Drawing - Getting started

Make sure you have all the equipment you need:

• Pencils, sharpener, Erasers, lots of paper, sketchbooks, visual diaries, ruler, stencil shapes like circle, triangle, coloured pencils, crayons, markers.
• Set yourself up in a comfortable position, e.g. at a table or desk with sufficient light.
• Take a deep breath or two and be inspired to create.
• Ready and start.

It is important to know what your equipment can do and how you can use it to draw.

A good starting point is to look at the different types of pencils.

• The hardest pencil makes the lightest lines and the softest pencil makes the darkest lines
• The darkest pencils draw the smoothest, but they smudge like crazy and is almost impossible to erase
• The lightest pencils draw without any give and are so hard that they make lines in the paper
• Pencil grade represents the darkness of the lead (graphite) and how soft it is
• B and HB is excellent for drawing and sketching
• HB is the most popular sketching pencil and widely used in schools as the only pencil

Below is a basic example of the spectrum of different pencils.

Try this exercise to see the effect for yourself.

• Fill each block with a different pencil, starting with 2H at the top and ending with 6B or 8B at the bottom. 
• Apply medium pressure with your pencil to the paper. 
• Now erase the blocks in the right hand column starting with the top block (2H pencil) and end with the 6B or 8B block. 
• Make sure you erase in a horizontal way ensuring you erase one block at a time. This way you will get maximum effect out of the exercise. 
• Make a note of which block erases the easiest and which looks the messiest. Remember this and use different pencils for different parts of your drawings.

Basic Spectrum of pencils on the left and what happens if you try to erase drawing