The Humble Pencil: The Most Versatile Tool in an Artists' Tool Box

Some things should be mandatory in everyone's, but especially artists arsenal of tools. I lift up to you the humble pencil. It's old, versatile, and I think it will never go out of style. No stylus or computer program attached to a tablet will beat the status quo standard, the tried and true humble pencil.

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Artists use pencils for so much more than drawing; they are used to find proportions and telling our story to future generations. Reams of paper, pigment and binders have made our worlds current culture vibrate. It's no wonder so many uses this simple art form. But some things artists do to their pencils and how they hold them as they draw to tell those stories can be shaking and contrary to what most of us learn in grade school. However, we all can learn a lot from these simple tricks to make our drawings more vivid and live more fully within the canvass.

Below are a short ream of videos sharing some of the humble secrets of the pencil.

Are you ready for this? Lets begin!

Pencils have different grades of value. The pencil's richness depends on how much binder to graphite pigment ratio is in that pencil. The more binder, the lighter the value of the pencil. Pencils that have lighter values are called "H" or "Hard" Pencils and are "Hardly noticeable".

Always be careful using H pencils as you can press down too hard and scratch up the page's surface. It's always easier to up a pencil size and save your paper than restarting a drawing because you scored your page.

Note: Scoring a page intentionally can change not only the texture of your drawing, but it can also cause havoc when shading areas as those score lines draw pigment like magnets to a frigidaire.

But Pencils that have more graphite pigment to binder ratios are called "B" pencils. I always recommend never pressing too hard with B pencils as they can push too much orpiment on to the surface, and marks made by a B pencil are not easily erased. With B pencils, always "Be Soft" when pressing the implement on to the page.

As you can see by the graphic, the higher the pencil's number, the more soft or hard the pencils are. Mide range pencils are the lower numbered pencils.