Over Blending and Over Shading Requiring Correction

[MaxPepe]

Good evening

I used a woodless graphite 8B to sketch the drawing and lightly shade the head and neck. I have since come across your videos as follows:-

1. Use of blu-tac to reduce over shading. I have over shaded the neck on this drawing and there are too many hard edges to the shading here.

2. Video of burnishing/blending. For the head, I’ve over blended is my view; it is now muddy.

May I please have your comments on the head and neck and how to go about rectifying the drawing. The hair is thinning and there is a white beard. You can see I’ve muddied the paper around the head unfortunately and I will try blu-tac to clean it up. I was using a putty rubber to try and lift the dark of the neck and found it was blending in too much and you say in your video it would not do as good a job as the blu-tac.

I am trying to achieve an airbrushed flawless finish to the drawing.

3E129EC7-07BE-4D06-B772-B70DDE8C8080.jpeg

Many thanks.

[Mike Sibley]

Fist, apologies for the delay. I've been looking at this since you posted it, and I'm not sure if I'm the best person to help you. This is so far removed from my own style that I'll be guessing to a large extent. Artur (PogArt) might be the best for advice... Artur?

MAXINE-man1.jpeg

I used a woodless graphite 8B to sketch the drawing and lightly shade the head and neck.

I've used Progresso woodless myself, for sketching and not as soft as 8B. The soft grades tend to sit on top of the paper's tooth, so I'm not sure why you are having problems lightening or removing it. I also think 8B is too coarse a grade for smooth shading (it tends to leave a lot of white pits because it doesn't fill the tooth). But I can't really comment on that, because 2B is as soft as I use - and has been for many years.

1. Use of blu-tack to reduce over shading. I have over shaded the neck on this drawing and there are too many hard edges to the shading here. I will try blu-tack to clean it up. I was using a putty rubber to try and lift the dark of the neck and found it was blending in too much, and you say in your video it would not do as good a job as the blu-tack.

Putty rubbers (kneadable erasers) are the choice of many, and mine too at one time. But I found Blu-Tack to be eminently superior. There are a few options: You could form it into a sausage and roll it over the neck. That would remove much of the graphite, so you could try shading again. It would probably take many applications, but Blu-Tack would eventually remove most of the graphite. With that removed you could then resort to a plastic art eraser to remove any remaining. - but from that point you will be altering the tooth.

You could gently stroke a finger of Blu-Tack over the hard edges. That will very gradually lighten them and might soften them too. There was a third but it's escaped me

2. Video of burnishing/blending. For the head, I’ve over blended is my view; it is now muddy.

The problem with blending - especially if you're aiming at a smooth airbrushed look - is that it's the initial drawing that counts. In other words, blending can soften but not hide hard edges, or fill gaps. And blending is best used lightly. And sparingly, in my opinion. It's an often over-used technique. That said, its use is perfectly valid here, where pencil lines need to be invisible.

May I please have your comments on the head and neck and how to go about rectifying the drawing. The hair is thinning and there is a white beard... I am trying to achieve an airbrushed flawless finish to the drawing.

This seems a bit mundane but... slow down and take your time over shading smoothly. Then light blending will further smooth the result.

Also, think about what you're about to draw before you make a mark. For example, his hair is thinning, so you need to work out why you know that from the reference, and then find a way to replicate it. I'm really uncertain where his hairline is in this drawing. The same applies to his white beard, which doesn't have defined edges on his face. I can see it's a goatee but not understand the area of his face that it covers.

Finally, I hope I returned your photo to something close to your original. I find fixing that helps me to get into the drawing, and I can appreciate it better before commenting. Not that my comments are probably much use this time....

[PogArtTi]

Hi there...
Apologies for being late to reply - I was having suspended time, I wasn't drawing for long, not visiting this forum as well unfortunately.
Thank you Mike for recommendation, but you did your best already my friend pointing out your great bunch of advice already ...

MaxPepe - if you like to hear my opinion to achieve airbrushed smooth effect of shading the graphite, I'd suggest do it by subtle and gently applying softly the graphite powder using the cotton wool, you know, the one that women can use for makeup ...
You can buy it online, or any commercial store ...
I'm usually dip the piece of cotton wool in the graphite powder and then gently rubbing over the paper area to build up the tone...
And so on, and so on until I achieve the desired effect...
Also, I do opposite sometime, where I do first making very gentle graphite strokes on the paper first, then rubbing them (blending) using that cotton wool afterwards...
Be aware that this blending/rubbing technique is killing the texture, making the blended area very same regarding the shading tone.
To achieve proper contrast between/within the area you're blending in the graphite, it will require repetition of this blending technique until you may be satisfied.
I also can suggest to use painting brush, get the small one, like for watercolour painting, and try to blend the graphite as same as with the cotton wool, it's same thing, just different tool.
For removing excess of graphite from area you working on, I can suggest the Chamois leather cloth.
It's attracting the graphite nicely, so you will be ok to lift up some graphite for sure, and lighten that area.
You can use the cotton wool as well for the same purpose, obviously clean one, otherwise you'll not lift excess of your graphite, but blend it in again, whether you use Chamois leather or cotton wool.
The kneadable eraser is good for lifting up the graphite, but just for pointed areas rather, like spots, dots, lines etc in my opinion.
It will not smudge/blend the areas as good as mentioned above Chamois leather or cotton wool or the brush though...
The kneadable eraser is designed for more precise/detailed erasing rather than blending if you know I mean...
It for sure won't work to mimic airbrushing...
I hope it'll help you to experiment with the tools I just mention.
Let me know what you think, if it works for you the way you'd want to, and ask additional question if you wish, so I can support you further.
Good luck!