How to Draw with a Pencil
By: John Doe
Tags: Drawing, Sketch, Environment, Art, Artist

How to draw with a pencil

Want to learn quickly and artistically? I have provided a complete guideline on drawing from scratch with a pencil and five step-by-step instructions on how to draw with a pencil. This excellent and comprehensive essay will assist anyone who has just started drawing with a pencil.

Drawing with a pencil: Introduction

In painting and art linked to the visual arts, drawing with a pencil is probably the simplest. Even a primary talent like sketching, however, contains numerous intricacies.

Indeed, for your drawing to appear like the original, not flat, and to turn out as good as possible, you must be able, not only to hold the pencil correctly in your hand but also to know different drawing methods, as well as to accurately shade and apply shadow and light reflections.

Also, be prepared for the reality that the same drawing will almost certainly need to be redone more than once, perhaps even a dozen times. This necessitates the artist’s tenacity, patience, and confidence that everything is being done for a reason and that, in the end, you will learn how to draw artistically with a simple pencil!

To help to navigate the world of pencil drawing a little simpler for you, I’ve prepared a little theoretical block for you, from which you’ll learn:

How to hold a pencil appropriately in your hand when drawing;

What types of shading are there, and how to execute them properly;

What you’ll need to learn, how to draw with a pencil from the initial concept;

as well as 5 easy master courses on drawing a bird, a vase, a rose, a dog, and a car.

You will be able to master pencil drawing after reading this post, finish all your step-by-step master lessons, and draw anything with complete confidence.

Also Read: https://perfectdrawingonly.blogspot.com/2021/08/drawing-trees-in-pencil-step-by-step.html?m=1

Features of drawing with a pencil

This is a characteristic that many newbies neglect, but it is in vain because materials, just like in painting, play a vital role.

To learn how to draw beautifully with a simple pencil, you will need, firstly, several good sharpened pencils of varying degrees of rigidity, and secondly, high-quality and thick paper on which your drawing will look beneficial. Below I will write what other materials you need to start drawing lessons from scratch on your own.

Sample drawings from my online course “Pencil Drawing Made Easy”

Sketch your drawing

There is nothing wrong with making several sketches of the shape of the future drawing without drawing any details. So, firstly, you will learn to feel the proportions of objects, and secondly, you will practice doing beautiful work.

Learn the theory

Before moving directly to the drawing itself, you should learn the theoretical part, namely, the basics of composition and chiaroscuro, as well as several basic types of shading and shading. Knowing the basic principles and rules, you can easily master pencil drawing for beginners in stages!

What is required for drawing

Now let’s speak about the basic materials that you will need when mastering pencil drawing.

Paper

Professional Paper for drawing

Never use plain office paper for drawing. It is not dense enough and is not suitable for painting. Also, it is better not to take ordinary paper from sketchbooks.

The best option for drawing lessons will be thick paper, which is called “drawing paper.” It is often offered in folders, sheets of 10–20 pieces.

If not, you can also use watercolor paper. It is also quite dense, and it will be good to draw on it with a simple pencil. We took just such a piece of paper for some of our workshops — white with a thick texture. However, keep in mind that it will show up while shading if the paper’s texture is prominent.

The Pencils

Simple pencils are another type of material, the choice of which must be approached with all obligations. The truth is that for different tasks in drawing, you need a pencil of a certain hardness and softness.

Click Here to Learn how to Draw like a Master Artist

So, for example, a sketch of a drawing can be done with an HB pencil, but it is better to apply shadows and shading with a softer and darker pencil, for example, 4B, 5B, or 6B.

The hardness/softness markings for simple pencils usually look like this:

When we are just drawing in stages, it is better to keep several pencils in the arsenal at once: HB, 4B, 6B, 8B.

Eraser

Eraser

An irreplaceable thing — with an eraser, you can not only erase unnecessary details but also make glare of light on certain parts of the picture. A regular pencil eraser will be needed.

