New Tools for Charcoal Drawing

My granddaughter is an artist and has been drawing for a while. She is still in high school and takes art classes during the school year. When she was at my house over the summer, I asked her to draw one of the pictures that I had to draw in my charcoal drawing class so that I could watch her technique. I learned a few things from watching her draw. The first thing is she wanted to use a special mechanical pencil to sketch with instead of a regular no. 2 graphite pencil which is what my teacher had me use.

I asked her why that particular pencil and she told me that the lines would be so thin and light that she wouldn't have to erase her sketch lines.

I told her that my teacher said that the charcoal would not stick to the graphite, but she said that she hadn't had any problems. The other thing that I learned from her was that she sketched the areas that needed to be shaded. She had a bunch of irregular shapes on the face of the woman that she was drawing. Later, those shapes disappeared.

I don't know if any one taught her that or if she just figured out how to translate visually what she sees into something that she can draw. She is a teenager now and she has been drawing since she was around four or five years old.

I went to my class today and began a new drawing. I thought about the drawing that my granddaughter did for me and wished that I had that mechanical pencil so that I wouldn't have to erase my sketch lines. I went ahead and used my regular no. 2 pencil, but after class I went to the art store to buy the pencil that my granddaughter recommended. I also bought some soft white charcoal and some soft black charcoal which I needed for blending.

I chose a figure to draw this time that I hope will come out looking fairly realistic. I am taking my time with the initial shapes so that the head will be in proper proportion and the eyes and ears will be placed correctly.

I did a lot of drawing and erasing in class just trying to get the basic shape. I'm thinking of starting over with my new mechanical pencil so that I won't have to erase my initial sketch lines.

We'll see. I hope that it works. I need all of the help that I can get.

Have a wonderful day!