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Sketching Techniques for Beginners

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Introduction to Sketching techniques

To develop an individual style and method of working, you have to experiment. This is easy, given the wide range of materials and implements widely available. Try different implements and papers and the effects that can be achieved with them; for example, various types of pencil, as well as pen and ink, line and wash, chalk, pastel, charcoal, scratch board (a technique not used very much these days) and some very interesting, if labor-intensive, ways of making marks on paper.

Try your hand with a variety of materials and see if you can invent a new style. The main point is to have some fun. Both implements and materials are important. An eager artist will draw with anything and make it work to his or her advantage. Artists feel compelled to draw, no matter what their situation. If nothing else is available, they’ll use sticks in sand, coal on whitewashed walls, or colored mud on flat rocks.

It is not essential to have a wide range of equipment at your disposal. One of the things that make drawing such a popular art form is that you can begin with a minimal amount of supplies. Supply yourself with the best materials you can afford. If you try as many new tools and materials as you can, you will discover what suits you best. Some obvious basic supplies and materials you need are listed below.

Supplies & materials


Pencil
The most simple, universal tool of the artist is the humble pencil, which is very versatile. It ranges from very hard, to very soft and black (H, HB, B, 2B, etc.) and there are differing thicknesses. Depending on the type you choose, pencil can be used very precisely and also very loosely. You should have at least three degrees of blackness, such as an HB (average hardness and blackness), 2B (soft and black), and 4B (very soft and black). For working on a toned surface, you might like to try white carbon pencil. Pencils HB, B, 2B, 4B Conté charcoal pencil White carbon pencil

Graphite
Graphite pencils are thicker than ordinary pencils and come in an ordinary wooden casing or as solid graphite sticks with a thin plastic covering. The graphite in the plastic coating is thicker, more solid, and lasts longer, but the wooden casing probably feels better. The solid stick is very versatile because of the actual breadth of the drawing edge, enabling you to draw a really thick line as well as very fine lines. Graphite also comes in various grades, from hard to very soft and black. graphite pencils

Pen
Dip pens come with a fine pointed nib, either stiff or flexible. Modern fine-pointed graphic pens are easier to use and less messy, but not so versatile in terms of the lines it can produce. Try both types. The ink for dip pens is black “India ink,” or drawing ink; this can be permanent or water soluble. fine line pen fine nib dip pen

Charcoal
Charcoal pencils, which come in black and gray and white, are excellent when you need to produce dimensional images on toned paper and are less messy to use than sticks of charcoal and chalk. However, the sticks are more versatile because you can use the long edge as well as the point. Drawings in this type of media need “fixing” to stop them from rubbing away, but if interleaved with pieces of paper, they can be kept without smudging. Work you wish to show for any length of time should be fixed with a spray. willow charcoal

Chalk
This is a cheaper and longer-lasting alternative to white Conté or white pastel. chalk

Brush
A number 0 or number 2 nylon brush is satisfactory for drawing. For applying washes of tone, a number 6 or number 10 brush, either in sablette or sable or any other material capable of producing a good point, is recommended.

Drawing with Pencil


Pencil can be used in many ways. When it was invented, sometime in the 17th Century, it revolutionized artists’ techniques because of the enormous variety of skillful effects that could be produced with it. It soon came to replace well established drawing implements such as silverpoint. The production of pencils in different grades of hardness and blackness greatly enhanced the medium’s versatility. Now it became easy to draw in a variety of ways: delicately or vigorously, precisely or vaguely, with linear effect or with strong or soft tonal effects.

Looking at the works of Michelangelo is a good starting point for seeing ways of using pencil. His work was extremely skillful and his anatomical knowledge was second to none. The careful shading of each of the muscle groups in the body gives an almost sculptural effect, which is not so surprising when you consider that sculpture was his first love. To draw like this takes time and patience and careful analysis of the figure you are drawing.

Pen and Ink Drawing


Pen and ink is special in that once you’ve put the line down, it is indelible and can’t be erased. This really tests an artist’s ability because, unless they can use a mass of fine lines to build a form, they have to get the lines “right” the first time. Either way can work. Once you get a taste for using ink, it can be very addictive.

The tension of knowing that you can’t change what you have done in a drawing is challenging. When it goes well, it can be exhilarating. Leonardo probably did the original of this as a study for a painting. Drawn fairly sketchily in simple line, it shows a young woman with a unicorn, a popular courtly device of the time. The lines are sensitive and loose, but the whole hangs together very beautifully with the minimal of drawing.

 
Form and Shape: Creating Form



Visual conditioning: We have been educated to accept the representation of three-dimensional objects on a flat surface. This is not the case in all parts of the world. In some remote areas, for example, people cannot recognize three-dimensional objects they are familiar with from photographs.

 
Our fairly sophisticated recognition system has to be persuaded to interpret shapes as three-dimensional forms. One way of doing this is to produce an effect that will be read as form, although in reality, this may only comprise an arrangement of lines and marks.
 

A diagrammatic form is often given in atlases to represent the world. Why is it that this particular arrangement of lines inside a circle makes a fairly convincing version of a sphere with its latitude and longitude lines? We don’t really think it is a sphere, but nevertheless, it carries conviction as a diagram.

Let’s go a stage further. In this drawing of a bleached out photograph of an onion, the reduced striations or lines make the same point. We recognize this kind of pattern and realize that what we are looking at is intended to portray a spherical object that sprouts. We can “see” an onion. So is this a round fruit? No, of course not, but the drawn effect of light and shade is so familiar from our study of photographs and film that we recognize the rotund shape as a piece of fruit.

 
For more sketching techniques and materials please visit our Art Kit Section
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