Hair line.

Tools of the trade.

Tips for artists.

Hair.

Ever look at a drawing with a lot of detail to the hair and wonder how long that took? Here's how it's done.

Things you'll need. 1 stick of graphite. 1 graphite B9 pencil. 1 B 0.06 high detail pencil. 1 large eraser. 1 sharp utility knife. A cheese grater. Some cotton wool.

Step 1. Using light strokes outline the shape of the hair. This can't be dark and doesn't need to be exact.

Step 2. Using the cheese grater (bet you were wondering about that) rub the stick of graphite over a cup or plate catching the dust (the finer the better). Next sprinkle the dust onto your drawing making sure you keep within the hair line as best you can. Then use dry cotton wool to spread it around. What your left with will look a little like the photo below.




Step 3. Using your 9B pencil start to put in a little hair direction. You don't need to do too many. When your happy that you have enough use dry clean cotton wool to smothe it out. By now you'll notice there's not much detail yet.

Step 4. Take the hard high detailed pencil to make more finer lines. Again you don't need to go mad with these. You'll see detail starting to emerge but the hair still looks thin.

Step 5. Using the sharp utility knife cut the eraser into triangles. Now use the corn of the triangles to remove pencil in the same manner you put it on the the pencils. Once this is done again smothe out using a ball of cotton wool.



Repeat steps 3-5 as often as you like. The more times you do it the higher the detail.




Enjoy art.
Michael.


As always. Comments are welcomed.