Today was the first day of my charcoal drawing class. We were given a photo of a very large eye in black-and-white that the teacher wanted us to draw. There were some students in the class that were advanced and they were drawing various other pictures. The new students, however were all given an eye to draw.
The teacher supplied paper and pencils, but I brought my own pencils and my own table top easel. I still needed a few basic supplies that she let me use. Several of the other students also had their own supplies because they have been coming to the class over and over.
I started working with a number 2 pencil as I was instructed to do. After I sketched in the eye and the pupil, then we were told to go over the outline of the eye with a hard charcoal pencil and erase all or most of the sketch lines which I did.
I took pictures of my drawings as I went along. The teacher wanted us to focus on certain portions of the eye and draw those things first.
The next step was to make the iris gray all over, then make the pupil pitch black with a soft charcoal pencil. She let me borrow a blending stump to help with the shading that my fingers couldn't do well.
The next step was to make the outside of the pupil darker using the soft charcoal pencil.
The tear duct area was next, so we had to darken and then blend that area of the eye.
I started trying to draw that white box reflection but the teacher told me to erase it because it was too large and I didn't have enough black space around the pupil.
I corrected that and also had to add some gray shading around the cornea.
I used a white charcoal pencil to help with the white reflection box and the white lines on the pupil.
This last picture is as far as I got in a 2 hour class. Whew! The teacher says that drawing takes time at that in the beginning, it is a slow process.
One lady sitting next to me kept jumping ahead of the instructor and she always had to go back and erase a whole lot of stuff. My drawing will be continued next week in class and by then, I will have the rest of my supplies with me.
Welcome to my drawing journey. 😃 I am a long way away from the picture reference, but my drawing does look similar.
