Pencil Drawing, Tips and Equipment

The use of any art medium requires a little knowledge. This article focuses on the tools you should use, and some of the techniques of pencil drawing. Firstly, consider the pencils themselves. In my experience, paying more for a pencil merely buys a better quality casing; the performance of the leads is pretty similar across the price range. The important thing when buying graphite pencils is to have a range of different grades. "H" pencils have hard leads. "B" pencils have soft leads. The higher the H or B number, the harder or softer they are; so an H9 is very hard, and a B9 is very soft. In terms of drawing, pencil "harness and softness" equate to lightness and darkness. A hard pencil will make a very faint, sharp grey line, while a soft pencil will make darker and less sharp mark. Pencil drawing is a matter of recording light and shade, so you need to use a range of lighter and darker pencils to capture tonal variations. The range you choose is up to you, and dependent on the style of drawings you wish to make, but the "Bs" are suitable for most drawings. I would recommend the minimum of an "HB" (neither hard nor soft), B, 2B, 4B, 6B, and 9B. The choice of paper again depends on type of drawings you wish to make, but generally, the best type of paper will be very smooth (e.g. cartridge paper). Paper quality is important. Imperfections in the surface of a smooth paper have a nasty habit of filling-in with graphite, and forming blotches. Pencil work can require a fair amount of blending and reworking, so it is advisable to use a paper that is reasonably robust. My personal recommendation is that you use the heaviest weight paper you can - something that will stand-up to a bit of a battering. Always apply pencil very lightly, and never press hard. The aim should be to float the graphite on the surface of the paper, and not to produce an engraving. Pressing hard will make the pencil mark darker, but it will also deform the paper. Far better results can be obtained by using a darker (softer) pencil lightly, when you need to draw darker areas. Altering the angle of the pencil to the paper can help if you tend to be heavy handed. Briefly, when the pencil is vertical to the paper, it's easy to press down hard. Leaning the pencil reduces the amount of pressure than can be applied to its tip, and the least possible amount pressure is achieved when the pencil is leaned so far that is almost horizontal. When shading an area, don't randomly scrub the pencil back and forward in all directions. Try to apply pencil strokes in a uniform and specific direction. The best direction is often one that describes the shape of an object, so if shading something that is round, used curved strokes. The hardest thing to do with pencil is lay down and area of flat and even shading. The problem is often that the pencil strokes overlap, with the result that the overlapping areas are darker. One way to avoid this is to always shade an area two or three times to achieve even coverage. Multiple layers of shading with a single grade of pencil will not make that shading significantly darker. For example, three layers of B should not be as dark as one layer of B3 (but it should be smoother). The usual approach with pencil is to work from dark to light. Graphite is a lubricant. If you lay-down a very light shading first, you will find that this effectively lubricates the paper, and subsequent shading goes on more smoothly and fluidly. So, if you want to shade an area to a "B3" depth, don't go straight in with the B3; build-up through two or three steps, say a B, a B2, and then a B3. If you wish to shade an area to B8 or B9 depth, similarly go through a few steps, but start with say a B6. If you want to record really dark shades, it is possible to buy specialists' pencils, darker than B9, or you can use a little charcoal. Graphite is shades of grey, and never black. Time for a quick word about sharpening pencils. Most pencil drawing is a matter of recording areas light and shade; it's not about "lines", unless technical drawing is your thing. My advice is therefore - don't sharpen your pencils too often. Shading is easier to do with a slightly blunt pencil, so only sharpen when you need crisp detail (usually the finishing touches). Blending is a vital pencil drawing technique. Blending is fundamentally smudging. Smudging can be used to smooth-out shading, and blend different pencil grades to produce a smooth tonal graduation. Pencil smudges very easily due to the lubricating properties of graphite. You can do it with your fingers (although a little messy), Torchillons (paper stumps), and "Q-tips" (cotton buds on sticks found in most bathrooms) are very good for blending. Whatever you use, make your blending strokes directional rather than random. An eraser can be very useful. It is not for correcting mistakes; it is necessary for cleaning-up (because pencil smudges so easily). The best type is a putty eraser. These are very soft and can be pinched into points or thin edges to take out tiny dots or thin lines of pencil from your picture, without doing any damage to the paper. The final bit of equipment you may like to use is a fixative spray. This stops the drawing from smudging once it is complete, but can also be used mid-drawing to prevent unwanted smudging. Don't use hair spray (except on your hair): use a purpose made fixative, and don't over do it (a light spray is enough).

Tips on Choosing and Using Drawing Pencils

An essential component of any pencil artists materials is a good set of drawing pencils. These can be bought fairly cheaply in any artist materials shop and are a great investment as they will last for a long time when looked after properly. It is worth buying a high quality set of pencils as poor quality graphite can lead to problems creating consistent tones and even scratches in the paper. Drawing pencils can often be purchased in boxes of six or twelve and they range in scale from 6H, which is the hardest and gives the lightest tone, to 8B, which is the softest and produces dark tones. When buying a set of pencils make sure they span a range of tones from fairly hard to soft. It is rarely necessary to use more than a few pencils when producing a drawing as a wide range of tones can be produced simply by varying the pressure that you use to produce the pencil strokes on the page. A good combination of pencils to use is a HB for the initial drawing of the outline and preliminary shading, and a 5B/6B for adding depth to the drawing. It will rarely be necessary to use pencil lighter than HB, and hard pencils may leave indentations on your paper when hard pencil strokes are applied. Don't be afraid to use soft pencils to produce dark shading in the areas with shadow as a strong contrast in pencil tones will help give the picture depth and a three dimensional quality. A good technique to use when shading a drawing is to start off by shading the entire drawing lightly with a relatively hard pencil and then adding progressively darker layers to this with softer pencils to build up the tones on the pages. Soft pencils can also be used to build up consistency in a drawing as pencil strokes from soft pencils when applied lightly will tend to blend into one another without the need for crosshatching. Crosshatching is drawing of two layers of fine parallel lines that are at right-angles to each other and is used to create area of tone in a drawing. When using soft pencils, if you make delicate pencil strokes that are close together along a single plane, this will create the illusion of an area of tone where the individual pencil strokes are invisible. After sharpening a drawing pencil, make sure to use a scrap of spare paper to dull the point, as a sharp point at the tip of the pencil will make effective shading more difficult. For some examples of portraits that were drawn with a HB and 6B pencil combination check out my pencil portrait website.