Updated on by Rita Moreira
The brightest details in a realistic drawing are usually the smallest: a reflection sliding down a metal teapot, single white hairs in a beard, the shine on a lower lip, the catchlight in an eye. They are also the details that cause the most head scratching, because you cannot draw white with a graphite pencil.
What you can do is choose the right tool for each kind of brightness. Four of them cover practically every situation, and knowing which one to reach for is half the job. Let us go through them one by one, ending with an honest comparison.
What do artists use for white highlights?
Artists working in graphite rely on four main tools for white highlights: an embossing tool for fine, crisp white lines, an eraser pen for adjustable highlights and delicate retouching, a white gel pen for tiny points of intense light, and the technique of reserving the white of the paper from the very start. Each produces a different effect, and most finished portraits combine at least two of them.
Before committing any of them to a serious piece, test each on scrap paper. The first exercise I set my students is exactly that: one strip of shaded paper, all four tools, side by side. Ten minutes of testing saves hours of regret on a portrait, because these effects are difficult or impossible to undo.
How does an embossing tool work for drawing?
An embossing tool has a small metal ball at its tip. Drawn firmly across blank paper, it presses a narrow groove into the surface, and when you later shade over the area, the graphite skips the groove and the line stays white. The highlight appears on its own, as if developed like a photograph.
It is the quickest route to fine white strands in hair and beards: crisp, precise and permanent. The trade-off is exactly that permanence. You must plan every line before any shading happens, and the tool is wrong for anything soft or broad, such as blurred strands or the gentle shine on skin. For those, the next two tools take over.
What makes an eraser pen so precise?
An eraser pen is a rubber in pencil form, and the Tombow MONO zero is the reference point: its round tip measures just 2.3mm across, and a rectangular version exists for even slimmer edges. That precision is why realism artists treat it almost as a drawing instrument rather than a corrector.
I cut the tip at an angle, a chamfer, which sharpens it further and lets me pull out single bright hairs, soften them into blurred strands, lift shine onto skin texture, suggest fabric and veils, and retouch lines first made with the embossing tool. For subtle brightness across skin texture, it is usually my first choice.
Two honest limitations. An erased area never returns to the paper’s original white, so the highlight reads slightly dull rather than brilliant. And truly minuscule points of light are awkward, because the soft tip flexes and refuses to touch down with pinpoint accuracy.
When should you use a white gel pen?
Sparingly, in graphite work. The white gel pen, an invention Sakura claims with its original Gelly Roll line, lays down opaque ink that is often whiter than the paper itself. On a slightly cream sheet, those marks can stand apart with a faintly blue cast: handsome in a scanned image, jarring on the actual paper. The marks are also dry and final, with no way to blend them into soft light.
Where it earns its place is the job nothing else can do: minuscule, intense points of light. The catchlight in an eye, the wet point on the lips, a pinprick of sun on metal. It also rescues older drawings whose paper has yellowed, restoring contrast where the reserved white no longer reads as light, and covers that one missing sparkle you only notice when the piece is framed. The catchlight alone can decide whether a portrait feels alive, which is why our guide to drawing a realistic eye spends so long on it. If eyes and skin are the details you most want to master, I have collected the complete method in a step by step guide to realistic features.
Why is reserving the paper white still the best method?
Because the white of the paper already is the light: nothing added, nothing lifted. You simply plan where the brightness lives and build the shadows around it, and the highlight emerges with the most natural, photographic quality of the four methods. It is how most professional graphite portraits handle wet-look shine, skin highlights and even individual bright hairs.
It demands the most planning, though, which is why it improves in step with your value control. If your shading still wobbles, strengthen the foundation first with light and shadow drawing: a reserved highlight only glows when the values around it hold up their end.
Which tool should you choose?
Match the tool to the kind of brightness the reference shows. Water shine and skin glow made with the embossing tool or hard eraser edges tend to sit on top of the drawing as defined marks; reserved paper white or gentle eraser-pen lifting blends in far more naturally.
| Tool | Best for | Finish | Limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Embossing tool | Crisp white hairs | Sharp, permanent | Must plan before shading |
| Eraser pen | Adjustable shine, retouches | Soft, slightly dull | Never full paper white |
| White gel pen | Tiny intense light points | Opaque, very bright | Can look blueish, no blending |
| Reserved paper | Natural highlights | Most photographic | Needs planning and control |
Light-coloured hair is the classic combination job. You leave bright strands between your pencil strokes, concentrating the graphite in some passages and easing off in others; in white hair the paper does most of the work, with only darker strands woven through. The eraser pen then finishes the loose, tangled strays. It is the same layered thinking that runs through all realistic pencil drawing: plan the lights, build the darks, refine the edges.
Where can you buy the materials?
The full kit is short: an embossing tool, a Tombow MONO zero, a white gel pen such as a Gelly Roll and your usual pencils. In the UK, Cass Art, Jackson’s Art and Hobbycraft stock all of them, and Amazon.co.uk carries the lot if you prefer a single order.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you add white highlights to a drawing?
Plan them before you shade. Decide where the brightest points sit, reserve those areas as untouched paper, and press in any fine white lines with an embossing tool at this stage.
Then build your shading around the reserved areas: the surrounding darks are what make a highlight glow. Only at the end come the corrective tools, an eraser (rubber) or eraser pen to lift softer shine, and a white gel pen for the last tiny points of intense light that nothing else can reach.
Can you use a white marker for drawing highlights?
You can, but with the same caution as the gel pen, doubled. White markers and paint markers lay down thicker, more opaque ink, so on a graphite drawing they tend to sit on the surface like correction fluid rather than light.
They suit bold, graphic styles and coloured or toned grounds far better than realism on plain white paper. For realistic graphite work, keep markers for experiments, and let reserved paper, the eraser pen and a fine gel pen handle the highlights.
Do you need a Tombow MONO zero, or will an ordinary eraser do?
An ordinary eraser handles broad highlights and large areas perfectly well. The MONO zero matters when the details shrink: fine hairs, precise skin shine, small retouches, where its 2.3mm tip outperforms any block eraser.
If you draw portraits full of hair and skin texture, it repays its price quickly in the quality of the final finish. If you are starting out, a Pentel Clic Eraser with the tip cut at an angle gets you most of the way there for less.
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