Graphite Experiment #2

After tracing an outline of the leaves and bark, I cut a mask from Low Tack masking paper and applied it to the Bristol.

I used a brush to apply the PG around the mask; you can see that this can get messy so all moves are gently made (and whatever you do - don't sneeze!)

The brush didn't give me an even application so I used a tissue to smooth out the PG; even so there are variations in the values, nothing radical but can be noticeable. I sprayed the PG with a fixative - lightly - before removing the mask.

It is really difficult to see, but I "painted" the bark area with acrylic matte medium, leaving some areas uncovered, so that I could apply the PG with a more textural surface appearance.

I brushed on the PG to follow the cross contour of the bark; you can see the light stripes where there is no medium, just paper. The matte medium gives the graphite a warm grey tone; can you see the textural difference between the bark and the background that comes with the surface alteration?

Details in the bark are added with pencils, and in some places, I sanded over the pencil drawing to change the texture and lighten the value. The matte medium is very workable! It feels a bit weird at first but you can get past that quickly!

In this detail, you can see the PG background on paper, the PG on matte medium, and pencil on plain paper. The leaf edges were put in with 4B pencil - it matches the PG background. I left one leaf undone to demonstrate the results of erasing; I used an electric eraser to put the stem in the image and if you look between the leaves you can see a triangle shape of PG from the background that could not be removed. Removing graphite from the matte medium was not so difficult and of course it came away fairly clean from the pencil drawing.