Tone and Shade Evaluation

This exercise on tone and shade allowed me to try both mediums of pen and pencil. Firstly with pen using small squares to trial directional lines, dots and cross hatching to show a range of depths that can be created. Using pen for this task proved difficult as pen only allows for one tone, therefore mark making is the key skill to portrait a sense of shade or give any depth to a drawing. I found that within the above drawing I tend to overuse cross-hatching, this leads to a loss of tone as each shape within the drawing looks similar to the others. The darkest areas still show some depth but the cross hatching detracts from the lighter areas and gives the overall drawing a lack of contrast. I chose to detail the ball using dots rather than hatching to emphasise the difference between the materials, this seems to have worked as there is a definite distinction between both. This practice is very useful for observational skills as you really have to study an object, distinguishing where the areas of light and shade are and how they either blend together or show the contrasts within the same materials. In future I will use proper drawing paper not lined A4 which is for writing on, I will also try using lines that only lead in one direction rather than cross hatching everywhere. This would allow me to show each element of the shape in their own context and would greatly help with creating a sense of depth. This would mean more time spend studying the shapes, deciding line directions and allowing for a slower build up of tones and shades.
The second attempt was to see how much tone and shade I could create using only one HB pencil. The biggest issue with this drawing was time, or lack of it. I'm not sure if it was because I have drawn this straight after the pen drawing but I notice that I have tried to use similar techniques. There seems to be a strong use of line rather than shading although I did rush this slightly to get all shapes represented in the drawing. I feel this drawing lacks on several levels, this may be as I have always been more used to working with several pencils, working my way from light shades or hard H pencils through to heavy soft tones of B pencils. Both of these exercises have highlighted areas for improvement in both my technique and in my observational skills. Regular use of these types of exercise's should improve my drawings in many ways, especially in being able to create more depth.