I haven’t posted a drawing in a long while, and for that I apologize. Sometimes life becomes hard, and the muse struggles to be heard. This shell symbolizes how a broken thing can reveal hidden strength.
There are so many details on this shell that I don’t have to draw them all. I can pick the most important details and leave out the weaker ones. I’m using Grafwood pencils on Arches hot press watercolor paper, one of my favorite combinations.
Even though brush blending would look good and save time on this piece, I’m not going to use it. The look of paper with delicate pencil hatches over it has become my passion, so I’ll shade with the tip of my pencil only.
The shading on the inside of the shell is very subtle. I’m using a sharp H pencil to lay down a close hatch in the general shadow pattern, and then using my kneaded eraser to lift out the more subtle light areas. Then I blend those light areas back in with hatching around their edges if needed.
I’m aware that I’m not drawing this part of the shell perfectly, and my perfectionism needs to be calmed. The highlights are out of place and my values are off, but I think I’m close enough to mimic this part of the shell.
As you probably know, I work from a traced line drawing. I’m spending time redrawing a lot of the tracing now because my tracing didn’t capture the parts of the shell it needed to. This happens all the time, but having the tracing there gives me something to work from. All in all, I’m still very much pro-tracing because it saves time, even when I have to spend time redrawing it.
There are very subtle details around the broken opening of the shell. I’m using my electric eraser to erase light details into darker hatching to create some detail, and I’m also using a kneaded eraser to lift subtle detail from darker areas. I always use a pencil tip to retouch details created with an eraser. The details are hard to get in the right spots because there are no clear landmarks.
I’m having trouble placing the ‘dot’ detail in the bottom right-hand part of the shell. The dots are smaller than the point of my pencil, and there are so many of them I can’t draw them all. So I’m drawing them larger than what they are, drawing fewer of them, and in different configurations.
To finish this drawing, I added the shadow detail at the bottom of the shell by gradating the value with a B and an H pencil.
I’m happy with this drawing. I think it captures the shell’s texture and form.
Keep drawing everyone,
Carol
Beautiful work I have been trying to draw shells with pencils not easy!
Hi Janice, Thank you for your kind words. Shells are great subjects but are very complicated! Good luck with your pencil work. Carol
I’m so happy you posted again! I discovered your blog in the last year and have been checking it regularly hoping that you would post again. I’m new to drawing and painting and your words and artwork really resonate with me. It’s a pleasure to read through your old posts.
Hi Michele, It’s lovely to hear from you. I’m glad I resonate with you! Hope to post something again soon.
Carol