The drawing classes I’ve taken before generally start each sketch or drawing with a middlin’ hard pencil, 2H, H, or HB (good ol’ No. 2). Val Webb’s Drawing Cats and Dogs starts off with a softer, darker 4B pencil and a very, very light hand. Then there are a goodly number of layers added on with gently increasing pressure to get the darker colors without hard edges or lines in the areas of soft fur. My hands get along with this method a lot better than the previous ones I’ve tried. It’s more time-consuming, but it has some of the relaxing enjoyment of coloring. I could use more of that, these days.
This kitty took a few trials with different sketchbooks and paper pads until I found one with a smooth enough texture to get similar results to Val’s. I’ll be working my way through the rest of the course in a Fabriano EcoQua blank notebook (60#/85 gsm paper).
I’m going to try using this paper for other pencil-based course projects that ask for hot press watercolor paper, like the carbon pencil class that I stopped working through (think non-shiny pencils that use lampblack instead of graphite).
