Although I came from a family of artists, and art has always been high priority in my life, most of my training is self taught through the aid of art books and internet courses. These helped me a lot, no doubt; but I always thought there was a magic formula somewhere that would grab hold of me and turn me into an artist. I finally realized there was a formula and it wasn’t found in art books and courses. It was really plain old courage, standing on my own two feet, and forever striving for enlightenment. All I needed was courage to develop my own way, while learning from others. Very important to me, I developed a rigid discipline of doing over that which I could improve.

Case in point: the graphite drawing of “Old Man Time” that I drew back in the late 60s (yes, that was in the last century), is beginning to obsess me. At night I wake up and I’m painting a monochromatic acrylic painting of the picture using yellow ochre as the base color. However, the painting will have clock gears in the background to give more of a third dimension and his right foot will rest on a Coo-coo clock. I might even put my face on the old man–now that I’ve aged a bit since the late 60s. As slow as I draw and paint this will take weeks–but if its waking me up at night, it’s got to be.

Now, since this post is about graphite drawing, what does painting with acrylic have to do with it? Simple…If you follow my blog posts, you know I always make a detailed full size graphite drawing of my paintings to work out details and value. The original picture is 9″X13″ and the new one will be 18″X24″. I want to do both the painting and the drawing so good they will be collectable.

Here are a few tips for my graphite drawings friends. I hope they help you in your artistic quest.

Consistently gray throughout your picture:

• Select a soft pencil that makes a good black
• Pick out the darkest value in your drawing and state them strongly
• Contrast your darks by leaving areas of white where subject is white or very light
• Do not put overstated grays in light areas
• Be careful not to surround things that are light with heavy lines
• Be aware of edges. They may be a sharp limitation to the form (the edge of a cube) or a rounded and disappearing limitation (the contour of a sphere)

• Be sure to sign up for the Art Center Information newsletter and enter the drawing to win a free coffee table art book>>>Upper right hand corner of page.

• Check out Greeeaat Opportunities at top of page for some good internet art courses.