#fossil drawing

Gabrielle Nowicki - 2016. Rock (1) - Graphite on 12″ x 9″  Paper

My house is a five minute drive from the north shore of Lake Erie. I go for walks there regularly and always find myself scouring the beach for sea glass and interesting stones. It occurred to me that they’d be nice to draw. The different grades of graphite that I use, from 6H to 6B can render surfaces that are from hard and smooth, to soft and porous. I layer these different grades of pencil on the paper to get different effects. I worked the surface until I was happy with the implied weight of the rock. 

I used a rock about 4 inches across, with fossils embedded in it as a starting point for this drawing, but I let what was happening on the paper guide the drawing process so there is an intuitive aspect to this as well.