Cleaning up the edges of your work can make a big difference in how refined and professional your drawing appears. This is actually one of my personal pet peeves- I hate messy edges on my drawings!
Look at the example of this red sphere. Notice the difference between the left side and the right side. The left side is blurry and messy and the right side is crisp and clean.
Here is the difference.
Glassine– While I was working on the right side, I protected my hand with Glassine. While I was working on the left side, I allowed my hand to smudge pencil from the drawing onto the white background. Try to keep something under your hand while you are working. It could be tracing paper or even a sheet of copy paper. Glassine works great because nothing really sticks to it.
Drafting Brush– While I was working on the right side, I was careful to brush away any stray pencil crumbs or pencil dust periodically as I was working. The drafting brush I use is from Staedtler.
Eraser– I use a good quality vinyl eraser to clean up the larger areas around my drawings. I am currently using the Derwent erasers but any white eraser would be fine. Also, make sure that your eraser is clean before you use it on your white paper. I know this from experience.😳
Electric Eraser– I use an electric eraser with a sharpened point to go closely around the edges of my drawings. I did this on the right side of the sphere.
Gamsol– I like to use my #2 Round Watercolor Brush to carefully smooth out my edges with Gamsol. This makes my edges look smooth and sharp. I did this on the right side of the sphere.
Sharp Polychromos Pencil– If you have a very sharp oil-based pencil with a hard lead, like Polychromos, you can carefully go around your edges to refine them. I would do this as one of my very last steps. I did this on the right side of the sphere.
Let me know if you have any other suggestions for keeping those edges clean.
To learn more about how I create my botanical colored pencil drawings, check out my Patreon site at https://www.patreon.com/JenniferMorrisonArt.
And, for a complete list of my available colored pencil drawing tutorials see jennifermorrisonart.com/patreontutoriallinks.
Jennifer
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