Now that I’ve made pathway maps for learning art, I’m back with a series that goes in-depth about different traditional art media using exploded drawings (aka exploded-layer diagrams). Ideally in the future, you’ll be able to cross-reference these articles with the pathway map to help you along your learning journey.
Note: This series isn’t designed to teach you art techniques, but rather to give you an overview of the medium, how to choose your tools and how they come together create lasting pieces. I’ll be writing a companion article that will cover graphite pencil skills soon!
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First off, this is an exploded drawing:
It shows each part of the whole quickly and clearly, and is commonly used in architecture and product design. I figured it would be worth a shot to use it with art processes since layering is a huge deal in visual art.
This is an exploded drawing of what a finished piece of graphite art would generally consist of:
Let’s look at these layers from bottom to top, since that’s the order you’ll be considering or using them in.
1. Drawing surface
Essentially, whatever table/board/wad of paper you’ll be leaning on while drawing. This isn’t usually talked about as an “art material”, but it will affect how your piece is going to look. A smooth surface will give you a smooth drawing, and a rough surface will give you a textured drawing. Smooth surfaces are default, but plenty of artists will create their own textured surfaces to draw on and experiment with.
2. Paper
There are so many different types of paper! Here are the basic ways we can categorise them:
Texture
Paper texture has a spectrum that goes from smooth to rough. Smooth paper is great for details and linework since pencil tips won’t get caught in the bumps of rougher paper. It will also wear your pencil tips down more slowly than rougher paper, and won’t snap mechanical pencil leads as easily as rough paper will. Rough paper is great for textural work and layering.
The texture in paper is known as “tooth”. Low tooth paper is considered smooth, medium tooth is a bit higher than average (so more textured than printer paper) and high tooth is very textured (like non-sharp sandpaper).
Weight
This refers to the thickness of paper, which is measured in weight. The thicker the paper, the more layers of pencil it will be able to handle (so if you’re into burnishing (a technique that rubs heavy layers of media onto the drawing surface), thicker is the way to go). Thick paper will also be good if you’re planning to try mixed media.
Weight is known as “gsm” (grams per square metre). For reference, printer paper is 80gsm and is considered the lightest you’d want to do pencil work on. Sketchbook paper is generally between 1–200gsm.
When choosing the paper you want to use, consider the mix of texture and weight. If you want to do light sketching, a smooth, lightweight paper would be fine. For realism with burnishing and shading, a medium-tooth paper that’s between 2–300gsm might be more your speed.
3. Graphite
Graphite is such a big and cool thing that I wrote it its own article. In this layer of the exploded drawing, you’d also be using accessories to manipulate the graphite (like erasers and paper stumps). Those are in the article too!
4. Sealant/varnish
Sealant is used to “seal” the pencil layer and to protect the paper. You can use it in between pencil layers if you want to draw on top of an already-completed layer that you don’t want to mess with too much, or on top of a completely finished drawing so that the pencil won’t smudge when it’s touched.
Varnish is used to give the finished drawing some kind of finish — matte, satin or gloss. Using a sealant is recommended for any finished drawing you want to extend the life of, whereas varnish is more of an added bonus.
That’s it!
I hope this was helpful! If you have anything I should add in or correct, let me know. As I said in the intro, this is meant to be a media overview rather than teaching skills — if you have anything in particular you’d like to see me cover in the skills companion article for this, definitely let me know.
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