How to Draw With Graphite and Colored Pencils, Ch. 3

Today we continue the tutorial that takes you step by step through drawing with pencil and eventually, colored pencil.

EDGES OR OUTLINES? Real life has edges; coloring books and cartoons have outlines.  Rather than separate items with a black line, use different shades of gray. It is a constant questioning: is this darker or lighter than the thing it touches? Sometimes it will change as you move through a particular area—within a particular item, it can be against something lighter in one place and something darker in another.

Step eight: Keep layering. I used 4B for the shadows of the battens above the door, and added 2B on top of the 4B and over the boards and battens. You can see that this little area isn’t as dark as its neighbor on the left.

Step nine: I continued on the upper board and batten section, and this time added HB on top so it matches the previous shaded areas. I also placed the erasing shield over the top of these parts and erased my jagged lines that went over the border.

MORE NOTES: There are many little finessing techniques that I do automatically and if I called them all out and scanned each one, it would be 2026 before you read this tutorial. A few of those techniques are (1) erasing little pieces that cross over into other territory; (2) darkening areas slightly in order to separate them from their neighbors; (3) ditto #2, but lightening, sometimes tapping gently with an eraser; (4) using a straight edge to clean up edges.

ANOTHER NOTE ABOUT TOOLS: With old buildings like cabins, I first use a straight edge to draw a line, but when shading, I do it freehand so there is a touch of wobble, which gives the look of age and wear (sort of like my face these days).

Step ten: The window started with some 4B, then 2B, then B (yep, a new pencil I hadn’t used yet) over all the glass. I am just pantsing this part because I think the photo has some unimportant specifics, and I’d rather put my efforts into the parts that matter, things that are identifiable.

NOTES ABOUT COLOR: When working from a colored photo, you have to decide which colors are darker and which are lighter. We don’t use black outlines in realistic drawing, so the different colors in real life are depicted by different degrees of darkness in a monochromatic drawing (single color, in this case gray) called “values” in Art Speak. I choose to work from colored photos instead of converting to black and white because it sharpens my ability to see the values; it also helps me know when 2 items of the same value are actually 2 separate items and not one indiscernible blob of gray.

Step eleven: I decided that the glass on the windows looks too fuzzy, grainy, textured, so I used a tool called a tortillon, which is sort of a paper “pencil”, to smear and blend things. A Q-tip, tissue, or your finger will also do the trick.

MORE NOTES ABOUT VALUES: When one item is on top of another item of the same color, the one behind will be slightly darker where the two meet. That’s the way to separate them without the dreaded outline. 

Tomorrow: chapter 4, in which we complete the graphite portion of the drawing.

How to Draw with Graphite and Colored Pencils, Ch. 2

Happy Birthday, Trail Guy!

Hello, my guinea pig friends! Today I continue testing out my tutorial writing skills. 

The Next Steps

Step five: Straighten out the lines. It is NOT “cheating” to use straight edges. If it took a tool to build the actual item, it most likely will take a tool to draw it accurately. There is quite a bit of erasing at this stage, and I use the erasing shield to remove the tiny lines that are wrong. I want my work to be clean and accurate, without hairy or double (or triple) sketchy lines.

ANTI-SMEAR TACTIC: When you erase, you make crumbs. If you flick them with your hand, you will smear. If you blow, you might spit. (Yes, spit happens). Use a drafting brush, a soft paint brush, an antique shaving brush, whatever you have.

Step six: start shading. Shading is the fun part, the party! It is when things come alive with textures and depth. Because I am right handed, I start on the left and the top. This keeps me from dragging my hand across the shaded parts and smearing it. 

I start with a 4B, using the side of the lead. The photo has lots of indiscernible blobs in the window, so I chose to just do some fuzzy sloping strokes, almost a painting technique. Keep the pressure very light, because you can always add more, but it is a hassle to erase if you get too strong in the beginning. The scan looks much darker than the actual drawing because I want the texture to show.

PENCIL TALK: There is no industry standard, so the same pencils look different in different brands. “B” means black; “H” stands for hard. The higher the number with the B or H, the more of that particular quality. For example, 4B is blacker (and softer) than 2B; 6H is harder (and lighter) than 4H. HB is smack dab in the middle, and is the equivalent of a #2 pencil, which is a completely different pencil rating system.

