Saturday, August 23, 2014

Shading first

Say what?

I was sharpening a woodless pencil and was dismayed at all that wonderful graphite just going to waste. I thought, "I could smudge it all over some paper and it would be like doing shading before the tangling." So I did.

I took out two white tiles and sprinkled the shavings on one, placed the other upside down on top of it, and rubbed them together. Ta-da! Well, uh, no. They looked really messy and too dark and I almost threw them out, but I thought, "No mistakes, just opportunities. See what happens." So I did.

The smudges offer their own unique sort of 'string', suggesting areas and shapes. On one tile I saw several large ovals, and Festune came to mind so I started with that. When I'd finished the ink drawing, I added a bit more shading in some places.
Tangles: Black Pearlz, Dandelion Seeds, Drobbles, Festune
The other one seemed to have two large disks. Again, when done all the ink drawing, I added more shading, especially under the smaller disk.
Tangles: Beadlines, Black Pearlz, Daggerly, Drupe, Pearlz, Perfs
I wanted to try more, and on tan, and this time I took a picture of the smudged tiles. They look quite uninspiring, like they fell in the mud or something.
But here they are with tangles!
Tangles: Blake, Blooming Butter, Frosty, and elements of Drupe
Tangles: Circfleur, Pearlz, Tipple
It's kind of a fun, different way to create sections on your paper, but I don't think I'll be doing much more of this. I need another way to use those wonderful graphite shavings.

7 comments:

  1. Very clever, Margaret! No only did you do the shading first, but it gave you a string too!

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  2. These are lovely Margaret. Graphite shavings are lovely to use. I have used them in other styles of drawing and you can also make it really shiney when rubbed over acrylics. Great fun and really messy!

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    1. Ooo I'll have to try that on acrylic, Val. I love shiny things! (Not so big on messy.)

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  3. Hey, Margaret...I find it interesting that I have finally found someone who thinks like I do. I use lead holders instead of a pencil for a lot of my drawings and am constantly sharpening and my sharpener has a clear see-through reservoir attached. I just take a card or paper and dump a little out on it and then roll my stomp around in it to "load it up" with all those shavings and then I have shading already on my stomp instead of applying with a pencil on the drawing and then using the stomp...saves me a step actually. Now I see your idea of applying shading first, yes, that does look very interesting, indeed. Thanks.

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    1. Thanks for the idea Duane. I'll have to find a little container it keep the graphite shavings in. I like using a stomp that already has gray on it, so this might work quite well!

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  4. Margaret, I just went looking at where I bought my lead holders from. I used a Japanese company caled Jet Pens, but it looks like they are now with Amazon at: ww.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Doffice-products&field-keywords=lead+holders&rh=n%3A1064954%2Ck%3Alead+holders It is called the Kitaboshi lead holder sharpener set which has the sharpener/graphite clear plastic container I was talking about. It sells for USD 11.04. There is a lead holder with it that looks like a wooden pencil but it is not wooden (plastic). I like it very much, inexpensive and easy to use.

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    1. Thanks Duane. I've ordered from JetPens before, but can't remember what I bought. I do have a couple of pencil sharpeners with containers so I think I'll use one of those, at least for now.

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