the middle of your page, because you do have
a long shadow, and even though we're
not going to be, um,
6. TB glue: Okay, so we're ready to
start this tennis ball. Because I'm right handed, I am going to start with
the tennis ball first. If you're left handed, I
would do the shadow first. The shadow is flat. It is one tone of graphite. And the other thing I've
done is I've actually just turned the page of this so that I can
keep referring back to my tonal scales. So if you're in to B and
you're doing the shadow first, this is where you
will be down here. Okay, so just keep referring to our tonal
scales as we go along. I'm hoping my lighting
isn't it looks like it's being affected by
my hand movement. I hope it's not
going to be too bad. So I'm actually
going to start with the glue of the tennis ball. Always looking at
your reference. Even if you know
what you're drawing, it's the fine details that
you need to be looking at. So it's a bit darker on one
side than it is the other. And we also get a little bit
of a dent happening there. So with my kab eraser, I'm just going to take
a bit of that line out so that I can just create a little
bit of a dent there. We are aiming for a realistic drawing of a
gray scale tennis ball here. So take your time with it, keep looking up at
your reference photo. Okay. Short level strokes is all
that's required for this. Don't need to do any long lines. That is actually
very light there, so I need to remove
a bit of that. It will be sort of equal to the shading of the fur of
the tennis ball there. And then as it comes down here, it gets darker again. It doesn't look like
much yet because we've kind of done very
little of the tennis ball, but once we get into the
texture, we're on our way. Okay, so I'm fairly
happy with it. Ready to start on the
fur of the tennis ball. So again, our light source
is coming from here. I'm not going to put
a line down there, but imaginary line down there. This is what's going to
be mainly in shadow, and then we're going to have a cast shadow happening here, which is the easiest part
of the whole drawing, and we can leave that till last. So next video we'll be getting on with the fur of
our tennis ball. Okay.
7. Fur on TB: Alright, so moving on, I'm going to start, obviously, over this side so that
I can work this way. And I'm not going to no,
I'm thinking as I'm going. I'm going to do this
section here first, and then I'll come
up to here and start doing this
and then come down, then finish that
and then to there. So actually, what I've got to do get your eraser or
your kneadable eraser, and you need to
just really lighten the circle that we've created around where the light
source is coming from. We don't want to be
able to see that line. The very end, we do little hairs coming
off the tennis ball, but we don't do them
until the very end. So I just don't want to have a So you probably can't
see that line anymore. I can. I don't know
if I can bring it up. Yeah, you can still
faintly see the line. I can see it. No problem at all. Okay, so we will be focusing
on this bit right here. All right. So it is the
lightest part of the ball. It really is not going
to have much at all. Do not put any pressure
down on your pencil. It will be too much. You don't want to be able to
see the line direction that your tennis ball is taking. We want it to be quite messy
messy as in light messy, because we will go
over it and add those little fibers at the end. We're not using any
tools for this drawing. I just wanted it to be
without the blending stump, which is these here. So we're not using
that because not everyone has got
access to one of them. They are great to use. They push your graphite into
the grains of the paper. But for the purpose of drawing this realistic
tennis ball, we're not going to be
using the paper stump. So just gradually
make your way down. As we get down to here, we do start to get into
the shadowed area. So it doesn't take
long, especially when you're drawing so lightly. And we're not I mean, it probably is realistic size. Is something just so wonderful
about doing such a task? And So good for our brains. Get all the healthy brain
chemicals exploding. It doesn't matter
what age you are. As soon as you start
doing something creative, brain chemicals start exploding and all the feel goods come out. Okay, so I'm going to start adding a little bit more
texture to this now. Turn my keyboard off so you
can't hear emails coming in. That is too big. I hit the wrong button then. Some video started playing. I think it was one of the
videos for this tennis ball. So when I'm doing these classes, I am actually
working at my desk. I'm not working at my
drawing table because I will always be working small
when working on a class. And that's where I've
got the webcam setup, the camera that's
sitting up there, and also the lighting. My drawing desk doesn't
have any of that around it. It doesn't even
have good lighting. But I'm noly ever using that space in the daytime and it's got really
good daylight. Okay, so I'm just
starting to get a little bit harder as
I come down here. One thing that you can't
see in the reference, but you do have to account for is your
reflective light here. So it is there on the
reference. I can see it. We won't be dark, dark, dark down here because we've got that cast shadow
happening here, but you need to have a bit of
reflective light happening there just to give it
the form that it needs, that sense of three D Okay, so I'm going to go
back up to the top of the tennis ball now and
start working on that. And then I can
come back to here. So, this has got a little
bit of an indent, not much. And it's still same light
sauce up the top here. Okay. I am not putting any pressure
on my pencil at all. It is literally
tickling the surface. You really get a light
section happening here, too. I can see on the screen that looks like that's
quite messy there. Not a problem. It's
all gonna be fixed up. I may use my Nable
eraser, if anything, just to add little
highlights in this area. That won't be until
the end, though. Okay, so I can start adding a little bit more
darkness to it now. It's much better to stay light and gradually put
your ducks in and we keep checking back at our tonal scales to make sure we are going
dark enough because it's just something
that a lot of us will fight is going too dark. We just fear that we're going to ruin our drawing
if we go too dark. And that is the great
thing about having these tonal scales to keep
checking in on and say, Have I actually pushed
it dark enough? No, I need to get it darker. We want to see every part of that tonal scale
in our drawing. Okay, so that is all
very, very light. The darkest area it's
going to be in here. So I'm going to
start increasing. Now, putting just a little bit more pressure on the pencil. And the glue part of the tennis ball is still
the darkest part down here. So just do remember that as
you're coming down here. And I can see a darker
area down here, too. So I'm just going to increase right where that
shadow is going to be. Once we get pencil down
all over the tennis ball, all of a sudden you pick
up speed quite quickly. Okay. So just finishing off the final part of the first
layer of the tennis ball. And then it's just a matter
of increasing the shadow, and then we'll take a break, then come back and
do the hair or the fibers of the tennis ball and that cast shadow
that it has created. So I'm just having a
look at my reference, making sure that I
get those darks. Keep looking at how dark
the shadow is compared to the glue in the scenes
of the tennis ball. Okay. I'm going to have a look at my
scale again soon. Because I feel. Okay,
let's look at it now. I am probably in this
section right here, or actually, we're
looking at the two B. So I'm sitting in
this section here. Got those lights lights, and I'm going to
use my Nable eraser to fix that up at the end, but I'm still
sitting quite here. I really haven't pushed
this area here yet. So let's get on
and get that done. Just got to be aware
that you want to keep that reflective light
happening there. So that is not going to go
as dark as the car shadow. It is dark, but, yeah, we need to
be really careful. And pick up the
darkness through here. Just putting a little bit
of pressure on the pencil. You can't see any of the
lines that I'm making. I can make this darker. Uh I am a very slow
sketcher and painter. So if you are getting this
down a lot faster than me, don't feel like you are doing the wrong thing.
