Realistic Graphite Drawing

This last couple of months I've been taking an online course on realistic drawing using graphite pencils by Kirsty Partridge.

Kirsty focuses on techniques to help you improve realism, but the course itself was very thorough, covering sketching, shading and simulating textures, as well as selection of tools (pencils, paper, erasers), among other things.

These are some of the drawings I did as part of the homework for the course (and the techniques practiced and increased technical challenge). All done using graphite matt pencils (HB, 6B and 14B) on various papers.

Girl with Teddy (practiced sketching, shading and mark-making)

Dog (blending tools and erasers)

Snail (combining textures)

Textures and materials (reflective vs matte)

Zebra (simulating fur)

Problem solving textures (figuring out what techniques to use to simulate each type of texture)

Facial features

To see my final project for this course check out my next post Realistic Graphite Final Project.