Step seven: Continue layering. Over the 4B, I put 2B using the same type of strokes, and extended it to some new areas, then followed with HB layered on top of the previous layers, and ended with 2H, on top of the previous layers and on the rest of the glass on the window. I just kept layering, working on the glass and the wood surrounding it. I build my shades with many layers rather than pressure, and mostly use the side of the lead rather than the point. Then I come back with a point to sharpen the edges.

I think we will have about 2 more days of this tutorial, and then I’ll abruptly change topics so I don’t lose my readers who are bored with watching paint dry.

 

How to draw with graphite and colored pencils, Ch. 1

My colored pencil artist friend Carrie Lewis asked me to write a tutorial, showing the steps of completing a drawing with pencil and colored pencil. 

I said, “How do I do that?” 

She offered to type while I talk through the steps, but I realized we’d have to be on the phone for about 8 hours. 

So, I chose a photo, started drawing, photographing the steps, and writing about it. Well, yes, sort of, sort of not.

The first session was confusing. I took notes, was sure I’d remember what they meant in order to transcribe them later. 

I photographed a few things, and also scanned the drawing as I went along, but then it was tricky to figure out which order all the pictures went in. Then, I realized there is a lot of information that doesn’t fall in line with the steps.

I’ve decided to post the whole tutorial here on my blog, in 5 chapters. Maybe we can tighten it up together.

How to draw with pencils (and later, add some color) 

The first four steps

Step one: Choose your photo. I chose this because the red chair is a good candidate to be drawn in colored pencil, with everything else in graphite. You can just tint things at the end of a drawing or you can choose a specific item to do in full color. I prefer the latter method.

Step two: crop the photo. Beginners often feel chained to exactly what is in front of them. Over time and with experience, we learn what matters and what doesn’t, and eventually decide that we are the boss of our own artwork.

TOOLS: I use the items in the photo, working at a slanted drafting table. T-square, ruler (with picas so I don’t have to deal with fractions), drafting brush, erasing shield, calculator, pencil sharpener that catches its own crumbs, and Tombow pencils, from 4B to 2H, along with a couple of erasers that don’t show. I prefer the Mars white plastic, but seem to have lost mine. Because I began drawing so lightly, the kneadable eraser works, but it is too ugly to photograph. (It looks like gray chewed gum, gross.)

Step three: draw the borders, making a size that is proportional to the photo. Measure, use math, eyeball it—whatever works best for you. I measure and use tools. It is always best to have margins, so you don’t view the edge of your paper as the edge of your drawing. If you misjudge sizes while drawing, this will give your drawing room to grow. It also prevents a signing or framing problem, should you decide to get it framed. I draw the border with a sharp point on an HB, using a very light touch. I might want to move the border later, draw exactly up to it, or draw over it without it showing through.

Step four: Start figuring out where things are going to go. Look for the main items, in this case, the door and the chair. Draw very very lightly. My lines barely show, so I darkened the lines (just on the photo using my scanner) in order for you to see them.

DISCLAIMER: I chose to alter the picture, to appear as if we are looking straight on the scene rather than from an angle. In most pictures, vertical is always vertical. It is the horizontal surfaces and lines and edges that disappear off toward vanishing points. However, I decided to keep the horizontals and verticals all true to a straight on view rather than slightly angled, as the photo shows. THIS IS REALLY HARD TO DO WHEN YOU ARE STARTING OUT, so you will have less trouble if you just stick to the photo.

Tomorrow: the next steps.

Exciting Day on the Road

There is an art show coming, “Tulare County: Varied Impressions”. This is the juried show I entered 6 pieces in, in spite of there being a 3 pieces per artist rule. I couldn’t decide, so I let the curator do so. She chose these three paintings:

This meant I had to gather them from three different places where they were hanging for sale, and then drive them to Tulare on a blustery wet day.

It was beautiful out and I thoroughly enjoyed my errands. Tulare is west and south of Three Rivers, a dairy town out in the flatlands. There is lots of open farmland on the route I chose (and also along the ones I didn’t choose).

