Basic Drawing Skills

Our second portrait was of Don Knots from his days on the Andy Griffiths show. I was very surprised that some of the younger people even knew him, though he also was on some more modern shows like Three's Company. Anyway, for this portrait I enjoyed the surface used which was matt board. There is a very definite texture which allows some of the white board to show through. I used a different shading style just because I didn't have the time to do my usual smoother smudging technique. I've used a cross hatching style which was much faster to do. It's a little more muscular than smudging. These two approaches to shading with graphite are very different but each is equally effective, it's all about finding which approach you enjoy more or perhaps it's best to know both so you can use the most appropriate one for the particular drawing you are doing.