So I went for it. :)
In general, I am more satisfied with my faces than during September's challenge. I guess back then I was trying too hard. Using cheep paper (the back of my daughter's report cards from the daycare) and a random pencil I feel more relaxed and free to make mistakes and that sometimes can give unexpected results.
At the beginning of the month, I worked on the sketches with a regular pencil (with a rather bad point as you can see clearly in Faces 1 and 2), then I switched to a mechanical pencil with a consistently fine tip. That helped a lot. The lead is much softer than the one I use in the drawings that I end up coloring. It smudges easily and it would probably not work too well for my usual purposes ( it's a bit hard to erase), but for these sketches it felt surprisingly nice to handle and made me wonder whether I should switch to a mechanical pencil (with an appropriate lead, of course) permanently.
I must also say that I have essentially no skills in the refined art of pencil sharpening, which I know I should probably consider more carefully...I never thought it would matter to me because I end up inking over my pencils anyways. Any opinions in the matter?
What kind of pencils or special drawing tools do you use? How did you discover them?
