Drawing Tips & Hints

Follow the 4 stages of a drawing:

	1) Start by completing a very light contour line drawing of the image using a HB pencil. If using a grid is easier for you, by all means use one.
	2) Slowly fill in the drawing using a HB or B2 pencil. Pay attention to your grayscale.
	3) Using a chisel paintbrush and or a blending tool, smooth out your shading. Use your kneadable eraser to pull off any graphite to give areas of light.
	4) Define your drawing, use B4 and or B6 pencils to put in your darkest areas and your eraser to define the light areas. Finish by signing your work.

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Here are some useful tips and hints on drawing and supplies:

• Protect your work with a piece of paper or a piece of clear plastic as you draw, so your work will not smudge or smear.
• Set up a composition in different ways to find the most interesting view.
• Simple can sometimes be the best composition!
• Set up your composition and decide on format; vertical or horizontal?
• Do several thumbnail sketches to be sure you have a good, interesting composition. Remember triangles…!!!!
• Use the 4 basic shapes as building blocks for your drawing. Any object can be built from the 4 basic shapes, square, circle, triangle and cylinder.
• Squint to check your work, looking for dark shapes that you can draw.
• Leave work for a couple of days or hours, then check it again and make any necessary adjustments.
• Turn work upside down to check your negative space, look for the light and dark areas.
• Change your perspective and check it again to make sure that you like your composition.
• Work from light to dark values.
• Work with a minimal grid.
• Start work with a light pencil, HB or B as they are easy to erase if need be.
• Slowly add more and more detail and texture, working all over the drawing and building so your whole drawing will be finished at the same time.
• STOP often to check your progress, don’t get so caught up in your drawing that you don’t want to make necessary changes, it is only paper!
• Keep your pencils sharp, have more than 1 ready. Use a sand paper block to chisel the end of your pencil to give interesting varied line.
• Use a soft water colour brush to help blend the pencil marks.

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Basic List of Supplies

Pencils:

• HB, B2, B4, and B6.
• These are soft pencils and are easy to smudge and blend and also easier to erase.
• I start with a HB and use the B2 and B4 ending with the B6.
• B6 will give you a nice dark.
• But the higher the number the grainier the result.

Sharpeners:

• I use an exacto blade, they do not allow as much waste, and your lead will not break as easily. You can shape the tip as you want.

Erasers

• A white plastic and a kneadable eraser, both come in handy for different things.
• I use the white plastic to rub off areas of the graphite and the kneadable to lift off areas.

Acid free good quality paper:

• 100 - 110 LB. smooth is good.
• A Bateman sketch book is great!

A water colour brush for blending as well as a blending stump.

The brush is great for doing large areas while the blending stump can be used like a soft thick pencil.

A piece of clear plastic to lay on your work to protect it from oils from your hands. Some people use just a piece of paper, but you can see through the plastic and it is easier to determine where you want to draw. A piece of paper has to be lifted to see what is going on under it.

Remember to wash your hands often! Natural oils from your hands can stain the paper and if the graphite gets stuck in it, you can not get it off.

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