Valley oaks are a common sight in the Central Valley, quercus lobata, the largest of the American oaks.

Farming is a tough way to earn a living; my mom always said it was like living in a constant gamble. Someone has given up on this grove of walnuts. The price was too low for many growers to harvest this past fall.

Tulare is big dairy country; lots of Portugese immigrated here from the Azores and brought their knowledge with them. Haagen Dazs ice cream is made in Tulare! There is also a Land O’ Lakes production plant there, and probably lots of others I don’t know about. (My family was into citrus rather than cows.)

This is the Tulare Historical Museum, which also has the Heritage Art Gallery, where the show Tulare County: Varied Impressions will be (details below).

After a few more errands, I headed home. While at The Four-Way (the intersection of 198 and 65) where one can turn south toward Exeter, I heard an emergency alert on the radio. It advised people to not drive to Exeter, Lemon Cove, or Three Rivers, saying there were dangerous thunderstorms. 

Without regard to the warning, I drove home to Three Rivers, passing by Lemon Cove. There was a fabulous rainbow, and very heavy rains, but it was too exciting to take any photos.

That’s right—I promised you details about the art show.

TULARE COUNTY: Varied Impressions

JANUARY 12 – FEBRUARY 18, 2023

Artists’ Reception, Thursday, January 12, 5-7 p.m.

444 W. Tulare Ave., Tulare CA 93274, 559-686-2074

P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, STACY!

 

Winter is Confusing in Three Rivers

Three Rivers sort of has four seasons; spring is my favorite, summer seems to dominate, fall stays hot and is sometimes smoky, and winter is sunny and green, so it feels like spring very soon. It is confusing, when you hear and see snow, rain, ice, freezing temps all over the country.

This is what I mean about it being confusing.

I took all of these photos on Christmas Adam, Christmas Eve, and maybe Christmas Day too. 

Sunny Three Rivers

Often in winter when it is cold and gray down the hill, it is sunny in Three Rivers. On a sunny day in mid December, Trail Guy and I took a walk in the foothills of Sequoia National Park.

First, we had to go through a gate.

The whole walk was on a dirt road.

That bump on the left is Moro Rock; next to the right is Alta Peak.

I was going to remember the names of these ridges/peaks, but I already forgot. 

We turned around at Sycamore Creek. It was a short walk.

Those pokey rocks are Castle Rocks. 

If you live down the hill and get tired of the cold and gray, come to Three Rivers in the winter. We don’t have much winter here. Tomorrow I will show you a few more photos of how confusing winter can be here.

Ten Excellent Books I Recently Read

I read a lot. It’s my favorite thing. Always has been. 

The publishing company BookBaby recently posted an interesting (REALLY REALLY INTERESTING TO ME!) article about the different reading habits among 5 generations of Americans. (Turns out that although I am in the Boomers, my fiction preferences match the X-ers and nonfiction match the Silents.)

Salt & Light, or Reading Rabbit, oil on board, 11×14″, Not for sale

I keep track of most of what I’ve been reading on GoodReads, which I joined (it’s free) in 2013 (WHAT??? TEN YEARS AGO??) It is a great place to learn about books, to see what people you follow are reading and what they think about it. (It also has the unthinking quick rude opinions like much of social media, but you can skip that part.)

You can see how other people rate the books and you can also rate them from one to five stars. Because I know how enormously difficult it is to write a book, much less get it published, I have stopped rating books unless I have very strong reasons to give one star or if I really loved it and give it four or five stars. (I am difficult to please, and the fives are few.) 

Here is a list of books that I have rated four or five in the past several months, with links to their descriptions on GoodReads. I don’t think you have to be a member (with yet another dreaded user name and password) in order to see book descriptions.

All of these were library books except for #6.

