Drawing Hair in Graphite Pencil

Drawing hair is hard work. It's almost worse then hands! It's complicated, time consuming, and often the results are terrible, and trust me, I speak from personal experience when I say that. So, why bother? Hair has often been considered a symbol of beauty. Why would you want to leave out such a powerful element out of one's picture? Hair can change the look of a picture dramatically and tell you more of a story. Hair can add motion, show the environment that the character is in, and tell you about the character by its style (or lack of).

So we're going to get into the nitty gritty of how to get it done, and what you'll need to do it.

Supplies

Pencils: It sounds pretty simple, but I'm going to go over the basics once more. It's always good to have a handy supply of pencils with different leads. I'm not suggesting that you go out and buy a set from 9H to 9B, but have a good pencils for drawing (most artists usually use 2H up to 4B range). I find for drawing hair, having a mechanical pencil around can be handy - especially if your lazy like me, and hate sharpening your pencil a hundred times (each). I actually do almost all of my work with my mechanical pencil and using 2H, B and 2B  leads. 

Paper: For any drawing, using good paper is essential. In this case, we're going to be doing a lot of layers, adding pencil, and erasing, so you'll want a paper that can take a bit of a beating. My favorite is to use 90lb paper. It's thick enough that you could do just about anything to it, and it won't wrinkle or crease. The thicker the paper the better chance you won't erase through it. Plus the texture really holds lead well and you won't have to work hard at getting dark tones.

Erasers: I usually use a big white vinyl eraser for big mistakes, but whichever you prefer is fine. One thing that I will highly recommend is to get a 'Tuff Stuff eraser stick'. It's a wonderful pen style eraser that works wonders, is under 5 mm thick, and is fantastic for picking out highlights. I can't stress enough how much I love my Tuff Stuff! It's essential for any art kit. 

Blending Utensils: Sure, you can be old fashioned and use your fingers, but realize the oil from your hands can damage your drawing. I prefer to use my stump (aka stomp) which is essentially a rolled up piece of paper that looks like a pen. They come in all sorts of sizes and are dirt-cheap. It's always a worthwhile thing to have. 

Dusters: Optional, but nice to have if you have the habit of smearing your drawing with your hands. If you don't have one, remember to blow or shake your drawing the get crud off... never wipe it away with your hands! (I've had many smearing disasters. Not fun.)
Whew! Now that that's done let's move on to the fun stuff.... let's go drawing! *cue cheesy music*
 

Step 1 Layout : Putting down the foundation

Here I've started with a face already drawn in for simplicity's sake. I figured I might as well throw it down on the paper to start off with, so you can see the light source I'm working with, and so it won't end up being hair floating in a void in the end.
As you might imagine, the first thing you have to do is block in the hair. I've gone for a semi-curly windswept look for this one, to better illustrate how hair can by dynamic and wild. But chose whatever you're in the mood for, and go for it. While your blocking in the hair- Go crazy! Hair is erratic, fluid, and never does what it's supposed to, so make your hair interesting. Just remember, as your establishing your layout, that you're not drawing hair strand by strand. That is the primary pitfall of artists when it comes to hair. Hair, like the rest of a drawing, is chunks of light and shadow, so treat them as such. Keep thinking about big blocky clumps, and the motion of hair, not individual strands.

Also, keep in mind the environment. I say environment instead of just lighting, because when your drawing hair, you also have to take into consideration where the character is, what movements he/she is making, and how those factors would make the hair react. Try to see the motion in the hair when your picture it in your mind. Keep these things, as well as light source in mind while working on your layout