2. Tone - Gradations of tone within a ‘field of tone’

In this exercise, I used an A4 page of rough water colour and an 8B graphite pencil to create a gradient tone from the one material.

I chose to start of with the lightest tone and progress to the darkest tone. I lightly touched the pencil to the paper and moved it lengthways back and forth.

As I started to move down the page, I gradually started to speed up and increase pressure on to the paper until I reached the bottom of the page at full pressure.

Picture 1

This was the sheet after I applied the graphite from light to dark pressure.

The pencil marks are very noticeable because the tooth of the paper makes it hard for the pencil to be applied in a consistent way.

Picture 2 and 3

I used a blending stump across the page to blur the pencil marks together. This resulted in the gradient looking smoother and the lines becoming less defined. I think a seedless gradient of tone would be more successful on a smooth piece of paper, as the tooth makes it impossible to fully blend the marks into one another as the pencil and blending tool can’t get the into the grooves of the rough paper to create a consistent tone.