Drawing Methods
I do most of my drawings on Fabriano hot-pressed watercolor paper, a 100% cotton paper with a soft and smooth surface. Cotton papers are always to be preferred over standard wood-pulp papers, due to the superior longevity of cotton and its more agreeable surface qualities.
I stretch the paper as if I were preparing it for normal use with watercolor: I soak the paper in water for at least 30 minutes, allowing it to expand, and then I staple it to a drawing board and allow the paper to dry thoroughly. As it dries, it contracts, pulling tight and flat. Stretching the paper in this manner precludes the warping and bulging that can occur due to changes in atmospheric humidity, and ensures that the paper stays flat and secure throughout the duration of my work. The paper remains stapled to the board until the drawing is completely finished.
I've lately developed an unusual method for preparing the paper surface prior to beginning a drawing. Once the paper has been stretched and dried, I apply two coats of rabbit-skin glue, a sizing material traditionally used for the priming of canvas. The glue size forms a durable film that shields the paper fibers from direct contact with whatever materials I might use in the process of drawing. Each application of glue dries quite quickly - typically, two coats can be applied within 30 minutes. The second coat of glue simply ensures complete coverage. The result is a protective film that shields the paper fibers from the various drawing materials - they never really touch the paper directly.
After the glue has dried, I tone the entire paper with a very fluid wash of oil color, generously thinned with mineral spirits - I quickly spread it across the paper with a towel until a clean and consistent tone is achieved. In this way, I can apply an undertone of any color that I want. This must be allowed to dry for a few days. Then I dip a rag into some melted glue, and use it to gently apply a final coat over the oil undertone, dabbing it across the surface rather than spreading it, and taking care not to disturb or lift up the pigment (which, being very thin, remains vulnerable to rubbing off even when dry). I use a soft brush to render this final glue layer as smooth as possible. The only purpose of this final glue layer is to protect the undertone color from accidental removal during the process of drawing.
As you can see, I spend quite a bit of time just preparing my paper, but I find that it's time well spent. On this thick, durable watercolor paper, I'm able to produce custom color tones and surfaces that are uniquely helpful during the drawing process. The glue-primed surface will receive charcoal, conte crayon, graphite, or even oil paint, and all of these materials erase with ease, leaving behind no telltale marks to betray the erasures. This is because the drawing materials never come into direct contact with the paper fibers; instead, they rest on top of the invisible films of dry glue. In the case of graphite and oil paint, which I sometimes use in combination with one another, these mediums can be erased very effectively with a brush dipped in mineral spirits, instead of using traditional erasers.
The toning of the paper is very important. I don't typically work on white. I prefer to create a middle-range tone, rather than one that's either too light or too dark. By working on such a tone, I'm beginning in the middle of the value range, and can then build the drawing in two directions at once: rendering shadows by adding dark marks, while also creating bright areas of light through the use of white charcoal, conte crayon, gouache, or oil color (or some combination of these). The bright marks are immediately visible because they're isolated against the darker tone that covers the entire paper.
My drawing tools include graphite, vine charcoal, charcoal pencils, conte crayons (in various colors, including sanguine, sepia, black and white). My preferred variety of charcoal pencils are those in which the charcoal is surrounded by a wrapping of paper rather than wood - I find that wood is too difficult to sharpen with standard blade sharpeners, which go dull quite quickly and shatter the charcoal more often than not. Instead, the paper pencils are more practical because they can simply be unwrapped to reveal the charcoal interior, and then the charcoal can be sharpened by rubbing it against sandpaper. I get much more successful results from this method, and a lot less aggravation.
Although I do some drawings as independent, stand-alone works, many of them serve merely as relatively small scale drawings in preparation for subsequent paintings. The drawing helps me to get well acquainted with the subject as I finalize the composition and confidently determine the placement of all elements within the picture.
I then transfer the drawing to the larger canvas by means of a grid system that allows me to reproduce the drawing with some accuracy at a larger scale. This procedure is made easier by the use of a simple device: a sheet of clear plexiglass, on which I've drawn a grid of one-inch squares. I lay the plexiglass grid over my finished drawing - in this way, I can avoid having to render the grid lines directly onto the drawing itself, so the integrity of the drawing is preserved. I then establish a larger grid on the canvas, which may be two or three times bigger than the scale drawing, and then I simply copy the drawing one square at a time.