The Pencil; Learning to Draw-Kathy Shell, Art School.

The Pencil; Learning to Draw-Kathy Shell, Art School. 05/19/2010

Portrait of Leanne, by Kathy Shell, rendered in soft, medium and hard, Bruynzeel Artist Quality, Sepia Pencils. Copyright to the artist. Original in private collection.

Kathy Shell, Art School

Lesson One, Learning to Draw.

Part One.Basic Requirements

The Pencil.

Artist’s pencils are made from an inner core of graphite (not lead) and they are of a superior quality to the average pencil used for schools, offices and home use. Expect to pay around $4. to $8. for a single high quality artist’s pencil, (2010 Australian prices), if you wish to work with the best tools.

The inner graphite core usually referred to as the ‘lead’, comes in various degrees of hardness, from the extremely hard, 9H (more often used by drafts persons than artists), through to a very soft , dark ad easily smudged, 6B, more suited to a painterly blended style of drawing by fine artists. See my portrait of Leanne above and this portrait of Sean and son David, below . Bother these works relied on the use of a 2B easy to erase pencil for the initial construction lines, a 2H to clearly mark the drawing once I was certain of the positioning of features then the shading was produced using a full range of the softest and most easily blended of the pencil grades. I consider this a painting once I move into the soft graphite pencil stage and away from the hard pencil line drawing, hard graphite pencil sketch stage.

The hard graphite makes a paler grey mark and the softer the graphite is the darker it is and usually the thicker the inner core, as thin soft cores break easily.

The extremes of 9H and 6B require the most skill to use so the average art student will find the grades of 3H, B and 3B the ideal to learn with and these are the grades most often used by the artist when sketching. In the home, school and office the HB pencil, the one centered between the degrees of hardness and softness, s considered the most versatile. Interestingly artists rarely work with the common HB pencil. You may enjoy experimenting with the grades on either side of the standard, HB and you will love the feel of a quality artist’s pencil in your hands. I use Bruynzeel, deign pencils as my preferred choice.

Next lesson will cover other drawing materials and sharpening pencils.