#also you can't see the shiny paint I've used for the tack

[lycomorpha]

My board while I was drawing a beautiful crayfish last year - timelapse here (1 min version) and here (full drawing.) It was a commission for a research group in Aotearoa/NZ.

The reference images they supplied are on the board, along with the test sheet and an early sketch. I mark out two identical outlines for each commission on exactly the same Stonehenge fine art paper. I test everything on one sheet, and the other becomes the shiny finished piece. Detailed drawings take many hours... So as well as trying methods before I commit, test sheets are a thing I can keep in order to retain what I learn. I return to them often to remember how I did things or find new ways to draw something based on past work.

You can also see how my easel is set up...

I've got a drawing board held in a painting easel, which allows me to work vertically. I can't draw over a flat desk or angled drawing board, so this is my adaption. (It works really well as long as non-disabled people don't try to "fix" it... Petition to stop ppl "helping" without asking first, because whyyyyaaaarg.)

I have pencils blue-tacked to the board (over tape strips to prevent the tack leaving greasy marks.) I don't need to change them too often... But you can just peel off whole tape strips with the pencils still attached to move them around. I have more than one board that I can swap around, and I can move strips of pencils between them depending what I'm drawing on each one.

(& yes, Studio Cat did instantly steal my chair there. I swear that cat can fcking teleport.)

The shelf on the easel is full of erasers, pencil extenders, sandpaper for cleaning/filing blending stumps and hard erasers, etc. That and and random crap that I don't clear out often enough! The bits of grey foam are pipe lagging that I cut up to use as pencil holders. The easel is also on wheels. All my art supplies are on a trolley, so I can shift them. Wheels on all the things, basically.

[naiphyx]

Charles & Taima 🏹