Working Man © Misti Osburn

Artist's Statement: I have been drawing my entire life. I have been studying under teachers off and on for the last 10 years or so. This is the first drawing I have done in over a year. I find graphite pencil to be challenging, especially when blocking in large areas of high contrast. I used a graphite stick and a tissue on the large areas, and a wooden graphite pencil (4B) for the edges and detail work. Please excuse the date stamp; my scanner is not large enough to accommodate this work, and all the other digital photos I took without the date stamp were blurry. Any techniques you can provide about ensuring that extremely dark areas turn out smoother, and are not shiny, would be highly appreciated. I'm considering redoing the work in charcoal.