This is the first part of a series of free online tutorials which guides you through the various steps taken to produce a classical figure drawing.
2B and HB graphite pencils are my main two grades of pencil. Some people also prefer to use a 2H, although I would not initially recommend using hard pencils like the 2H because they are more prone to irreversibly damaging the paper through indentation.
By using a mechanical pencil and changeable, replaceable leads, you gain a number of advantages:
They are quicker to sharpen to a finer point; They are more portable (lots of leads and different grades can be carried easily); The leads cost less than wooden pencils; There is no need for a blade (Xacto knife or craft knife) to shave off the wood and there is less waste produced from sharpening. Although there are all these benefits, some people still prefer to use normal wooden pencils, as they feel that the weighting is different and they are more natural.
To sharpen the lead a two-grade sandpaper pad (made by Faber Castell) is used. A grey (not white) putty rubber is good for erasing, as it is less destructive to the paper.
When creating a fully toned drawing, it is sensible to use good quality, durable drawing paper that can handle lots of rubbing-out (erasing). This is so that if a decent drawing is produced after many hours of work, it is on good paper.
I personally use Canson “mi-teintes†paper – it comes in lots of colours (I tend to use Ivory and Canary), and is excellent quality for graphite drawing. This paper is also used for the Charles Bargue drawing course studies. The sheet of paper is masking-taped to a large drawing board mounted on an easel which is positioned at a very slight angle, like the canvases shown on the easels in the picture below.
A plumb-line (a small weight approximately 200g tied to a thin but sturdy cord) is used to first find vertical alignments. Also a thin metal knitting needle is required for to take measurements and check vertical and horizontal alignments especially throughout the gesture and construction stages.
The Plumb-line
To draw a figure from life it is far easier to break down the procedures involved into various stages. To start with, a measured gesture of the pose is accurately portrayed. It is handy to have a straight-edged, simple background object that will not only assist with contrast against the subtleties of a nude figure in the finished drawing, but also will act as a useful aid with proportional relationship measurements.
With standing poses and most seated poses, the plumb-line is held at arms length by the cord about 18 inches long. This is slowly moved across the observation of the figure, searching for series of vertical alignments. A vertical alignment may be: the left side of the neck aligned with the outer right elbow aligned with the back of the right heel – if they all line up vertically using the plumb-line.
