4 Simple Tips to Improve Pencil Drawing Technique

In this short article I'm going to show you 4 simple tips to greatly improve your ability with pencil drawing.

Why should you believe me?.. you shouldn't. But its only going to take a couple of minutes of your time and like any discerning person you won't believe anything until you try it out for yourself...

Keep Your Pencils Sharp. 
Blunt or chisel point pencils are useful in certain situations or techniques but for most of the pencil drawing you'll do; sharp is the way to go. Don't worry about wasting graphite by sharpening - better that than wasting your time with failed drawing efforts. Brighten the point by rubbing the side of the pencil on scrap paper between sharpening it. This may sound very simple and obvious, but you'd be amazed how much of a difference to your pencil drawing it makes to make a point of it (cheap pun intended).

Use A Variety Of Line.
When drawing lines, either in a linear drawing or within texture in a tonal piece, take note that you can vary the weight of the line by lifting the pencil or applying more pressure. Again, this might seem simple, or obvious with pencil drawing but its surprising how many people don't utilize this simple technique, that means being conscious about it when drawing with pencil.

One very good example of where this is essential to be used in pencil drawing is with grass; the grass-blades start off thicker at the bottom and become thinner going upwards. Pressing down hard with the pencil produces a thicker line, reducing the pressure along with grass-blade with a flicking motion of the hand gives perfect visual representation.

Achieving Even Shading.
The key to this extremely important aspect of pencil drawing is having a mechanical side-to-side shading motion, aiming to get each stroke ending below the last to avoid overlapping the pencil lines and creating a darker area. To prevent this, work back and forth over the same area, randomly varying the spot where the strokes end and the pencil changes direction. Or alternatively try using a fine circular motion to achieve your shaded area, this is a slightly harder pencil drawing technique; requires more pencil control. But this can give an interesting texture to the shading.

Controlling The Direction Of Marks. 
This is very important with all aspects of pencil drawing. Don't let your shading just follow the motion-curve of your arm as your move it across the page, forming your strokes. Focus on using direction to visually describe your object or subject. Following form or create and edge using contrasting direction on two planes. Something else that can also look effective is 'randomness,' artfully looking opposed to scruffy, essentially placing pencil strokes in random directions. One possible use for this technique is with hair.

These points may seem somewhat obvious, but the main idea behind them is utilizing them with conscious thought. You will be amazed at the difference they can make to your pencil drawing ability.

Drawing Courses:

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