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Art Supplies for Pencil Artists by Adam Valentine

If you are a pencil artist, or you aspire to be, you're going to need some art supplies. Now, you could just go on down to the local art supply store and pick out what ever has the most eye catching packaging, or you could educate yourself a bit and save some time and money by picking out the right supplies the first time.

The obvious first item on the list will be pencils. I just recently wrote an article all about pencil choices so I'll keep this part brief. You'll want to get a good quality set of pencil that have varying degrees of hardness. Harder pencils are labeled with an H and give you a lighter tone. Softer pencils are labeled with a B (I don't know why) and give you a darker tone. The pencil right in the middle is the HB and is equivalent to the #2 pencil we all used in school to do those multiple choice fill in the bubble tests.

Now lets move on to paper. If you're just doing some sketching or doodling then any paper will do. You can use your computers printer paper. But, if you're getting a little more serious about your drawing and you want the finished product to last, you'll want to use a better quality paper. When you look at a pad of drawing paper, there is a weight on the cover. It will say 50lbs or 75lbs sometimes more sometimes less. The "heavier" the paper the thicker it will be and the thicker it is the more abuse it can take. Abuse like lots of shading, blending, erasing etc. The paper that I prefer to use is called Bristol Board. There are several different brands of Bristol Board and I don't really have any preference for one brand over another. Bristol Board is a very heavy weight paper and it feels like card stock. You can get Bristol Board in a vellum finish or a plate finish. The vellum finish has a bit of a tooth or a texture to it. The plate finish is smooth and it happens to be my preference. Some artists like to have a bit of texture on the drawing paper but I prefer the smooth finish so that I can determine the texture my drawing has by using shading and highlights rather than having the paper dictate the texture. Whichever you prefer, if you're drawing something that you want to last, you'll want to use a good quality paper.

Tip: Do your sketches and preliminary drawings on cheap paper and when you get your design the way you like it, transfer the line drawing to your more expensive higher quality paper for the final drawing.

Next let's talk about erasers. You probably have the handy pink eraser that we've all used since kindergarten. That's fine I use that one too. It's good at what it does and that's removing unwanted lines from your paper. Just be careful not to over use it. When I was a youngster starting out I used the pink eraser on copier paper and rubbed a hole right through the paper ruining a pretty good drawing.

The kneaded rubber eraser is something every pencil artist should have in there arsenal. It can be molded to a fine edge or a sharp point and used to lift out precise highlights. It's a very useful tool. It can also be used to lighten an area that may be just a little too dark. By simply pressing the kneaded eraser down and then lifting it back up the eraser lifts some of the graphite up with it.

Some other eraser options are the plastic eraser, this one is pretty good at removing graphite and not too rough on the paper or the art gum eraser. The art gum eraser is also good at removing graphite and not too rough on the paper but it leaves a lot of little crumbs on the paper. Which leads me to the next tool you should have.

A horse hair brush. It's better to use a brush to clean any debris from your paper than to brush it away with your hand or just blow on the paper. If you brush it clean with your hand you can smear your drawing especially if you're using softer pencils and if you simply blow on your paper to clean it off you might end up spitting on your drawing (I've done it).

Another tool that I use all the time is a tortillion or a blending stump. These both serve the same purpose which is to blend your shading so that any visible pencil lines blend together to give the appearance of a smooth surface. Both tools are cylindrical and come to a point on the end. A tortillion is a tightly wound cone of paper that comes to a point and a blending stump is more like a solid hunk of paper that also comes to a point for blending.

Some other tools that are not mandatory but may be helpful are rulers or even a T-square. I always hear people say "I can't even draw a straight line". Who can? That's what a ruler is for. Another tool you may want to get that only costs a few pennies is an erasing shield. With an erasing shield you can protect the part of your drawing that you don't want to erase while getting rid of the part that you do want to erase.

Well, there are more tools available but that should be plenty to get you started. So get out there and start drawing.

Do you want to learn how to draw? Adam Valentine is a professional pencil artist and has DVDs available that will help anyone learn to draw like a pro!

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