Dirty pages in sketchbook (smudging)
1yr
@criticalmess
Hello. It's my first post and i want to ask maybe a little sily question. I remeber when Proko said that sketchbook let you track your progress easier. So I thought to myself i shouldn't rip of the pages out of it. Unfortunately the sketches started to smudge each other. Is there any solution other than to take the pages out of it? I noticed that some don't do this as much. For example like the ones on the third photo. I know about Fixatives but i feel like this is too much effort and cost for just simple exercises. I just want to know how you deal with it. Thank you in advance for your answer.
1yr
Ugh!! I constantly face this issue, too. This might sound a bit odd, but one mental exercise I’ve been trying out myself is to just let it be smudged. In a way, it has helped remind myself that my sketchbook is truly a place to mess around and allow things to be “ugly”. If this sounds too hard or if you really need your sketchbook pages to remain clean for any reason, then yeah, tissue paper is a good solution as Steve pointed out.
@criticalmess
1yr
This doesn't sound odd at all. I get your point. I was thinking more about smudging the values. Because of that it is harder for me to judge, when I compare what I get wrong in the past exercises. Thank you for your answer.
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1yr
Valid question, it annoys me as well when it happens.
Either only use one side per page, so the smudging will only hit the empty opposite page, or use a harder pencil, like H, HB or 2B, but not softer than that.
1yr
Thank you for your answer. That is what i was also thinking. I could leave oppsite page blank. It's a little bit of waste but maybe I use this pages for warming up exercise with hard pencils. It's kinda funny because as i metioned the ones on the third photo aren't dirty as much and i used softer pencils. Maybe it's also about how many layers of graphite i used.
1yr
If you don't want to use fixatives, then the only other thing you could do would be to put some tissue paper in-between the pages.
1yr
Unfortunately the specialized fixatives for artist aren't as easy avaliable there and "expensive" enough for me to consider only for more "serious" drawing. I figure out that i would need to learn the proper way of applying them too. Which is kinda out of question with my struggle with concentrating on keeping the learning going... But i will definitely try the method with tissue paper. Thank you for your answer.