Stationery knife

For a good drawing, all of your pencils must be well sharpened. An ordinary stationery knife will come in handy for this. You can use an ordinary sharpener, but you can adjust the sharpening level yourself and monitor the lead with a knife.

How to start learning to draw with a pencil

How to hold a pencil in your hand correctly when drawing

Depending on what exactly you are drawing and what technique you use at this stage, you will hold the pencil in your hand in different ways. Practice holding your pencil differently to understand how each method works.

The universal way “as in writing.”

We draw simple lines by holding a pencil between the thumb, forefinger, and middle finger, and the palm should be turned towards the drawing paper.

When toning a picture, you can slightly turn your palm away from the paper. Then you vary the thickness of the pencil lines.

When you have almost finished drawing and want to draw the little details, take a pencil as a writing pen.

Hold the pencil in the middle.

The basic position of the fingers is the same as in the previous method. The advantage is that by holding the pencil in the middle, you can capture a much larger drawing area while practically not touching the paper with your hand, which is very important since there is a risk of smearing the pencil and ruining the drawing.

When a pencil is at hand

Hold your pencil in this position when you want to draw with the flat part of the pencil lead. Also, it is convenient to hold a pencil when placing a sheet of paper vertically, for example, fixed on a wooden tablet. Pinch the pencil between your index and middle fingers, supporting it underneath with your thumb.

Copy in drawing

Copying other people’s drawings to hone drawing skills and work on some techniques is an excellent way to draw, especially for beginners.

The works of great painters and any drawings can be copied. You only need to redraw the drawing till you receive a drawing near to the original. You will train your eye and hand by repeating and sketching over and over.

Furthermore, you can copy from nature, like this is what university students do when they visit museums to produce copies of great artwork.

You may also copy using tracing paper, redrawing the outline, and adding tiny details as needed. Another popular method of copying is by eye.

This is one of the most useful copying methods. After all, you have to determine the proportions and ratios of the picture relative to the scale of the sheet or canvas, for example. You develop the eye and begin to notice details, put your hand, and feel the format and volume of the work and your work.

Pencil drawing techniques

Hatching

It is a technique for drawing small, usually short, lines in a drawing. Hatching helps to show the colour and its saturation in the depicted subject. To convey the volumetric shape of an object, you need to apply as many strokes as possible. Conversely, if the subject is light enough, the shading should be applied with fewer lines and done less often.

In its direction, the shading can be horizontal, vertical, and go at different angles.

It’s preferable to perform hatching in short bursts, pulling a pencil from a sheet of paper now and again. You may also obtain varied effects based on the type of hatching. You may generate additional volume and depth on the topic by utilizing cross-hatching, where horizontal and vertical dashed lines intersect.

Feathering

Feathering, Just like shading, is needed to add volume to the subject. It will be useful for beginners to hone their feathering skills because drawing has so many uses.

To begin, create basic strokes that you may subsequently shade with a paper napkin. So, in addition to volume, you can show where the light falls in the drawing, as well as where the object will have a shadow.

Feather along the main hatch lines to make the subject look natural.

Click Here to Learn how to Draw like a Master Artist

5 easy pencil drawing lessons for beginners

What is the best way to learn how to draw with a pencil? If you carefully read the preceding section of the article, it will be much simpler for you to begin learning to draw with these basic step-by-step drawing lessons that will benefit both adults and children!

How do you draw a floral vase?

Stage 1 — outline the base of the vase

We designate the axis of symmetry. We set the height of our vase with you. Next, we show the separation of the neck of the vase and the lower wide part of the vase. We make this part a little larger than the neck of the vase. Then, we divide the lower part of the vase in half — this will be the division of the lower part of the vase, the transition from one form to another. We also indicate the throat’s width, the narrowest part of the vase, equal to half of the lower part. The base is the same.

Then we show the broadest part of the vase — for us, it will be equal to the height of the lower part. Make the neck the middle between the narrowest part and the widest part of the vase.

