Wild about Graphite

Every now and then I get cravings, in my case not for food, but for the humble pencil.

I can just sit down with my pencil and start to create.

I mainly use a 2mm clutch pencil made by Staedtler, just occasionally changing to a 0.5mm lead for very fine detail. I mostly use a HB lead, but do add darks with a 2B, even sometimes going as far as 6B in the eye. If I use a 6B I always then go over it with a harder lead to dull the shine.

I decided I wanted to do another wild animal piece so had a look through my photographs.

This Meerkat is from one of my own images, I take many Meerkat photographs as I love their funny little faces.

We had a trip to the Zoo at weekend and the Meerkats posed for me.

My drawing is about 12 x 8 inches, on Arches Hot Press Watercolour paper. I really like Arches paper as it is smooth but can take plenty of graphite. The only slight disadvantage is that it is a touch cream coloured, which makes reproduction a little more difficult than if it was a bright white.

There is more at the bottom of the picture but it doesn't fit on my scanner.