CHALLENGE (21 DAYS) Day 8: Finishing the composition and materials

Today I am continuing to work on my first composition, proceeding with the placement of shadows that will give my drawing all its depth!                                                          SUCCESSFULLY CREATING A HYPER-REALISTIC PORTRAIT WITH MY RIGHT HAND IN 21 DAYS!                                                                                                                                                                      I am going to devote the entirety of my 15 minutes to sketching the very dark background that will highlight my model and slightly redefine the outlines of my eggs! Nothing exceptional, then, but it remains good practice for my right hand, which still resists this work of controlling movement and pressure!

This is an opportunity for me today to talk about basic drawing equipment!

To start drawing, especially if you are a beginner, it is not necessary to invest huge sums of money! An HB pencil, an eraser, and A4 printer paper will do perfectly fine!

This allows you to create many drawings for a minimum initial investment, and practically everyone has these three things at home!

However, you can quickly make your task much easier by investing in simple and inexpensive items like a full range of graphite pencils!

Graphite pencils or grey pencils:

WHAT IS GRAPHITE?

Graphite is carbon powder, the same kind that makes up charcoal, for example. To create the leads for our pencils, it is mixed with clay, a binder, which allows the powder to be shaped and made into sticks.

WHAT DO H, B, F, AND HB MEAN?

It is the different proportions of this mixture that determine the quality of our pencils, from the hardest to the softest. This quality is symbolized by the letters H (for Hard) and B (for Black).

For example, at home, I have the full DERWENT GRAPHIC range which goes from 9H to 9B, including the famous schoolchild's HB, which is the balance between hard and soft, and the F, which is the hard version of HB. It is this variety of graphite quality, ranging from softest to hardest, that allows for the creation of gradients and shadows that go, as indicated by the scale of values below, from very light grey to a grey as close to black as possible:

It is this scale of values in drawing that allows for the rendering of all the nuances of grey!

Because graphite pencils are grey and not black!

In fact, even if you use the 9B at its maximum tone, you will notice that its black is not truly black and that it shows grey metallic reflections in the light! To obtain true black, you would have to turn to black stone (pierre noire), composed of ampelite, which is darker and especially more matte, free of grey reflections! Be careful! These two mediums are often difficult to use together!

 
These differences between the composition of mediums and their effects are often so important in drawing that they will be the subject of an article all on their own!

But to start at a very low cost, choose a 2B pencil, a good pencil sharpener, and a white eraser!

The 2B pencil on its own allows you to obtain a very wide scale of values, and if you only have to buy one, this is the one!

See you tomorrow for the continuation of adding relief to my composition and the choice of basic materials!