Stage 2 — shape the vase using ellipses

We denote the ellipses. The upper ellipse is the neck. Then we draw the transition of the neck to the lower, widest part of the vase. Then we draw the ellipse of the widest part of the vase and the ellipse of the base of the vase. Pay attention to the fact that the ellipses should expand from top to bottom. The highest ellipse will be narrower at the neck, and the widest ellipse will be at the base of the vase.

Then we designate the shape of the vase, having already prepared dimensions — width and height. Also, note that the top of the vase, where the neck is, has a certain thickness.

Stage 3 — mark the penumbra lines on the vase.

Erase the construction lines with the eraser, make the axis of symmetry easier and mark the border of our own shadow. The reflex should occupy the small edge on the right. Next, we mark the line where the penumbra ends at us, and on the left, we show the edge of the light penumbra.

Stage 4 — shading and adding shadows to the vase

At this stage, change the pencil from HB to 4B. Begin to add tone. Your own shadow should be darker than the semitone. And the semitone is slightly lighter than its own shadow. We also mark the shadow in the deepening of the vase’s neck — the shadow goes from the left edge to a slight highlight to the right. We make the strokes on the vase itself semicircular. In the neck, we do it diagonally — with an inclination of 45 degrees.

Stage 5 — shading and darkening parts of the vase

With vertical strokes, we begin to darken our own shadow and a little semitone. We also show that the edge of its shadow should be darker than the reflex and the semitone. Add a light tone to the light part, in the lower part of the vase, where the shape is fractured, and slightly darken the transition from the base — the lower part of the vase, to the neck, from bottom to top, and darken the neck of the vase with horizontal strokes.

Stage 6 — shading and adding highlights

Change the pencil again. We take the HB pencil and generalize: we shade the entire vase with a completely semicircular stroke. We show shape breaks — those shapes that go inward, we darken, those shapes that come closer to us are more convex, we weaken the stroke, making them lighter. At the very end, we mark with eraser light highlights on the most convex parts of the vase.

Draw a car with a simple pencil

Stage 1 — sketch of the drawing of the machine

We begin to outline the drawing of our car. We set the height and width of the future body. The height of the body is embedded in our three times in width. Next, we divide the cab, the front of the car, the hood, and the rear, and the trunk. The width of the front end, where we have the hood, will be equal to the height of our car. The breadth of the cabin is one and a half our car’s height.

Stage 2 — we draw the main parts of the car

We outline the contours of the cabin, hood, trunk and show the recesses where we will have the wheels.

Stage 3 — draw the wheels of the car.

In the third step, draw the rear and front wheels. We emphasize that the rear wheel should be located slightly more, slightly higher than the top of the front wheel. After that, we designate the rear and front lights, the windshield and slightly refine the bumper’s shape.

Stage 4 — draw the remaining parts of the car, remove unnecessary details and lines.

We draw the car’s tires, draw the wheels, add windows, doors, and the front grille. At the picture’s end, remove all unnecessary lines — erase them with an eraser, as shown in the second picture below.

We draw a puppy, in stages, with a simple pencil.

Stage 1 — draw the main parts of the puppy: head, paws, torso.

As always, we start drawing by sketching out the main details. Draw the puppy’s head in the shape of a circle, the body in the shape of an oval. Next, we outline the breast with an oval, also the front and hind legs with an oval. We also outline the shape of the toes of the front and hind paws — and in the same way, draw them in the shape of an oval. At the same stage, draw the puppy’s tail and ears a little, making them triangular. We mark the axis of symmetry of our heads. In this case, the axis should have a semicircular shape and be located at an inclination of approximately 45 degrees. Likewise, we divide the puppy’s head approximately in half, where the bottom of the head will be slightly smaller than the top, and on this axis, we place our two eyes.

Click Here to Learn how to Draw like a Master Artist

Stage 2 — draw eyes and other small parts of the puppy

We mark the eyes and pupils of the puppy and the highlights, nose, cheeks, and lower jaw of the dog. Then we draw and refine the shape of the ears, head, paws and add fingers to the paws.

