Chatterbox: Pudding's Place

How to Draw, Literally

I've taken an art class since I was in 2nd grade, and I would like to share an important piece of knowledge I learned there that can help improve your drawings, especially sketches, greatly. How to actually hold a pencil when drawing- I know it sounds dumb, but hear me out.

Number 1- When you sketch, draw using your whole arm- we used to have to warmup using super short pencils (like, 1-2 inches), which forces you to move not just your wrist/fingers. It might take practice to get used to, but you will eventually get loose, light sketchy lines. I'd encourage you to practice with tiny pencils if you want to practice. 

Number 2- Don't have a death grip on your pencil! The goal of sketching is to be loose and free- later on when adding details these tips don't really apply, but if you're having trouble sketching this will help you. My art teacher would randomly come around and pull the pencil out of our hands when we were sketching- if she couldn't, we were holding the pencil too tight. If you can, ask a family member to do this when you're drawing, or try to take notice of it.

Number 3- (This is more for shading) If you sharpen your pencil with an exacto knife, you can sharpen the pencil so that a lot of lead sticks out the end. Then, you can hold it perpendicular to the paper, and cover large areas way quicker than with a pointed pencil. Also, if you're in the middle of shading and you don't want to loose the blunt edge of your pencil, just sharpen it with a knife, or even scissors. 

Hopefully, this was helpful. If you try this and it seems really weird, it's okay, it took me a looong time to get really nice, sketchy lines. Thanks for reading!

~Bluebird