Erasing and shadowing
Yesterday, I wrote a little about using a flattened kneaded eraser to lift the graphite off larger areas of the paper. When you do this, keep in mind where your light source is coming from. In the sample below (done just for fun), there are two sources of light, one from the front right side and one from the back, slightly above the shoulders.
When you are using a eraser, you sort of have to warp your brain a little. Instead of drawing in the lines and shadows, you're lifting off the lighter areas from the paper. If you use the eraser the same way as a pencil, you'll end up with an X-ray image, or reverse image, which is cool if that's what you want to try. There are no rules, only suggestions for certain outcomes. Play!
Here, using a kneaded eraser and frequently looking at the reference photo, I gently lifted off an outline of the shirt, her face, as the position of the eyes and ears. Then, I slowly started to rub out the portions that had more light in the reference photo. I went a little too white with the eyes, since eyes are rarely, if ever, totally white. I can now go back and gently shade them in with graphite.
"Isn't that cheating?"
No, it isn't. It's my artwork. There are myriad techniques at your disposal. No two pieces of art will be exactly the same.
Experiment, and most of all, have fun!
