Essential Guide to Drawing

Materials and Equipment

The range of drawing materials and tools is wide and exciting, but you do not have to make a big investment in order to equip yourself with the necessities for making vibrant, interesting drawings; on the simplest scale, you can use an ordinary office pencil or break a twig off a bush in your garden and dip it in a bottle of ink. Always be open to experimentation when it comes to mark-making, as that way you will discover the tools and mediums you enjoy the most.

Pencils

You can buy pencils in a range of grades from 9H (very hard) to 9B (very soft), with HB as the midway point. In practice, HB, B, 2B and 4B are the ones you are most likely to use, the harder ones for detail and the softer ones for expanses of tone. Pencils also come in a range of qualities, from everyday to high-quality types for artists.

While the common types of pencil are often referred to as ‘lead’, they are in fact made from graphite mixed with a clay binder. You can also buy solid sticks of graphite without a wood casing which allow you to quickly make broad areas of tone, while a white carbon pencil will come in useful for contrasting highlights.

Conté pencils or crayons date from the late 18th century and are made from compacted clay and pigment, usually black, brown or red. As with graphite, conté is also available as a stick, with no casing. The mark that conté makes is rather like that of pastel, but is harder and more stable.

Watersoluble pencils allow you to make an easy transition from drawing to painting. Used dry, they behave like ordinary pencils, but by sweeping a wet brush over your marks you can produce a wash resembling watercolour. They are available in graphite and in a range of colours.

Charcoal, chalk and pastel

As charcoal is simply made from charred wood, it is one of the oldest drawing materials available. Like graphite pencils, it comes in a range of grades. It is very crumbly, so you can smudge it with your fingers to produce soft tones and cover large areas, and you will need to use fixative once you have finished your drawings. A box of willow charcoal will give you sticks of different sizes that may be slightly unpredictable as to how hard or soft your marks will be, but if you prefer a more even result and less dust on your hands you can buy charcoal in pencil form.

White chalk is an inexpensive but effective medium, excellent for providing highlights and for using on toned paper, with the paper colour acting as the mid-tone and charcoal for the darks. For colours, try soft pastels, which offer a range of pigments and are available in sticks or as pencils. Like charcoal, chalk and pastel need to be sprayed with fixative.

Ink

There is a wide range of tools to use for ink drawings, from everyday fountain pens, biros and felt-tipped pens to watersoluble brush pens, expensive fine-nibbed drawing pens and traditional steel nibs to dip into a jar of ink. Choose watersoluble inks if you want to use brushes to wet your drawing and create washes of tone, or permanent inks such as Indian ink if lightfastness is your primary interest.

All tools will create a characteristic mark, so have fun trying a variety of them – go out into the garden, looking for natural tools such as twigs or perhaps a bird’s feather to give you a quill pen.

Paper

For drawing, any good cartridge paper will meet your needs at first, but if you plan to use washes you should buy paper with a weight of not less than 220gsm (100lb) in order to avoid the paper cockling when it is wet. It is best to start with relatively inexpensive paper as you will be less inhibited about mark-making, but later on you can explore all the different types of paper suitable for drawing.

You will also need some sketchbooks in which to practise your drawing skills and make reference sketches that can be turned into finished drawings later. A4 is a useful size, but it’s a good idea to have an A5 one too as this can be tucked into your pocket when you are out and about.

Accessories

You do not need a lot of expensive accessories, fun though they may be to have as extras. Of course you will need an eraser, and the best type to buy is a putty rubber as this can be moulded into a point to erase fine lines and will not leave any debris behind or scuff the surface of the paper.

The best way to sharpen your pencils is with a scalpel or craft knife, so that you can make a long point that can be used to create tone as well as line. However, if you find it hard at first to make a sharp point with a knife, a pencil sharpener will be useful.

You can buy a drawing board from an art supplies shop, but the cheaper option is a piece of MDF or thick plywood from a DIY store. A2 is the most useful size, and you may be able to get the store to cut that for you to avoid the task of sawing it from a bigger piece yourself. Sand the edges to smooth them, and if you wish to protect the surface, paint it with primer or white emulsion.

To attach your paper to the board you can use traditional clips, drawing pins or masking tape. Whether you draw sitting down or standing up, you need your paper surface to be at a reasonably steep angle. This means an easel if you prefer to stand, but if you are sitting down you do not need to buy a table easel – you can lean the board on the edge of a table, for example, or on a thick book or two placed on a table top.