During this course, I will use both digital and traditional tools to talk about portrait tronic. So why is knowing the traditional tools so important? I believe to make good portraits, we need the confidence to construct. And that's what the C stands for, in my seven step scaffold method to portrait drawing. I'll go more into that later. But what is the confidence to construct actually mean?
It's about having confidence in the marks that we make. And part of that comes from a positive connection with the tools. That kind of allows you to make the marks that you want to make more consistently and makes drawing less frustrating. The drawing is not easy. But when you have the confidence to construct, you have that positive feeling that comes with that, that boys you up and spurs you on to further success. Think about it like an NBA player or a track star.
They have to perform at a high level of data. In a day out, so they're going to have good equipment like Nike shoes, Reebok. And it's really no different for the artist and the relationship for their tools so they can perform at a consistent high level. Bottom line is if you know your tools, you're planning for success. And I think that's the by far the biggest thing you can do to enhance your artistry. These tools I'm going to show you, they're just suggestions or the tools that I use, you can use this as a jumping off point, a starting point, but feel free to use the tools that work for you.
And I'll have a PDF download of the tools description in the description box of this course. So let's step over to the drawing table and I'll introduce the tools to you. Okay, let's talk about the typical drawing tool I use. Here on the left. I have pencils, and I love the carb Othello made by stability. And I choose couple different colors of that.
And I think you can also charge these with water and they'll pay with like watercolor. And then I have the generals charcoal pencil, and I'll use soft and hard grades any anything from six B to four B two to B to HB. And then next to that I have Conte and it comes kind of like a block with squared off edges and I will sharpen that with my sandpaper to a very fine point. I think you can see that and same thing with the compressed charcoal comes in a barrel, but I'll take it and put it into the sandpaper and just rock it back and forth like that until is chisel fine, hard edge and that makes it kind of a three One tool instead of just a one dimensional tool, and so this sandpaper is at grade made by three, but something like eighth grade will do.
And it's better than those emery board things where you just use one side. This gets does the work twice as fast because you're wearing down the whole tool. And with a pencil to do that, I will put it into in between and I'll hold it with my basically three fingers on one side and balanced by the thumb on the other side and I'll feel for that tip. And I'll just rock it back and forth. And also alternate from rocking it back and forth left to right and I'm also turning it and wearing down the charcoal until it is a very fine, tapered point. Okay, moving on.
I have Buying charcoal and it comes in very thin sticks, which I break. They're pretty long and I break them down into smaller pieces. Depending on what area I need to cover. They have medium and they have a really large stick. And those are awesome. When you combine the willow or the vine charcoal with compressed, it's like velvet.
It's amazing. I use a white Conte for highlights. Also I have a white charcoal pencil for highlights. And then here are my modifiers. So those are our erasers. Plastic Mars eraser needed rubber eraser, for more gradations and subtle changes.
I have my stumps here, the tortelli homes, and that's also for smudging and there's different sizes of those and then I haven't Plastic eraser and a clutch made by settler and then the electric eraser made by Sakura in Japan. These are a little bit expensive, but I like that to get a really fine highlight. And to erase charcoal, sometimes you need something like that. So those are the tools