Ruby2
 

Hello all,
This is a recently finished piece of the same girl Ruby, that I posted not too long ago. It's about 10x16, graphite/white charcoal highlights on gray paper(do not know the brand name). Due to my limited digital photography experience, I had to play with the pic a bit on Photoshop to try to achieve the proper contrast. What resulted instead is the whites appearing a bit brighter and having a bluish tint. My apologies. If I hadn't played with the pic, it would have been very light overall. Oh yeah, because it has been mentioned recently, it's done on the smooth side. Thanks for looking.

This is my favorite of yours so far!

Thank you Michele,
I was able to get a better picture in terms of accuracy in color and contrast. The bluish tint is gone, and the closeup is the closest example to what the original looks like.

And the closeup
 

Closeup

Jimmie,
Was this portrait done without any stumping? Your transitions are so subtle. It's a beautiful drawing, as all of yours are.

Can I ask how many hours you put into this piece?
What brand of graphite pencils do you use? Do you sharpen your pencils with a sharpener, a knife/razor, or sand paper? I know Anthony Ryder lines up NUMEROUS sharpened pencils so that he doesn't have to stop just to sharpen. And I have read that students at different ateliers are taught to sharpen their pencils into very long points, I suppose, with a special knife/razor's edge. I am incessantly in search of a better way to sharpen my pencils.
Thanks
Patty

Patricia, thank you.
I don't use any blending techniques when it comes to graphite work. The look on this piece was due to the paper which is rougher than what I usually use. The majority of my graphite is done on Stonehenge paper, this one is from sheets I have laying around so I don't know the brand name, but I'm pretty sure it's charcoal paper you can find in a pad.

This piece was only about 12-15 hours, as my other graphite work runs between 25-40 hours, breaks inbetween. I have a few different brands, Derwent, Sanford, Kohinoor, the Kohinoor are woodless which I like the most but only come in even # B's, no hard ones. I use an electric pencil sharpener which works fine for me. Is the purpose of the long points for using the sides of them? If so, I don't do that either, instead the point but at a slight angle, as to not use the exact point because I have noticed, especially with the harder pencils, that using the point sometimes damages the paper by leaving grooves. I have seen work before where the grooves were made intentionally so they will leave a highlight when gone over with a soft pencil. I also like to look at my work time to time, so having all my pencils sharpened before hand would'nt make any sense for me. But if Ryder sharpens by hand, I guess that would be time consuming process.

Thanks.

Thanks for responding Jimmie. I usually use Derwent and have never seen Sanford or Kohimoor. A fellow art student gave me a woodless graphite, 8B he bought in France that was awesome, nice heavy pencil and rich, smooth lines, that I have never been able to match with Derwent. It didn't have a name on it and he couldn't remember. Maybe I'll search online for Kohimoor or Sanford and give them a try.

I use an electric sharpener usually but mine recently broke - Christmas wish list to my kids!! I'm not sure why the atelier students use long pencils.

Happy drawing over the weekend, Jimmie...
Patty