Here’s a drawing that I found beyond the edges of the original. I tiled more drawing board around the original in a moment of creative juiciness, and the rest of the story appeared.
To meet my criteria of a “beyond the edge” drawing, which I’m making up as I write, I have to approve of each tile as it looks alone, and also how it looks combined with the other tiles.
The Particulars
I began the drawing with the upper left tile, added three more pieces of drawing board (Strathmore 500 Bristol Board Vellum), and that’s when I discovered that I was drawing pears that appear to be wrapped in paper, perhaps as if they’re in a gift box.
There isn’t any deep meaning in this drawing. I just like pear shapes. They’re cute, with their pointy tops and round bottoms. Also, I’d like to take a bite out of one. Yummy!
This drawing could simply be the result of hunger. C’est la vie!
The nitty gritty with a twist.
The surfaces of the pears look relatively smooth on this medium textured board, but I didn’t use a blender tool. I don’t have anything against using blenders, I just didn’t want to smudge the beautiful texture of graphite on this vellum bristol board.
I’ve come to appreciate paper textures, even rough ones, when they are hatched with a smooth technique. A slightly rough paper texture can sharpen the look of a hatch because the eye can focus on it, unlike with smudging, which blurs the hatch.
Here’s how I draw a smooth looking texture on rough paper.
This example isn’t “smoothed” and you can see that it looks a little bumpy. There are a few odd lines and other blemishes.
I drew this shape with a dark 2B hatch around the edge. Then I filled the center with HB and 2H while blending in the edge by hatching over that area again.
The smooth looking shape on the left has the light spots darkened, and the dark spots lightened.
First, I pinched a kneaded eraser into a tiny point and “tapped” out the dark lines and spots in the lighter part of the shape. Then I carefully filled them back in with a hard sharp lead (2H) until they disappeared into the surrounding area. I used a softer lead (HB) to fill in light spots in the darker hatching.
That’s my process for making a smooth looking hatched surface on a roughly textured paper. It’s just plain old pencil to the paper technique, with lots of practice.
Keep drawing everyone!
Carol
