Essential Pencil Drawing Techniques

22/12/2020

Learn pencil drawing techniques and ideas to improve your drawing skills…

The graphite pencil is our basic drawing tool, so it’s well worth learning how to draw well with pencil.

Whether you prefer to just draw with pencil for sketches and rough outlines, or if you love to create your finished artwork completely in pencil, there are different pencil drawing techniques that can help you.

Learn essential pencil drawing techniques

Choose Your Pencil

First, make sure that you’ve got the right pencil for the job!

Pencils come in a wide selection of grades, ranging from very hard (9H) to very soft (9B).
There is more about understanding pencil grades in this blog post about choosing your drawing materials and in my ‘Get Ready for Drawing’ PDF here… (same info different formats)

Pencils H, HB, and B sit right in the middle of the scale.

They are reasonably good for anything from writing, drawing outlines and light shading.

The harder pencils:

give a lighter grey colour on your page
are great for light sketches and outlines, fine lines, and precise technical drawings

Don’t press too hard with them, else you’ll scour your page surface.

Use a hard eraser with hard pencils
Use smooth papers with hard pencils

The softer pencils:

give a much darker grey colour
give a thicker, softer line

They’re best for softer, sketchier drawings with lots of shading.

Use a soft, kneadable eraser with soft pencils
Use textured papers with soft pencils

A selection of soft B pencils

Different pencil drawing techniques and ideas to try

When we first start to learn pencil drawing techniques, we tend to pick up one pencil and draw our whole drawing through with that same pencil.

Actually, it’s far more effective and you get a more attractive and interesting drawing if you get used to using a range of different pencils within the one drawing.

If you want to roughly sketch in outlines before you start your drawing ‘proper’, it’s a good idea to use a really light, hard pencil, such as H or 2H.

Press really lightly, though, so that you don’t press into the surface of your paper and mark it. It should be easy to erase if you press very softly, too.

Look at the very light pencil sketch outline and then the firmer darker lines

The main outlines of your drawing could be done in a softer pencil, such as a B or 2B. This should have a nice soft feel to it, physically, as the pencil runs across the surface of the paper - to make your drawing feel pleasant to do.

And it will give you a good strong outline for your drawing that you can work further with.
Also look out for special ‘sketching’ pencils which tend to have a softer consistency than the usual drawing or ‘graphic’ pencils. They feel softer to use and move nicely over your paper. Try Derwent Sketching Pencils for this.

Keep your pencil nicely sharpened for nice sharp lines and even shading – and particularly to avoid scratching your paper with the wooden casing of the pencil as the nib blunts.

Pencil Drawing Techniques

Once you’ve got the outlines in place, this is when your selection of pencil and your pencil drawing techniques are most important.

How you hold your pencil is important:

A tight grip, close to the point, gives a tight, controlled drawing line. This is best for accurate, technical-style drawing and fine detail.
A looser grip, much further back on your pencil, gives a looser, sketchier drawing line that’s great for larger drawings and personal, expressive drawing styles.

If you drew everything with the same pencil, it’s likely that the whole drawing would appear in the same (or very, very similar) tones of grey.

This can be a bit flat and bland to look at and doesn’t make for an interesting or dynamic drawing.

One way we can get around this is by choosing our mark-making techniques very carefully so that the marks we make with our pencil are close together (for darker areas) or further apart (for lighter areas).

This is a similar technique to how artists draw with pens, so it’s definitely possible to get a nice range of tones (lights and darks) within the one drawing using a pencil in this same way.

But one of the big advantages of choosing to draw with a pencil (rather than a pen) is that you get to play with shading techniques.

A range of tones (different levels of darkness) created by using different pencils

While using the point of any pencil will give you a firm, fine line, by using the pencil more on its side, you can make nice shaded areas for your drawing.

The lighter (harder) pencils (H-grade) give light-grey shading.
The darker (softer) pencils (B-grade) give a darker, softer and more textured shading.

Looking at light and dark in your drawing, and creating light and dark areas with your shading, is really important for an interesting and accurate drawing. You can find out more about that in my 'Start Drawing' free PDF here and in my longer Essential Drawing Skills self-study course…

You can experiment with how you shade, as well, using the pencil in a more upright position and creating neat, smooth shading with small strokes, close together, all in the same direction…

Or looser shading with the pencil almost flat (horizontal) and larger strokes for looser, expressive, and atmospheric drawing styles.

You can even take your pencil drawing techniques further and smudge and smooth your shading with your finger, a cotton-wool ball, or a special blending stump to get softer, smokier effects for your drawing.

The darker (softer) B-grade pencils are best suited for this pencil drawing technique as they smudge and smear more easily…

Be warned when you’re drawing using soft B-grade pencils – and use a piece of scrap paper or paper towel to protect your drawing from the smudging of your hand on the page.

You can also try to work from the top-left corner of your drawing, downwards and outward, if you’re right-handed…
Or from the top-right corner if you’re left-handed
This will avoid your hand smudging over the top of the bit of your drawing that you’ve just done (no-one wants that)!

