"The Skull"

My favorite class in college was scientific illustration. My instructor, a native of Poland, was a very stern man. He wanted his students to draw precisely. During this class I finally understood the meaning of creating dimension by combining a spectrum from very light to very dark.

Drawing an animal skull was the best project that final semester. I was given an actual animal skull that fit into the palm of my hand and my instructor showed me how to set the skull in a clay-like substance called plasticene so that it wouldn't move for the duration of the project. A drafting tool called a divider was used to enlarge the skull three times and to plot all the points that created the basic outline.

The tools used to create the illustration were:
Venus graphite pencils ranging in hardness from 4H to 6B
3 mm and 5 mm mechanical pencils with HB and B leads
Pentel soft stick eraser
Blending sticks of various sizes
Eye shadow brushes...great for smearing lead dust
Kneaded eraser

This project took three months to complete and approximately 120 hours.