What's New?

This is Hamish. John's new drawing is now available as a Limited Edition Reproduction.

Technique

These are free hand drawings.

John uses a mechanical pencil with .03 leads, on Bristol board 'Plate' surface, with 90% of the drawing done using 3H. When the drawing is almost finished,, he uses a softer lead - HB - to enrich the dark tones.

He keeps the pencil sharp by rolling the point on fine sandpaper.

His other tools are a magnifier, a blending tool and three types of eraser:

• A cylindrical eraser repeatedly trimmed with a razor blade, used as a tool to remove graphite already laid down, leaving fine white lines.
• A pencil eraser used for lightening areas such as clouds, without making white lines.
• A standard eraser for mistakes, second thoughts etc., of which there are plenty.
• To keep the paper from accumulating graphite dust, John avoids touching the paper with his hands, using a sheet of clear acetate to protect his work.
• He does not use projection, light boxes or computer enhancement.