question on pencil shading

[ZippZopp]

i'm currently working on a large pretty good sized drawing, its on 18x24 bristol board. its a drawing of a large industiral site, i'm basically drawing it all with 5mm and 7mm mechanical pencils which allow for fine details and smooth shading. the top portion of my drawing is all sky though, so i need a very smooth light shade across a large area. i'll then go in with my kneaded eraser to create clouds. i've tried shading it very lightly with the mechanical pencil, but its hard to get a light shade across a large area without the pencil marks showing. what would be the best way to get a light shade across this large area?

[vudu]

You could try woodless pencils, like Koh-i-Noor Proresso. May be B or HB soft. Shading with these is smooth enough for the sky i think.

Why don't you post the image when done? :)

[Koryh]

Facial tissues such as Kleenex allways come in handy for things like this. Just don't use the kind that have the lotion in them. Besides being gross and smelling funny. they will add greasy splotches on the paper.
depending on the grain of the paper. hot or cold press you may have to make several passes. Build up the value slowly and don't scrub. Scrubbing will burnish the paper and make it shiney and harder to erase. You can smear around the pencil that is already there or make some shavings and dust the areas you want to shade before you rub it down.
Btw a soft cloth works just as well, but you don't have to wash a kleenex.

I hope that helps.

[zak]

i find the annoying lead stains that seem to gather on the fingers are useful for light shading, if you manage to pull it off correctly, practise on a separate sheet of paper before you attempt thou. it can be tricky. but i recon you can get some nice results

[Darrell Bowman]

i sometimes in the past have used a paper stub.
paper tightly wound around and around
coming to a point at the end.
light grey in color.
you can buy at art stores.
like a pencil of paper shape no lead in it.
it push graphite around.
never tried it on it side to do large areas.
i think they come in different size sorry
been so long.
i do all my tight pencil in a f or h pencil.

plus it help if you hold your tonque like this.
:P
joke.

[Blind]

Hey Zipp... in the same line of thinking as what Darrell recommended, you might also try a used belending stump. I don't mean to put down medium and then blend it, but rather to use a stump that you already used on something else that has a good amount of medium on it. Just lightly go over your sky area building up what you need and pick out your clouds with the kneaded rubber afterwards.

EDIT: Doh... I just realized that this was such an old thread... sorry. I found it in some search results for something else I was looking for and didn't glance at the date. I would imagine you're done with this piece by now :cool:

[gekitsu]

i'm not a huge fan of those blending stumps. unles you work on very non-grainy paper, smudged areas will stick out like shit in your drawing since they don't show any sign of the paper grain.

i'd recommend a normal wooden pencil, maybe hb or something around that (just a bit on the harder side of what you like using).
then, sharpen it with a knife so that quite a few millimiters of graphite are showing (i prefer 9mm-1cm). it is good to keep the angle of the wooden part you sharpen away very low (making a long cone) so the wood isn't in the way when you hold it at a flat angle.

then, get the tip into a chisel chape. you can sand it or use a sharp knife.
to blend the marks better, it is helpful to have the side not absolutely flat but slightly convex, so when you use the side of the pencil carefully, you actually only draw with the middle part of it, leaving soft edges that'll blend easily with other pencil marks.

[dns2k]

i think the woodless pencil is a great idea... they shade really well and it is great to get an all over even shade.

-dns

[Blind]

Originally posted by dns2k
i think the woodless pencil is a great idea... they shade really well and it is great to get an all over even shade.Good point, dns... I've played with some Cretacolor woodless graphites and they're pretty cool.