From the course: Drawing Foundations: Fundamentals

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Using a value strip

Using a value strip

From the course: Drawing Foundations: Fundamentals

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Using a value strip

When you first come to drawing, the real classic beginner mistake is not going dark enough with the pencil, or definitely not going dark enough in the shadows of what you're drawing. This is because you've got shadow blindness. So, the way you see a subject you think mm, if I go that dark it's going to look really, really black, and initially no one wants to make a black, moody drawing. But what's amazing in drawing and painting, is how dark you can go in certain parts of the piece. And because you go this dark, it makes your picture look very three dimensional, very realistic. So what I've got here is a tonal value strip. I use it for my paintings as well as my drawings. A quick exercise for you to try is to download the tonal values strip. And to try and match the tones that are there with your pencils. Leaving the first one white then experiment with the HB to do the very lightest tone, then 9B for the very darkest tone. So here's a couple of pictures to illustrate how you'd use a…

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