Pencil Drawing Ideas

Pencil, often used to practice skills, also offers a versatile media for creating quality artwork. Pencil lends itself to a surprising variety of effects and subjects from the thin detailed line and texture markings of a plant to large dark strokes of tone needed when drawing a still life. A variety of pencil types exist, each with unique qualities that broaden these effects further. Virtually any subject matter can be adapted to pencil drawing of some type.

Create pencil drawings with traditional graphite drawing pencils. Choose graphite pencils by the degree of their softness. Soft pencils, designated with "B" and a number, draw a darker, thicker line good for shading dark areas. Harder pencils, designated with "H" and a number, draw a lighter, thinner line good for detail work and initial sketches. Carbon pencils also generate excellent pencil drawings and are available in degrees of softness. A mixture of both graphite and charcoal, they produce a dark, even line that blends well. Another choice, charcoal pencil, provides a soft, very dark drawing media. More convenient and less fragile than charcoal sticks, charcoal pencils work well for creating drama and for outlining. Choose artists colored pencils, with their dark, rich color, if you wish to add color to your pencil drawing. Use colored pencils alone or to add areas of color to other pencil drawings.

Create portraits with pencil. Drawing the shades, tones and highlights within a portrait makes the person come alive. Use graphite pencil as you sketch the initial layout because of its forgiving and versatile characteristics. Create the portrait completely in graphite pencil if desired, using pencils of greater softness to create the shadows around nose, lip, mouth and eyes. For a more dramatic portrait, try using carbon pencils. Carbon pencils provide enough hard edge for detail work and softness for large, dramatic strokes of tone.

Pencil drawing easily captures plant details such as leaf veins, blades of grass, bark textures and flower parts. Use soft graphite or carbon pencil to create animal texture details such as scales, feathers, fur and shell. For a colored rendering, color pencils provide both a detail tool for creating texture and form along with a means for adding color. High-quality artists' colored pencils come in a rich variety of shades and tones. Use these to re-create the many color variants of plants and animals.

Use pencil to create a still life. Light and shadow play a large part in adding drama to a still life. The lightest light plays off the deepest shadow to create interest in otherwise ordinary items. After sketching forms lightly, locate the source of light affecting your still life. Use soft carbon or charcoal pencil to create dramatic shadow beyond the objects on which the light falls. Create the sharp outlines of containers and small detail lines of various textures using a slightly harder carbon or charcoal pencil. Use a softer pencil to create the shading and highlight necessary to give flat drawings a three dimensional look. Find where the light shines on a form and leave this white. From the white area, begin to shade lightly toward the darker areas of the form with blended pencil or small lines.

Produce cartoons with pencil. Begin with a graphite pencil drawing. Study your subject. Locate the most important feature and exaggerate it in your drawing. Slightly large feet become huge in a cartoon. A bald head becomes a gleaming beacon. The ears of a rabbit become larger than its entire body. Your drawing may barely resemble your model but everyone recognizes it because of the exaggerated features. After creating the cartoon rendering with graphite, use colored pencil to color the cartoon brightly.

Use pencil drawing to keep a sketchbook. Sketchbooks make useful tools for practicing many art skills. Study the form of an object from different perspectives in a sketchbook. Use something you find difficult to draw or any handy object. Draw the object from all different viewpoints such as from above, from the side, from the rear or the front. The practice of drawing objects in many different positions assists you the next time you encounter that object and need to draw it. As you draw, make written notes alongside your sketch about the colors, textures and lines present to assist you later should you decide to re-create your sketch as a more formal work. Any type pencil works well in a sketchbook. Create a portable pouch with a few of each so that you are ready to draw any subject at any time.