"Deep End of the Pool- part 2"

The first few techniques described in part 2 cover taking it to the enth degree with the eraser strip and the rest about doing the same with the pencil.

Cleaning House

This is the term I use to describe the act of extremely carefully cleaning/ clearing all extraneous graphite from the area all round the small area of the drawing you are currently working on in preparation for the next specific task you have planned with your needle sharp pencil It applies from an area smaller than a match head, right up to a whole part or section of the drawing, usually one side (always the light side) of an outline or feature. The only way to move forward productively from the initial sketching and rough drawing stages is to use your eraser to clean/clear the way for much more precise marks and lines. A lot of the time you are just removing unwanted lines to help what’s there but once you are using the eraser every bit as carefully as the pencil and with a very specific mission in mind you are using the end surface of the eraser strip with weight concentrated on one sharp edge or corner You can’t know exactly where those areas will possibly be without first doing the freehand rough sketching, drawing and refining stages, but once the detail level gets to a certain point is most definitely the essential tool to use to avoid becoming mired in the dreaded .