The Gradient

In secondary school we started to pay visits to the museum of fine art. I couldn't understand how an artist could make such a fine transition from one color to another. That "gradient" always fascinated me.
The eye, just like any scanner, has a limiter hardware resolution. Beyond certain detail the eye can no longer see.
Some artists (including the Japanese classical ones, kudos to them!) work a lot with suggestion: a dot here, a line there and here you have an expressive portrait.
Im still in love with the gradient, which now I try to refine in my graphite pencil. "Where does one value end and the other begins?" The eye cannot tell, if you work hard enough (or soft enough, to be more precise). I think Im gonna stick to this method for a while, Im so in love with the subtlety on the gentle transition.

Here under a portrait I have just finished. I worked on it for 6 days (I know...) It's based on one of my first drawings (the colored one, I hope it's obvious). I just wanted to age the boy a bit, yet still show the same person.
I photographed the drawing on the terrace, between two showers of rain. It's been raining all August in Holland. I still dont have an A3 scanner :-(