Pastel and Graphite Drawing

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  • #1864397
    Maarten Hotze
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    Hi all, I’d like to show the, to my opinion, amazing difference in outcome I’ve found between working with a pastel pencil and a graphite pencil. I started drawing beginning this year, and let’s say they are studies from the reference images from Steve Huston’s course on hair. Apart from some drawing errors you can spot, I found that the pastel pencil (first drawing) is more expressive, although it’s quite difficult to get the details. I think this is caused by the more softness of pastel. The medium has also a higher friction coefficient with the paper. There’s more contrast though. The drawing made with pastel pencil is done with only one pencil. It also smudges easily, which is an advantage, but also disadvantage.
    The reason to try out graphite actually is because of the smudginess, and also because I felt the need to be able to work more on the details. I think if I’d like to have more detail in pastel, this probably requires an even bigger size paper, but that would mean A2-ish size. Both drawings are on A3 size paper. The graphite pencil drawing is a a bit smaller, but rather different, more refined. It’s made with the Pitt Graphite Matt 2B-10B range of pencils. I think you can still see it’s the same artist at work here, but I was rather stunned the medium had such an impact on the artistic appearance of the drawing.
    So now I’m eager to know if you can relate to this. Looking at both drawings, I also am considering which direction to go. I’d now say that for the more expressive drawing, I’d go for pastel pencil, but tend to switch to graphite for now by default because I like the detail better. Apart from that, open to critique as well.

    PastelGraphite

    #1913058
    Carlos Perez
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    Hey Marten, thanks for your insides about materials,  good observations.
    Those are great studies I personally like both of them although I’ll encourage you to remember to keep your STUDIES with no details,  specially hair-wise since the hair works better as a big mass.

    Focusing on our general idea of structure and gesture, as Huston preaches,  will make us advance quicker as craftsmen.

Viewing 2 posts - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

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