Learning Different Mediums

In Drawing I have been learning more about different mediums. In the past I really only used your basic pencil to draw. Now my mind is opening up to all the new possibilities.

So far in my drawing class I have learned so much. In the past I mainly used a regular pencil for all of my drawings. I never really thought outside of the box for different drawing mediums. The first thing we started using in drawing was charcoal. I was way out of my league. I never realized how many different styles of charcoal there was to use. There are charcoal pencils where you have a soft, medium, and hard grade. The soft pencil is going to give you really dark contrast. The hard grade is more like drawing with a pencil, its easier to make clean lines with and harder to blend out. You also have your condensed charcoal. This charcoal is going to give you an extremely dark contrast. Even the dust that comes from the condensed charcoal will smear all over your page if you are not careful. The other piece of charcoal that I have used is the vine charcoal. This has turned out to be my favorite charcoal to use. It is very light weight and feels like it can fly away like a feather. It gives you more of a soft tone that can make the most beautiful light lines and easy to blend out.

More recently in drawing, we have been working with water soluble graphite sticks. Now I thought charcoal was amazing, which it still is, until I found out about these guys. My mind exploded when I found out all the different possibilities you can use it for. My 6B graphite stick reminds me of a giant black crayon. It will give you a very rich and dark black tone. Did you know that you can dunk it in water and draw with it?! I didn’t at first! Now that I have learned that I do it constantly. It is by far my favorite drawing tool to use so far. I also like to take a paint brush, dip it in water, and then brush the graphite stick. Then I can just paint the lines on the paper. There are so many different techniques you can do with it. I am so excited to learn more in this class. My mind is open for all its possibilities.