Artists Clutch Pencils, Pens & Graphite

Good paintings cannot happen (generally) without a good drawing to start with. Its like you - without your skeleton to support you you would not be able to stand up. Well a drawing is exactly the same, it is fundamentally the bones or skeleton of your painting and without it it just doesn’t stand up.

Now unfortunately drawing seems to be becoming a bit of an outdated thing these days and there are even some art schools that do not think it is a necessary skill for an artist to master - shame on them! I am afraid I am not jumping on the bandwagon with the majority here though. I think it is very important that you learn to draw properly and by this I don’t just mean contour sketches I mean full on shaded tonal sketches that could almost be finished pieces of artwork in themselves.

Learning to draw takes time and patience but it is a skill that is worth learning. A couple of tips I can give you here to help ensure your success are 1. Buy good quality materials - they will make it so much easier to achieve the results you want and 2. Learn to see properly. As with painting the best way to improve your work is to learn to look at the world around you properly. Once you learn to reduce the things in front of you into shapes, colours & tones instead of things you will find it infinitely easier to portray them in your work convincingly.

Here you will find a selection of the drawing materials I personally use and would recommend.