You're not rushing. We all work at different paces. And I absolutely 100% know that I approach it
very, very slowly. Always have always will. If I tried to rush this, it would look like
a scribbly mess. Okay, so I'm just increasing
that shadow through there. Hoping that looks quite nice. It looks in when I'm
looking at the video, it's looking quite blue, so I'm not too happy about that. Don't know why. We've put
a bright sunny day today. It's not overcast. I'm not too sure why
it's looking like that, but hopefully when I edit
it, everything will be fine. Alright, so I'm going
to end this video here, and then we're going to
come back and start putting all those little textery bits in and the cast shadow
down the bottom. Then once we put the shadow in, we can just assess and make sure that we've got everything
where it should go.
8. TB Fluff: Okay, so now we're going
to start adding in our little fibers that are on the tennis ball and then
we'll do the cast shadow. And then you'll see
it'll just change. As soon as we put this shadow
in, everything changes. At the moment, it's a
floating tennis ball, and shadows are such an
important thing in drawing because they actually
will ground your drawing. So with the little fibers, we're just literally doing it's going to be really hard
to see what I'm doing here. I am adding tiny
little marks in. It'll be like adding dust, and I'm not putting any
pressure on my pencil. And also twist your
pencil as you do it because then that's going to make for a very organic,
fluffy little fur. And you can do a few in
your tennis ball as well. Helps create that texture. Looks so effective
when very hard to see. Hang on. So do I bring it up? Hopefully you can see that
focus of the tennis ball. I did zoom in a little
bit on the camera, but I really am. I'm adding, like, just
the finest little lines. So what I might do is
I'll speed this bit up. Just make sure I am recording. I'll stop talking,
and I'll speed it up, but you know what I'm doing. So I'm just coming
back on again. I am smudging this area here. I know you can't see
it, but I can see it. There's a lot of
smudging going on there. I might just get rid of it now. Before I put that shadow in. Could be that my glove is a
little bit, dirty, as well. Okay, so I'm fairly happy with the texture on the tennis ball. You can see it when
I zoom in like that. Alright, so now I'm just going
to take a break and we'll come back to doing a
shadow just very easy, and then just perfecting it. No.
9. TB Shadow: Alright, so we're
going to move on to a shadow. Very easy. I know you can't see
it, but I have put graphite down on the
page from my hand. Definitely need to give
this glove another wash. So mark in your shadow
where you can see. See it. Don't sort of, like, guess where that shadow is. There's a bit of a curve to it. And then goes from about here. Look at the thickness
of the shadow. And then start shading it in. It is going to be the darkest
part of your drawing. You should be able to see where that shadow meets
the tennis ball. Okay, so I have now
completed the shadow. I'm going to break from this video and come
back and we'll just do all the fine little details to finish our tennis ball off.
10. TB finishing touches: Okay, so we are now
just looking at it and seeing where
we can improve. And it's really just all over, just looking all over and
seeing where we can improve. Good idea to have a
spare piece of paper, and at this stage, if you are right handed, just lay it over that shadow
because you just don't want to add any extra
graphite to the drawing. Then you have to h Just bear in mind
that you've just finished doing the shadow
if you're right handed, so you're used to putting
a bit of pressure down, and now you've got to
lighten it up again. Now, I was going to use my
kable eraser over here, but I went ahead and did
all the texture first. And if I use it now,
it's gonna look weird. It doesn't need to be used. I have still managed to get a really nice ton of scale
from all areas of it. I'm just making sure I
have gone dark enough. So just spend this time, um, just finishing off and making this tennis ball look
as realistic as we can. I think we can say that that
is done for tennis ball. Okay. So cannot wait to see your efforts in
your tennis ball. So remember the
description and resources? Or is it project and resources? I'm trying to remember
here as I talk, go into that to put your tennis
ball that you have done, and I'll be able to give you
some constructive feedback. And yeah, just connect through
that. That'll be great. Hope you enjoy doing this class. I love doing objects like this where we get that
real realism happening. What shall I do next?
Let me know, as well. What drawing we should
do next in graphite. Have fun. See you.
Jane Whittred, Art Teacher and Illustrator at Mrs Red's
