For this week’s blog I wanted to do a quick drawing demonstration. My subject is a reference photo of the shed in my backyard. My goal is not to create an exact copy of the photo but to use the reference to get the basic shape of the tree and the shed. For the drawing I will be using H, 2B and 3B pencils and a kneadable eraser. Pencil outline I start by creating a simple outline of the shed and the tree using the H  pencil drawing very light. This way if I need to erase something, I can without damaging the surface of the paper. Once I am happy with the basic outline, still using the H pencil, I move on to the tree. I start with the tree because it is on the left side of the drawing and I am right-handed. This is important so I am not constantly dragging my hand across and smearing areas that I have already finished.   Close up of Tree For the tree, I simplify the foliage by using what I like to call a scribbling technique to build the values. What this means is I am ...

Hello and welcome to my blog RAD Pencil Art. As this is the first posting on this blog, let me tell you a little about myself. I am Robert Dillard; a manager of a computer help desk working for the US federal government. I'm married to my wonderful and supportive wife Tina and have two grown sons. Now from the above you might have guessed that I am not a professional artist. However, I do have a love of drawing and art as a whole. So why is an IT professional writing a blog about drawing? Well, the simple answer is “Everyone needs a hobby” and mine happens to be drawing. As many of us when we are young, we love to draw and I was no different. I would also say that I did not really display any great artistic ability. Yes. I could draw and for the most part, people could even identify some of the items I drew. It was not until I was in middle school that I started to take a more serious interest in drawing. I had a research project for school and as a part of it I drew a tyrannosauru...