I stumbled across a great Squidoo page, and subsequently a great website by artist Marsha Robinette. (She also has a nice blog.) She is a pencil artist who works primarily with carbon pencil. I had never experimented with carbon, so on reading about it and seeing some of her fantastic work, I bought some and decided to give them a try.
They definitely are of different character then graphite. Carbon pencils are pure black, and shine free. They are also unforgiving, so you better be sure you lay them down where you want them since they don't erase as well as graphite. They come in different grades which are scaled like graphite with higher B numbers being softer and darker. In the pack of Wolff's carbon Pencils I purchased from Dick Blick were B, 2B, 4B, and 6B.
I still prefer primarily using graphite. Although, previously, when I needed something very dark in a drawing, I would mix charcoal on top of graphite. This reduced the shine and made some nice dark shadows. I did this in my celebrity drawing of 7 of 9 . I couldn't quite get the darkness in the shadows of her uniform with graphite, so I blended charcoal into the darkest parts. I have begun using carbon in much the same way. I believe I prefer it to charcoal because it is not quite as soft and messy, and gives a wonderful flat black tone. I especially like carbon for the pupils of eyes.
I doubt I will ever do drawings completely out of carbon, but I have enjoyed having it available to add a deeper tone to my drawings.
1 comment:
She is excellent! I have some of the Wolff's Carbon Pencils. J.D. Hillberry uses them and recommends them in his book. I'm not crazy about the texture though. I really like the smooth buttery feel that Tombow Mono Homograph pencils have (hope you don't mind me linking for viewers' convenience)...for the pupils of eyes, I have used Micron black pens, and then covered it somewhat with some graphite to make it blend in better. Still has a shine though...I'm not really concerned about shine though...the only place it's really a concern is in areas of bright light or reflections, and pencil art shouldn't be kept in bright light anyway. But I really should give those Wolff's pencils another try.
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