Jethro In Graphite

Portrait #8 of Jethro the crazy kitty is done in graphite. Each of my nine portraits of Jethro presents a different art medium on a 3.5" x 3.5" Claybord™ Tile, created and manufactured by Ampersand Art Supply. I haven't worked with graphite for decades, so I had to dust off my pencils and get my feet wet again.

Claybord is ultra-smooth, with no 'tooth' as is common in paper surfaces designed to trap the particles when drawing with graphite, charcoal, colored pencils or pastels. To vary the pose from my other 8 Jethro portraits, I selected a reference photo of him lounging upside-down on gravel. It is a composition with a good variety of light to dark areas which I felt would make a good little portrait in graphite.

After completing my rough sketch on the Claybord, I worked from light to dark. In the case of graphite pencils, this means working from hard to soft leads. The smooth surface was delightful to work on, with the pencil sliding softly as I layed down the values of gray. I used each pencil lead more on its side than with the point, getting more coverage that way. I had graphite pencils in various brands and selected weights 4H > HB > 2B > 4B. I layered strokes over each other, mostly in the direction of the fur growth, and sometimes in circular motion, as I worked to the darkest darks. My blackest areas with the 4B graphite were not quite as dark as with other media, but I was able to create a good range of values.

A blending tortillon or stump, made of compressed paper, is useful to soften edges. I used a kneaded eraser and a sharpened typewriter eraser to lighten values and to lift back to the white surface of the Claybord. A pencil sharpener and a sandpaper pad are helpful for keeping the pencils pointed and typewriter eraser clean, or simply use an emery board. I couldn't resist a little scratching with a double pointed Richelson twisted etching tool (shown at the far right in my photo of tools), to add whiskers and strokes of fine white fur.

I finished this Claybord with a fixative in a matte finish. Fixatives seal graphite and similar media to prevent smudging or lifting of the fine particles from the surface.

Read about my upcoming Claybord presentation below.

Claybord Art Tiles are the same white kaolin clay-coated, ultra smooth, highly absorbent surface as original Claybord but in unique small sizes. This surface and size is amazingly versatile, for a variety of painting applications, jewelry making, collage, coasters, magnets, ornaments, scrapbooking, embellishments, and much more! I love Claybord for the unlimited techniques is allows: painting, drawing, etching, erasing, reworking, glueing, stamping, inking, transfering images, applying skins and more!