Pencil Artist of the Week: Christopher Hayes Kennedy

This week’s featured pencil artist is Christopher Hayes Kennedy, a pencil artist who goes by the handle chkennedy on DeviantArt. Christopher’s DeviantArt gallery is filled with landscape paintings, graphite portraits and sketches of hands. While many artists (me included) are afraid of hands and the challenge they represent, Christopher has embraced the difficult task of recreating our complex appendages. “I love to draw hands, ever since I was a young boy, I’ve always been fascinated with hands.”

Whether in the form of a rough sketch or a finished portrait, all of Christopher’s drawings feature realistic proportions and convincing shading. Christopher achieves this level of realism using a variety of tools, including pencils that range from 2H to 6B on the graphite grading scale.

“A typical graphite drawing of mine is created using a 2H, HB, 2B, and 6B, as well as a tortillion” (a tortillion is a blending stump used to blend graphite on paper). “I usually sketch the eyes of a portrait first with a 2H, once the eyes are right, I move on to the rest of the face, beginning my shading with an HB, then 2B, and finally a 6B for the areas that need that level of darkness. I also use a mechanical pencil (all other pencils are woodcased) to stiffen up any lines that are too soft.”

“I also use a kneaded eraser, a ruler for proportions and symmetry lines. One trick I use is using a napkin and/or paper towel to shade a large area to apply a semi-textured look.”

Drawings by Pencil Artist Christopher Hayes Kennedy

If you want to see more of Christopher’s drawings, you can check out his DeviantArt profile here. You can also like him on Facebook for more frequent updates.