  1. We are Called to Rise, Laura McBride. This is a novel with complete and believable characters that grabbed me in the heart. It’s one with individual stories of different people who all get tied together at the end.
  2. Kinsey and Me: Stories, Sue Grafton. I loved all the Kinsey books, the alphabetic mystery series with the main character you just wanted to hang out with. Sue died before finishing the alphabet, so I was thrilled to find anything at all that reconnected me with my fictional BFF.
  3. When Your Mother Doesn’t, Jill Kelly. This is another novel that grabbed me in the heart, where you just root for all you are worth for a happy ending. (Read it yourself—I’m not telling!)
  4. Normal Family: On Truth, Love, and How I Met My 35 Siblings, Crysta Bilton. Memoir is my favorite genre of nonfiction, and this is a strange strange story.
  5. How to Think, Alan Jacobs. Well written, thought provoking (duh), little glimpses of humor.
  6. Aging Faithfully, Alice Fryling. This one is deep enough that I had to write notes all throughout and read it twice. I also emailed the author to learn what her number is on the Enneagram (she counsels in this personality typing system) and her age when she wrote it so I could better understand her perspective. She replied! 
  7. The War That Saved My Life, Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. This is a kid’s fiction book (Young Adult?) based during WWII in England. It also has a sequel.
  8. As Bright As Heaven, Susan Meissner. A novel about the flu epidemic of 1918, published in 2018 BEFORE THE CORONA VIRUS! I love Susan Meissner’s novels, almost as much as Maeve Binchy. (Susan is alive and still writing.)
  9. Caroline: Little House Revisited, Sarah Miller. As a kid, I loved and reread Little House books. They were a guaranteed bookish escape when I couldn’t find anything new in the Ivanhoe Library in the kids section. This book shows another side to the Ingalls family adventures and characters, giving a more complete picture of their story. I gave this book 5 stars (but since the hourglass of my life is more empty than full, won’t be rereading it.)
  10. The Happiness Equation: Want Nothing + Do Anything = Have Everything, Neil Pasricha. (This is the man who writes the blog 1000 Awesome Things.) He helps to simplify big thoughts, and the book is full of practical charts that he calls “scribbles” which help you figure out things like how to make fewer decisions. I bought it so that I can write inside.

Do you have any book recommendations for me? Do you want to be “friends” on GoodReads? (Hi Donna. 😎)

An Odd Job Before Christmas

A friend was remodeling an old house, one I have admired for many years. The porch had pillars, and it would have been a terrible waste to put those 100-year-old handmade wooden objects in a dumpster. So, I remembered a friend’s son who likes architectural pieces for his antique store, and then asked my remodeling friend if I could have the pillars to pass along. He agreed.

We loaded them into the pickup, took them home, and learned that the antique guy didn’t want them.

Oh-oh. A pickup full of pillars, needing to be stored? Nope. 

I made a list of things that they could be used for. Then I gave half of the pillars to my very creative neighbor.

The first item on my list needed to be done before Christmas.

I used a few miles of painter’s blue tape, wrapping in a diagonal pattern. Next I covered the pillars with 2 coats of white paint. When I peeled the tape off, it was a little tricky to see where to put the red paint, because the new white paint wasn’t that different from the old white paint.

Remembering that no one was paying me and no one really cared, I painted the red stripes without taping. There was a great deal of covering red wobbly and hairy lines with white paint, and then recovering white wobbly and hairy lines with red. 

 

Because the pillars are actually tapered, a couple of times they fell over while sitting outside to dry.

Finally, we carried one to the abandoned fire hydrant at the bottom of the driveway and dropped it over the pipe. (Trail Guy sawed off the pieces that were in the way so it would fit.) I’ve been wondering for years what to do with that old thing. You can see that the stripes are a bit wobbly and unevenly spaced; this is the result of pantsing the project.

I carried the second one to another neighbor’s house and dropped it over an abandoned address post that lost its numbers several years ago. (We seem to have abandonment issues in our neighborhood.)

 

A List With Links To Six Great Blogs

The past week has been full of random and varied posts, no particular theme. So, I will keep going on this while I wait for my next mural job to become a reality.

Today’s is a gift to you: a list with links to some of my favorite blogs. I don’t subscribe (because who needs more email?) but I just keep the list on the top menu bar of my internet window and check from time to time. 

I didn’t include anything political or faith-based. None of these uses offensive language; a few have ads, which are easy to scroll past. All write with completely original voices, humor, and wisdom.

