From My Hands To Yours - Tips & Bits from Jay by Jay DePalma

Comments

Login or register to add a comment

Your portraits are excellent, fantastic gallery. Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge with these hints and tips, I will certainly take them on board.

Ah! Carole, how nice of you to say so! I always tell my students when I teach seminars, that building new bridges is a good thing, but crossing the ones built on experience and knowledge are solid steps to benefit from. Thank you! Jay

Hello Everyone. This is a look at a drawing ready to be shaded. Greta Garbo on 30"x40" Strathmore Bristol. I just want thank you all for your lovely comments and say that it means a great deal to me and that I appreciate your kind words very much, indeed. Here's are tips I find most helpful, specially to those who love to draw using graphite pencils and photographs of faces in particular. When I start my drawing, I use a Derwent HB * very sharp - working with a dull point is something that I advice very much not to do. You see, when you work with a dense tip, you are not penetrating the surface of your board as you should, but simply skating on the surface or top layer and you want to get in there and give that drawing rich tones and striking values. Then, I create a meticulous, preliminary sketch in which every little line, knook and cranny is faithfully incorporated and I make sure to keep the highlights as white as possible. I don't mask nor do I ad any products to my boards. I use Strathmore Bristol 500 Series and they have "the perfect skin for faces". Try to remember that opaque highlights make cloudy drawings and you must have brilliance and sparks where required. Maintaining a clean surface is key #1 in order to achieve a professional-finish result and I do my very best to avoid adding any unnecessary lines or fast handed shades. Keep a stack of 8"x11" white printing paper at your side *always and use it as a protective shield between your hand and your drawing's surface. Hands and fingers have natural oils that will transferred to the paper or board and when shaded over it will show as a darker or wet spot. I should advice you to incorporate a good size mirror to your working area. The mirror, unlike the one from Snow White, will tell you all the things you do not want to hear as well as the ones you do. When you view your work through a mirror, the reflected flip side of that image will point out to you where you are dead-spot o