Drawing General to Specific: Graphite vs Charcoal

by Lisa Larrabee

These are stages of a still life drawing that I did in graphite (pencil).  To begin, I lightly toned the entire drawing surface (white paper) with graphite.  Once basic shape relationships were in place I erased out the light shapes.  I built values using subtle hatch marks without blending.

Draw What You See General to Specific

by Lisa Larrabee

It is easy to say that you should draw what you see when your goal is to draw with accuracy.  However, it takes practice to truly observe the shapes, values and relationships as they are and not how we perceive them to be.