Soft Pencils

One of the purest tools with which an artist can express him or her self, in my opinion, is a pencil. Lines made with a pencil can be mild and curly, decisive and thick, restrained and sharp all depending on the softness of the pencil used to draw with. Soft pencils are marked with letter B and numbers from 8 to just B, 8B being the softest. Most commonly used soft pencils are 2B and 3B. Very soft graphite pencils are used to make dark soft wide lines.

Drawing The Basket With Vegetables

• one sheet of quality natron paper
• 6B pencil
• white chalk
• charcoal
• kneaded eraser
• drawing board
• pins

Place the paper on to the drawing board and fasten it with pins. Hold the pen away from the tip and start drawing just the slightest shapes of the basket and its contents. Try and keep your hand away from the paper working from the elbow. Do not linger long on single detail just let your hand “fly” over the paper and make soft pale lines.

From time to time just back away from the drawing to see if all the shapes on it are as accurate as can be. Start adding darker shades on the darker objects of the drawing, try and add all elements of the drawing at the same time, let the composition grow all together. That will help you not to lose the depth of your drawing. For softer shades use the side of the graphite in the pencil and use your fingers on the lines to make them softer, this will give curves and roundness to your drawing, making it look full and alive.

Notice how the objects that are sticking out of the group are drawn in more details whit more contrast in darker and lighter opposite the objects in the background. That depicts the depth of the drawing preventing the composition to lean forward.

Now start adding the details characteristic for every object using both the tip of the pencil and the side of graphite. Apply different pressure while drawing to depict light and shade. Use the pointed part of the kneaded eraser to erase areas on the eggplant giving it more realistic look. Go over the brightest parts on the drawing with chalk to emphasize on the light. Use charcoal to emphasize the darkest parts of the drawing like eggplant, mushrooms zucchini and front part of the basket. WIth the charcoal make wide lines of the tablecloth placing it sideways on the paper and drawing.

With the tip of the pencil separate the shades between vegetables and emphasize the structure of the basket especially in the front part. When adding the last details with the pencil notice how it helps to make the light parts of the drawing look even brighter. That contrast in tone really makes your drawing look more real.

I hope I managed to get you through the process of making a full drawing succesfully. If you have any questions and need any help feel free to leave them below I will be more than happy to answer and help.