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Supplies for Drawing

ByJulie Abels

There’s something beautifully simple about drawing. All you need is paper and pencil.

However, some of us (is this all artists?) really love art supplies and find new supplies to just be so much fun! So, if you or someone you know is working on improving their drawing skills, here are some great supplies to consider:

Pencils

Just about any pencil will do for casual sketching, but when you start getting really serious about values and textures, you’ll find yourself frustrated with your regular #2 pencil. It has great in-between graphite (we call it lead but it’s not really lead), but it’s more grey than black and dulls quickly. This is where a set of good drawing pencils come into play.

  • The “B” pencils have softer graphite- Think “B” like butter.
    • Softer pencils make rich, dark tones and expressive shading. The higher the number the softer the graphite, so 8B is probably your softest.
  • The “H” pencils have harder graphite- Think “H” for hard.
    • Harder pencils create light, precise lines for details or initial sketches. The higher the number the harder the graphite, so 8H is probably your hardest.

A full set lets artists switch between these effects easily, giving them a wider range of contrast and subtlety in their drawings.

There are a ton to choose from and they’re all pretty good. More is not necessary better because it takes a really sharp eye to see and feel the differences when there are so many to choose from. I think I simple set of 5 is best, but typically they’re sold in larger sets with erasers other stuff. I’d look for ones in a nice storage case like this one, but I haven’t tried this one specifically.

Charcoal is a whole different media, so I won’t cover it here.

Blending Numbs

These are so much fun and so inexpensive! For less than $5 you can get a nice pack of these and they’ll last for years.

Blending nubs are just tightly rolled up paper, sharpened to a tip. You use them to blend (smear) around the graphite or charcoal when drawing, allowing you to get beautiful gradients of light and dark.

I have purchased these blending nubs for a single artist and they were great

I have purchased these blending nubs for a class and they were great

Light Pad

Light Pad– This is one of my favorite things for both younger and more advanced students! It’s easy to use, lightweight and has held up to years of being hauled around in my kids’ backpacks!

Tracing is an amazing tool for learning to draw, but it’s also just handy! My kids have used this a ton over the years- for art and for school projects. Tracing paper (an alternative to a light pad) tears easily and then doesn’t tend to look like a finished work, so we use the light pad a lot.

As a watercolor artist, I try not to sketch on my fancy paper. Instead I sketch on regular printer paper and then when it looks just right, I trace it onto my watercolor paper. (This way I never have to erase on my paper which can damage it.)

The one I bought years ago is not longer sold, but this one, for $25 LOOKS like exactly the same thing.

Tracing Paper

If you don’t want to get a light pad, consider a pack of tracing paper. Again, tracing is an amazing tool for learning to draw, and tracing paper is super portable– no wires needed.

I took a watercolor class from Linda Feltner years ago and she explained that part of her process was to draw individual animals on tracing paper, cut them out, and then move them around until she had the composition of her piece just how she wanted it. Then she would trace it all onto the final piece of paper. This saved her from having to re-sketch her subjects over and over and it saved her massive sheets of watercolor paper from eraser marks.

I prefer 8″x10″ or 8.5″x11″ tracing paper so it fits in a regular folder. 9″x12″ works well when you cut it in half; the resulting 6″x9″ pieces can be easily tucked into a page protector to keep them from getting wrinkled.

Some tracing paper tears even more easily than others. so I like this pack. It’s 32lb, which is thicker than regular printer paper, but still translucent.

Grid Viewfinder

I’m a big fan of grid drawing and a grid viewfinder allows you to do grid drawing from life. This is the one that I have in this pack (but a bigger one would be even better). Just be sure to get one with squares, not rectangles!

Pens for “Pen & Ink” drawings

Should pens be in a post about drawing and sketching? Some people think of them as a separate medium than pencil, but they go hand in hand, so I’ll talk about them here. It’s really fun to use a fine ink pen to draw over your sketching, erase all the pencil, and be left with a beautiful ‘clean’ drawing.

This pack of 6 Sakura Pigma Micron pens is a nice starter set for $11, but lacks the larger tips.

Sakura Pigma pens seem to be the standard pens for the “pen and ink” medium and there’s good reason:

  • They dry very fast so they’re less likely to smear than any other pens I own. For this reason, I also use them when underlining in books with glossy pages.
  • They dry to waterproof, so you can even watercolor paint over them.
  • They don’t tend to bleed through to the back of the paper so I can do a lot of practice drawing on the standard 24lb printer paper mentioned above (although they do still tend to show through thin bible pages- do any pens not show through?).
  • They have a wide variation in tip size. There are nice starters set, but the most common 01 size is also available individually. If you have a store like Blick nearby you can buy any size individually. Personally, I mostly use the 1, 05, 03, 01, and 005.
  • They also come in a variety of colors (but not nearly as much as, say, the Faber-Castel PITT brush pens, so you aren’t going to be using them like you would a full marker medium).

Paper / Sketch Book

While paper is the most important supply in watercolor, it’s the least important in pencil drawing. Personally, I prefer to draw on plain printer paper that I’ve punched and added to my disc bound journal. I’m a big fan of disc binding! It allows you to easily add and remove pages like a 3-ring binder, but you can still fold it over on itself like a spiral book. I own the disc binding punch, so I can create it all from home!

As far as sketch books are concerned there are a ton to choose from! There are some differences in how thick and textured (rough) the paper is, but I think it’s more important to pick the size, binding and orientation (portrait or landscape) you like best. Think about how you might carry it and what sort of bag it need to fit into. You’re probably more likely to have a smaller one with you all the time…

Drawing Books

When I’m looking at a directed drawing book (where they lay out how to draw an image step by step) I generally look for the steps to start with basic overall shapes (as opposed to one where they show all the detail for one part, like a head, prior to giving the rest of the subject any shape). I also look at the last steps and analyze how much. Search “How to Draw” on Amazon and at your local library!

  • Books by Chris/Christopher Hart- I’ve never been disappointed in his books and there are a ton of them. The ones I own and love to share with students are:
  • Books by Peggy Dean– these are mostly plants and flowers. I love her super simple approach and the large volume of drawings in each book. Botanical Line Drawing is a great starter book to help you learn to draw simple plants and nature.
  • Books published by Walter Foster. We own this one on drawing people in ancient times and I love that they start their step-by-step drawings with ball and stick figures. Their other books also look nicely done and they’re very inexpensive.
  • Nature Journalling Book: Laws Guide to Nature Journaling– this is one of my favorite overall art books. He has some more advanced techniques and some great step-by-step drawing guides (aka. directed drawing). Plus, it’s just beautiful. It’s a little pricey but ohhhh, I love this book!
  • Drawing Flowers Book: If you want to learn to draw florals, Alli Koch is one of my favorite authors. My sister bought me her How to Draw Modern Florals book in 2017 and I still use it pretty frequently.  (The gold spiral binding is especially handy and beautiful!) In this book, Koch broke down so many flowers to their basic lines. It makes drawing flowers sooo much faster and easier. Koch has another book coming out Dec 4th called Florals by Hand! I’m really hoping Santa will have it wrapped under the tree for me!!

Ready to Read About Other Supplies?

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