Demo: Graphite Tonalities
Lesson 3 from: Getting Started with Colored and Graphite PencilsMary Jane Begin
Demo: Graphite Tonalities
Lesson 3 from: Getting Started with Colored and Graphite PencilsMary Jane Begin
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Demo: Graphite Tonalities
So we have different kinds of tonalities and also weaves. I've done, kind of direction of the pencil can go almost like a weave where you go in one direction. This is all again with this 4B. And then change the direction. And this is just building the tonality in a different way than just pressing down. People think oh, if I just press down harder, that's the only way to make something darker. By layering this kind of line work like this, it builds a slightly more consistent textural surface as opposed to just like this. And pressing harder. So, it takes a little more time. A little bit more slowly, but this would be a weave. You're going one direction and then another direction. Or you can build your tonality in a circular fashion. This is something I tend to like to make circles. So I tend to build my tonality in little circles of line. And so you can see as I press harder it gets a little deeper. But I can go really soft with my touch and it's pressure sensitive. Pencil is pressure ...
sensitive. I can go a little softer. And I can lighten up my tonality. Now this surface that I'm working on right here is actually a Vellum Bristol. It's a hundred pound, again it's a beautiful surface. It's super smooth for making finished drawings, pencil drawings. It's a really great surface to work on, I love it. You can make thin pointed marks. And with a tool like this, once the point is not so fine, you can make nice thick marks. So, this is actually the 4B. It's pretty versatile. You can do crosshatch like you would with a pen tool. With big open shapes as opposed to little tiny weave. And you can just do a straight layer. We're using the line. You're using sort of the length of, and the shift of your wrist. If you were doing something with a pastel tool or a chalk, you might use the flick of your elbow. But for pencils, they tend to be smaller work. You tend to use the wrist to help move the tone across. And it's just this kind of a motion. It's all line-centric. So you have different ways you can apply the tone that I've shown you here. Now there's one more pencil I do want to mention. This is the 4B. It's pretty deep. You could actually go up to a 6B, which is super soft. But again, it'll smear if you start to do wet media on top of it so you have to kinda, you have to spray fix it or use a lighter pencil. This is an ebony pencil. This is the darkest graphite that you can find. And basically it's not quite black. It's actually kind of shiny. I think you probably see that. But it's a really great way to get to your darkest value. It also gives you an opportunity to create very nice textures. Because the lead is literally soft and it's a lot bigger than all of the mechanical pencil leads. So I like an ebony pencil just as a tool in of itself. It's really great. But you can see how dark you can get. And, how light you can get with that. And this is called a gradation, what I've just done is called a gradation. It's just a simply way to see your darkest value to your lightest value.
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