Sketchbook

I don't use my sketchbooks nearly as much as I should. Today I just wanted to try doing something a bit 'looser' than I normally would, less controlled and done quickly. This was done with a HB carbon pencil in about 5 to 10 minutes. I'm unfamiliar with carbon pencils so that helped force me into a looser style.

All the drawings I do are from life. I have yet to use reference photographs but I'm sure I will, I just haven't got around to it yet. I've read some artists get a bit sniffy about using ref photos which seems a bit unnecessary and a bit elitist, as if the drawing doesn't count as much because it's not drawn from life. I have no idea where that came from, it just occured to me...

Belt

30cm x 22cm

Graphite Pencil on paper

This is my newest piece, finished last night actually and I'm quite pleased with it, I like the snake-like coils and the rough, battered texture. It's the first large-ish drawing I've done in a long time, my other efforts have been confined to sketchbooks. Here's a couple of keys I did recently...

I've now learned that this sketchbook scans quite blue-ish (the page is whiter than that in reality) and shows waves at the edge...