How do I blend pencil shading so it looks smooth?

Everyone reaches for the blending stump too early. Blending is a finishing operation: it evens out what is already almost even. If you lay down one scribbled layer and then smear it, you get a smeared scribble, because the stump moves graphite around but cannot add what was never there.

Step by step

1. Use the side of the lead, not the point.Sharpen so 8 to 10mm of lead is exposed and lay it flat against the paper. A broad soft edge deposits an even film; a point deposits a line, and lines have to be hidden later.
2. Work in layers, each one light.Aim for four or five passes to reach a mid tone rather than one heavy one. Light layers sit in the tooth of the paper evenly; a heavy one burnishes the high points and skips the hollows, which is exactly what patchiness is.
3. Change direction every layer.Horizontal, then diagonal, then the other diagonal, then vertical. Any single direction leaves a grain. Crossing them averages it out before you blend anything.
4. Keep the pencil moving past the edges of the area.Stopping and starting inside the shape leaves a build-up at each stop. Run the stroke off the edge of the area, or off the paper, and let a mask or an erased edge define the boundary later.
5. Blend with a paper stump or tortillon, working in small circles.A stump is tightly rolled paper with a point, so it reaches into small areas and can be cleaned by rubbing it on scrap. Use light pressure — you are settling graphite into the paper, not scrubbing it.
6. Keep separate stumps for light and dark tones.A stump loaded with 8B graphite will contaminate a delicate highlight instantly. Sand the tip clean on a scrap of fine abrasive paper, or dedicate one stump per range.
7. Lift the highlights back out afterwards.Blending always dulls the lightest areas. Shape a putty rubber to a point or an edge and press-and-lift rather than rub, taking the tone back down to paper where the light is strongest.
8. Re-establish the darks last.Blending lightens everything it touches, so the deepest shadows will have gone soft. Go back in with a soft grade and rebuild them, and leave those final darks unblended so they stay crisp.

Tips

• Paper decides most of this. A smooth, hot-pressed or Bristol-type surface blends to a near-photographic finish; a toothy cartridge or watercolour paper will always show texture, and fighting it is a waste of an afternoon.
• A folded piece of soft tissue over a fingertip is excellent for large areas and gives a softer result than a stump. Chamois leather does the same for charcoal.
• A clean brush — a soft, wide, dry one — blends very large areas of graphite or charcoal gently without moving as much material as a stump does.
• For genuinely large flat tones, graphite powder or a graphite stick applied with tissue is far faster and smoother than any pencil.

Common mistakes

• Blending with a bare finger — Skin oil goes onto the paper with the graphite, and oiled paper takes tone differently afterwards. The mark often shows up permanently, and shows up worse under a fixative or a wash.
• Blending to fix patchy shading — Patchiness comes from uneven deposition in the paper texture. A stump smooths the surface slightly but the underlying unevenness is still there, and it usually becomes more obvious rather than less.
• Blending everything in the picture — A drawing with no crisp edges anywhere looks foggy and out of focus. Blend the soft transitions on rounded forms; keep hard edges hard.

If it doesn't work

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