SUNDAY WORKSHOP December 7th - drawing with soft pencils.

Clare Shepherd
14 hours ago
2 min read

I shall be asking my students to bring a boiled egg for a very good reason - they can eat it afterwards if they like! We're looking at edges, light against dark and dark against light and the good old planet exercise before embarking on a drawing of some scrunched up paper.

Drawing with pencil. Pimperne Village Hall, 10am – 4pm.

You’ll need good soft pencils, a pencil sharpener, a good eraser and good cartridge paper. You’ll also need a few watercolours and a watercolour brush – for that exercise you can work on watercolour paper or good cartridge paper. You’ll need a boiled egg and, if possible, a piece of lightly coloured paper.

Firstly, you’re going to do the planet exercise with soft pencils (4B, 6B, 8B etc.) but I’m going to allow you to draw around a circle – I used a small Colman’s mustard lid!
Note that the edge around the planet changes at two point - the tone changes from being inside the area of the planet to being outside the area of the planet. Look for the two places where the changeover happens.
Now you’re going to place your egg in front of you on a piece of lightly coloured paper. I used a piece of smooth packaging cardboard. You’re going to look at your egg in the ‘language’ of the planet exercise. I used the lightly coloured base as it allowed the top of my egg to be light against dark.
Note again where the changeover points are – where the tone goes from being inside the area of the egg to outside. Try to create a seamless edge around the egg even though the tone changes places.

Next take a piece of computer paper (I’ll bring some) and lightly scrunch it. Place the scrunched piece in front of you, perhaps on the piece of lightly coloured paper – this’ll be your choice.
Lightly outline the whole shape, look for in-between spaces between one fold and another – this is more helpful that you might imagine in finding the whole shape.
All across your folded paper you’ll find similar swap-overs of tone, exactly like the swap-overs on your planet and egg. Lightly mark the main fold structures and then, using your eraser and soft pencils, find the tones either side of a fold. Soften and smudge edges. Look for seamlessness of an edge in the same way that you have with the egg and planet drawings.