My Nupastel drawing technique

[William Whitaker]

I can pull out very fine detail or wonderfully fine lines by working my kneaded eraser into a point.

[William Whitaker]

That's all folks. Thanks for your patience.

[Chris Saper]

Dear Bill,

Thank you so much for taking the time to so thoroughly demonstrate your technique. When I see work like this, it makes me re-energized to want to draw, and to just get immersed in the pleasure of it.

The NuPastel is great drawing material and I feel that the kneaded eraser is one of the most underrated things, period.

Bob Lemler, whom you may know from the Scottsdale Artist's School uses crumpled up bits of old pantyhose in lieu of your toule. I don't even have any old pantyhose, but there's always Walgreens!

Thank you again.

[Jean Kelly]

William,

Do you sharpen your pastel stick with an exacto knife first to get that sharp edge? Is the painting shown done with only one color? Can you show a detail of line quality? Your painting is lovely, very soft and fluid. It makes me want to pick up my NuPastels again. Thanks for the demo.

Jean

[William Whitaker]

Chris,

Pantyhose is too soft for me. Besides, I can just barely bring myself to go into a fabric store to buy toule, let alone buy pantyhose!

And yes indeed, playing with a bit of kneaded eraser in your hand is better than chewing gum or smoking to pass the time.

Jean,

A nice new square ended stick of Nupastel has four sharp edges. I rarely take an exacto knife to a stick.

I probably did the standing figure with at least three diffent colors.

Given the limitations of photography, I'd have to take a closeup shot of a drawing with my digital camera to show you satisfactory detail. Meanwhile this fairly large sized detail, scanned from a 4x5" transparency, will have to do.

[Jean Kelly]

William, it appears that I was reading your post while you were still posting, and I posted questions before you were done posting! Thank you for the reply to what must have appeared to be pretty dumb questions!

Jean (feeling embarassed)

[Doreen Lepore]

Thank you so much for posting this! I love coming here and learning something new every day!

[Enzie Shahmiri]

William you are what I consider a born teacher and I truly appreciate that you take such care to show your technique.

Someone down the street is selling an oak drafting table, one that has those thin and very deep drawers that would just be heaven for storing pastels and colored pencils. Every day I see the table out infront of his garage (he wants $100 for it) and after seeing your beautiful drawings I might just have to buy it and dig out all the supplies

You have inspired me to make a mess and have dust fly all over the place! Thank you!

[Jean Kelly]

William, thank you for this demo. I will be using your technique today for my studies on Sally. No knuckles though, I like my fingers! Still can't believe that I'm talking to and learning from artists like you. Thank you for this site and all who participate.

With respect,
Jean

[Josef Sy]

William, thanks for this wonderful demo. Just wondering how long did it take to do that drawing? I do life drawings but it is usually quite fast from 1 minute to 20 minutes max. I guess it is more gesture drawings rather than final drawings.