Soft, smudgy blending technique with pencils

Soft, smudgy blending technique with soft B-grade pencils

The drawing above is to show you the really soft, textured shading you can get when using the softer b-pencils (4b-9b). This is smudged using the blending stumps you can see in the picture - just rub over your pencil drawing with the point of the stump, quite hard. You can also use the tips of the pencil to get dark hard outlines (…best drawn in after you smudge!)

If you like the softer, smudgier techniques, you can experiment with graphite sticks and blocks, and graphite powder. Graphite is the same substance that is in the lead of pencils (not lead at all these days).

You can make your own graphite powder by (carefully) taking a knife to a graphite block and scraping gently away to create a powder.

This can be sprinkled and/or smeared and smudged onto your paper with a finger or cotton wall ball.

Special and Unusual Pencil Drawing Techniques

Adding Water

Perhaps one of the most exciting pencil drawing techniques is to use water.

Using water with pencil techniques

Water can be used as:

Added to graphite powder to make a soft-grey wash that gives a beautifully smooth, watercolour effect to your drawing (use a brush to apply).
- Add more or less powder to your water (or water to your powder) to create a lighter or darker tone of grey for your wash.
Used over the top of shaded areas, with a brush, to create a wash effect (not all pencils are water-soluble although pure graphite is, so check before you try this effect or buy a pencil with the intention of trying this).
Special water-soluble sketching pencils designed to be used with water in a variety of ways. You can often use these:
- On wet surfaces
- Dry and then add water with a brush

Drawing with water soluble graphite Derwent

Drawing with Derwent's water soluble graphite sketching pencils

Try Derwent’s Sketching Pencils if you like the look of this effect

Extra Dark

Derwent’s Onyx pencils are the blackest pencil tone (even darker than the darkest B-grade pencil, 9B) so are great for really dark shaded areas. They also have a fine drawing point so are brilliant for fine/dark detailed line drawings too – in a way that the softer 8/9B pencils aren’t.

Adding Colour
Coloured Pencils

Coloured pencils are a beautiful way to add colour to your pencil drawing.

These can be used dry (as standard) with the same drawing and shading techniques as a normal pencil - or as a special water-soluble coloured pencil for a watercolour-type effect, as you prefer.

I have a separate PDF all about drawing with coloured pencils if you like this idea – check out all my Drawing Resources here…

Tinted Pencils

Also look out for a new personal favourite of mine – tinted graphite pencils.

These are in-between a normal graphite pencil and a coloured pencil – a bit of grey and a bit of colour - so they’d be perfect for adding a bit of colour to a mainly grey pencil drawing…

Drawing with tinted graphite pencils (Colour Tint by Spectrum Noir)

If you add water, the colour comes more to the fore with a soft, ‘painted’ watercolour-like effect…

Adding water to tinted graphite pencil drawing

Adding water to the tinted graphite pencil drawing gives a painted water-colour effect and brighter colours

Try Derwent’s ‘Graphitint’ or Spectrum Noir’s ‘Colour Tint’ pencils.

Sepia Tones

If you’d like to add subtle sepia tones to your drawing (tones of brown), look out for special conte-type drawing pencils which come in a range of black/white/brown/tan/sepia tones.

These are very popular to add a soft warmth to pencil drawings (like the old-fashioned sepia photos or historic ‘sanguine’ (red chalk) drawings.

Drawing with Derwent sepia pencils

Traditional ‘three colours’ drawing methods used black, sepia (brown/red chalk), and white for dark, mid and light tones (often on a mid-toned buff or grey paper)…

These sepia-toned conte drawing pencils help you to achieve this warm effect in your drawing that’s perfect for drawings where the grey tones of pure graphite seem a little cold or harsh – such as portraits of people or animals, and landscapes. The sepia effect is much warmer and more welcoming, softer, or attractive.

Sketch in soft sepia pencils

The pencils are soft to use and are best for shading effects and expressive styles (rather than fine detail).

Try Derwent Drawing Pencils if you like this idea.

Personal Drawing Style

The way that you choose to use these pencil drawing techniques will make up your own personal drawing style.

Please remember that there is no official or ‘proper’ way of using these pencil drawing techniques…

So if there’s something that feels good to you and you like the end result, then use it, experiment some more with it – and make that technique your own!

If you’re struggling to find your own personal style with your drawing, try holding your pencil further back and more loosely in your hand, to make a more relaxed and sketchy drawing.

Also look at how you make your mark.

Your mark-making can be a very individual and personal way of distinguishing your drawings as yours in your own personal style.

Art isn’t about making perfect drawings (that would be a technical drawing) but about putting your own personal expression in…

Try:

opening up to your creative side
connecting with your emotions when you draw
finding what’s meaningful to you
making it personal and walking your own path on your artistic journey
experimenting with what you like and working things out in your sketchbook

Go to the main Drawing Resources page for all the drawing topics. This blog post can be downloaded for free in PDF format from that page - look for the 'Draw with Pencil' free lesson.

You might also enjoy my full online drawing course, the ‘Start Drawing Your Way Essential Drawing Skills Course’.

Or learn more about colour and composition in my Confident Colour & Composition course for artists…