Stage 3 — shading the eyes and nose

We erase the unnecessary details of the construction with an elastic band, once again clarify the shape of the puppy, then shade the eyes and nose of our dog.

Draw a bird with a pencil

Stage 1 — Draw the bird’s primary areas

We outline the head of our bird with an oval, draw the breast in the form of a circle, and draw the rest of the body in an oval shape. In addition, at the first stage, we outline a wing in the form of a droplet, a twig, a leg in a semicircle, which will wrap around our branch. Also, draw the tail of the bird.

Stage 2 — remove unnecessary lines, draw details.

We erase the extra lines with an eraser, specify the shape, and designate the eye’s location. The eye will be round. We also refine the shape of the beak a little, outline and draw feathers and a tail.

Stage 3 — filling the picture with a dark, contrasting colour, detailing the picture

Once again, we clarify and draw the final shape of our bird, remove with an eraser all unnecessary lines that we do not need. Now that all the unnecessary has been removed, we begin to darken the upper part of the bird with a 4B pencil: the upper part of the head, the crown, a little beak, eye, paw, lower part of the wing. The tail should be darker than the wing. Next, darken the breast a bit, revealing the feathers. With the flat side of the pencil, we begin to show a little of our bird’s plumage. At the same time, it is not necessary to give a lot to the pencil so that the feathers do not distract attention from the head.

How to make a pencil drawing of a rose flower

Stage 1 — sketch the shape of the bud

We start drawing by sketching the shape of the bud of the future rose. First, we show the central bud, then the core, and draw our petals from the core.

Stage 2 — add petals to the first bud

We clarify the shape of the main, largest, central bud and add more outside petals. Pay attention to the fact that some petals have a front plane of the petal, which will be light in the future.

Stage 3 — draw the stem and leaves of the rose.

At this stage, we finish drawing the outermost petals, which are in the foreground. After that, draw the stem of the rose and the leaves.

Stage 4 — we begin to perform shading of the rose

Apply a stroke using an HB pencil. At the same time, somewhere, we put a little pressure on the pencil, and somewhere, quite easily touch the paper with the pencil. Mostly we use a diagonal stroke. At some points, for example, on the bud, we use semi-circular hatching to show the roundness of the bud’s shape.

Stage 5 — underline with a soft pencil all the irregularities and veins of the petals.

At the last stage of our drawing, using a 4B pencil, we begin to darken the leaves, show irregularities and veins on them. Further, we emphasize the lower edge of the petals, which are closer to us with the same pencil. That is, we emphasize the light part below.

Also, at this stage, we begin to darken some of the grooves. This means that when the leaf goes inward, it becomes darker, and when it comes out closer to us, outward, it becomes lighter.

Finally

So, congratulations! You have reached the end of one of my most useful articles — “How to draw with a pencil.” I hope you have read the theoretical part and completed at least a couple of step-by-step drawing lessons.

You can draw with a pencil at any age. The important thing is to start with simple lessons, buy good pencils and paper, and draw constantly. After all, the frequency will help you train your drawing skills.

You’ll have to do a lot of sketches and dozens of drafts initially. But you want to practice to improve your drawing? Then don’t be concerned if each drawing has 20–30 drafts. This is the kind of experience you’ll need to become an artist!

I want to invite you to the pencil drawing made easy, where we will learn how to draw with a pencil from scratch!

Do you believe that you have no talent, drawing is expensive and difficult, not given to everyone, and generally takes a lot of time to learn? Such beliefs are wrong, and I will prove it.

I am ready to promise you that you will have the FIRST PERFECT DRAWING on your table after my step-by-step lesson on drawing! You will be shocked and delighted!

Many novice artists have already passed this master class, and now they paint real portraits and enjoy it! And someone even made it their source of income!

Are you ready to discover your talent and realize that you lacked early’s determination and one good teacher?

Of course, get a pencil to get started, and I invite you to work your way through our online drawing course?