Profile photo

No new drawing!  Just a word about my profile photo.  This photo contains all of my (current) tools.  My medium is graphite.  To be more specific, a 0.5 mm "bic" mechanical pencil.  I don't use art pencils (2B or 2H, that is the question) as I'm too impulsive and disorganized to toggle back and forth between a bunch of pencils.  I figure I'm doing well if I can find the one!  If I need a darker effect, I keep coloring over the area.  Or press harder.  For a lighter effect, I don't press as hard.  Life's just easier that way.

I also require the services of a click-style, or drafting eraser.  This tool gets used about as much as the pencil!  It not only erases mistakes, it blends, too!  Multi-talented!  I also need a big eraser.  I like the ones that look like li'l pieces of mozzarella cheese.

My support (surface to which medium is applied) is paper.  Specifically, printer paper.  The kind you get in big packages from Staples.  I've bought many sketchbooks, and rejected each.  I like the bright-whiteness, smooooooth surface and not-bound-into-a-book qualities of the printer paper.  I tie my pages down to a clipboard.  We're real fancy around here!

Oops!  Am missing one tool in the photo - my blotting page.  After using the drafting eraser, it has pencil dust sticking to it.  Need to erase over a pencil-free area to return it to it's pristine state.  But sometimes that leaves marks on the paper that can't be subsequently erased away, so a separate sheet is needed, so as to not leave grey shadowy streaks all over the drawing. 

More than you ever knew you didn't know?  Or maybe more than you wanted to know?