  1. Marianne Willburn is a gardener and writer with a great way with words, along with subtle funny remarks that you might not even notice. Because she is on the east coast, many of her plants are unfamiliar or unsuited to Central California. She is very personable and has responded both to emails and comments from me. Since she grew up in the foothills of northern California, and we are very close in age, she feels like a friend I haven’t yet met.
  2. 1000 awesome things is written by Neil Pasricha. In order to cope when his life crumbled, he committed to finding something good in life for 1000 days. He has written a few books since; the only one I have read is called The Happiness Equation. These “awesome things” will often make you smile with recognition.
  3. The Frugal Girl is actually a grown woman, not a girl, in her 40s who has returned to school to become a nurse. She is delightfully honest and surprisingly optimistic, with a simple approach to almost everything. I want to hang out with her too.
  4. Raptitude is new to me. I don’t remember how I found it, and I don’t have a solid sense of who is writing it yet. But so far, I’ve found the short articles to be thought-provoking.
  5. Tim Cotton Writes is by a retired policeman in Maine with a great sense of humor, an excellent way with words, and a superb interviewee on, of course, Mike Rowe’s podcast. He has two books, neither one of which is available through the library so I have one on order at Thriftbooks, which I try to use instead of that big place whenever possible.
  6. Deborah Makarios—Old Fashioned Fruitcake is my newest find. I chased her down based on a comment on an article by the aforementioned Marianne Willburn. She lives in New Zealand and has a terrific sense of reality and humor. I think this one will be a keeper! 

I hope you find something here that rings your bell.

And finally, here is a cartoon I stole from the interwebs to share with you. It was too good to not share.

Eight Things Learned in December

  1. Do you know those little squares of scribbles that can be scanned to take you to a website? They are called QR Codes. Do you know that QR means “quick response”? Simple name for weird techie magic.
  2. Central Valley Holocaust Memorial in Bakersfield now has a wall made of 6 million buttons. Read about it here. A friend’s mother-in-law learned about the project and began collecting buttons. The idea is that upcoming generations don’t know about the holocaust, and the number 6,000,000 is just incomprehensible without a visual aid. This photo was taken by my friend of her mother-in-law. (Hi Carol and Fran!)
  3. Instead of simply burying my kitchen waste, I learned a new way of composting. This one uses a vertically buried 8-10″ diameter PVC pipe (about 1 foot tall), randomly drilled with holes. After an undetermined length of time, you end up with worm castings, which are considered gold for the garden. Time will tell.
  4. I experienced inflation in a live and shocking encounter. An 18-pack of eggs was $5.00 in the summer in Visalia, California, while it was still $2.50 in Salem, Oregon. In December, it was $6.78 at Winco in Visalia. And Trail Guy paid $9.99 for a package of 3 romaine lettuce hearts in Three Rivers. Holy guacamole!
  5. Acta is the name of the yearbook for Exeter Union High School. A friend sent me the photo from the 1957 version to ask if I knew where it was taken. I told him it was Vandever, the peak on the right side of Farewell Gap. But it was bothering me, because something was off. When I showed Trail Guy, we both saw it: the photo was flipped horizontally! When I flipped it over, it became the right version. It puzzles me how I was able to recognize it despite the backward orientation.
  6. I puzzled through why so many of my friends don’t read my blog, coming up with the following reasons, all guesses on my part and many overlapping: too busy, non-techie, overloaded with too many other things on their little machines, accustomed to more exciting things, annoyed that the photos don’t show up on their phones, already hear enough from me in person, not interested in art, not interested in Mineral King, they forget I have a blog, don’t know what a blog is, or find it to be boring. I am touched when people actually read it. THANK YOU!
  7. Some friends in Texas have a house in escrow on about 4 acres of land, in something called an “ag extension“. This means they have to do some paperwork about raising “meat animals”, actually raise some of those animals, and then they get their property taxes greatly reduced. So interesting. . . I cannot picture these friends raising anything except children (currently have 4 while planning for numbers 5 and 6), nor can I understand why Texas has such a program. If it were me, I’d raise chickens for the eggs and never be able to kill a single living creature except for some bugs (which I would not eat).
  8. The day before Christmas Eve (sometimes called Christmas Eve Eve) is called Christmas Adam. This makes me smile every time I think about it.

What did you learn in December?