Hey there internet, it's another draw on video. This is going to be a quick one about getting grip, drawing grips and how to hold your tools. So I recorded one of these ages ago and I kind of feel like it's well for one thing, it's very low res and for another I've gotten better at teaching this object so I wanted to revisit it and do it here now with my trusty black weight. Now when it comes down to it this is about how you hold your pencil and how it impacts the way you draw. It's something that people don't often think about but it's actually really quite important. It's like how to use a tool and how to use it well. I'm going to avoid saying that there are absolute wrong ways to use your tool. Some people will tell you that. I don't agree that that's true. There are many people that develop kind of weird fisted grips or strange ways of doing things. A lot of left-handed artists will draw with their handway over this work so that they can avoid dragging in the art but that kind of creates a locked system situation with your wrist and limits some of the movement. And then not everyone learns a tripod grip which is what I'm using right this second so usually you're taught to write your ABCs with a tripod grip. The reason for it is that being a tripod grip it's very stable so it's called a tripod because you've got a finger on each side. Now that's an important detail. A lot of people will do it like this or like that. Those are our tripods. This is a tripod so notice it's evenly placed a finger on each side. That's a tripod grip. And it has advantages because the fingers can do fine or tick-a-lit movements. It's particularly good for little tiny details like if I want to draw a tiny little eye and eyebrow which you can't even see on the camera right now. Really great for details. Good for handwriting. If it's the only group you use it has limited benefits for drawing and will tend to lead you to make very small drawings especially if you do all your drawing with your hand and don't move your arm. So one of the things you can do right away if you have a proper tripod grip is learn to extend it. So let me example if I do a circle just with the comfortable movement I can make with my fingers I can start with little tiny ones all the way up to about what I would say is loony size. That's actually not even loony size. That's more like quarter-ish size. But if I extend my tripod same movement now it's much bigger. Sort of the little wobbly bits become more obvious. Your fine control is lessened a little bit or it should say more importantly be small irregularities get exaggerated and large. But right off you can start making much larger forms. Right now drawing good circles is another lesson but right away you can see how just extending your grip can open up the shapes you make and allow you to draw larger looser forms. You combine that with drawing using your whole arm and you get a nice range of possibilities and supposed to be locked into just small things. So that's an important detail. Another thing about the tripod grip that's advantageous and a few other grips I'm going to show you have this as well. It's it's not going anywhere. It's kind of locked in. There's no way for the pencil to go you know. It's pretty well anchored. It's resting. You want it to be able to rest on your your hand there not pressing hard but just resting so it helps make it stable between the three finger than that. If you have a little snub of a pencil like this and you'll notice that you can draw with it but it's not as stable. So there and there are solutions for that but let's focus on this for this moment. So that's a good solid tripod grip. Very useful. If you've learned say more of a fisted grip like this one of things you're going to notice right away when you start using a tripod grip is you feel less tension and compression on this finger and you'll have less pain in your hand. So oh yeah getting back to the whole idea of being trapped in. Another thing is that you don't need to use a lot of pressure to hold your pencil in place in any grip. It's not got legs. It's not going to fight you. It ain't going anywhere. So if you press really hard and to the point where you see channels appearing in your skin or there is discoloration like the blood being pushed away or you're getting lots of causes. Odds are you're pressing way too hard and there are multiple reasons to not do that. One being just you know the damage you're doing to your fingers there but also just in the moment like the bottom lot times you will do that because they feel like it'll give them more control. It's the illusion of control though because in reality the tendons that make me press hard go all the way up my arm here and there are also the ones that make my fingers move and if I'm pressing hard I can't really move very much so I'm forced to use my arm. I'm drawing with your arms good but it robs you of a lot of finesse and detail and also that constant tension and fighting it while drawing that leads to carpal tunnel. Bad. You don't want the carpal tunnel. It's very painful and it will greatly reduce your ability to draw. So having a nice loose relaxed grip often joke that you know you want your pencil to fall out of your fingers. Just the only thing keeping it there is that there's three fingers holding it in place and that's all you need and you don't need want to drive into the paper either. There's only a few situations where you want to get really dark hard line and the best way to do that is use a nice soft pencil like this black wing palimino. It's a I think this one has a number it's just the palimino and you know I can do very light lines with it. I really like these black wings because they they actually have a nice range and act like a soft pencil too. So rather than forcing lines in the paper and if you really draw hard and you make gouges in your paper it's actually a problem you can't erase properly and clean things up nicely. So don't use a lot of forcing in the paper. Don't press super hard. Spare your tendons. Be nice to your hands. With a thought towards that remember to stretch your hands periodically. Do hand exercises flex. Take care of your hands. It's your tools. Now one of the things you can do right away along with extending your tripod grip is diversify the sorts of grips you use. Now even if you've learned to draw with a bit of a clog like a clip like this you can keep using that if you're comfortable sometimes but have the ability to go to a tripod for the fine details and then when you're drawing large forms and particularly in like life art class depending on your relationship to the paper an overhand grip is particularly good for drawing large shapes because I'm more or less forced to use my wrist and elbow and get out of my eyes and it's shoulder to make those movements. I can't really do it with my fingers. They're they're not free to move. You can do overhand this way and that leaves you a little bit of wiggle. It's fine for like little tiny details and a little bit of shading and stuff. You can do overhand this way so now it's like lined up with my hand and both work you know that's fine and then if you're at an easel so now the boards up this way I do overhand this way so I actually underhand technically and draw that way. Same thing. It reduces the use of the small muscles and joints of your hand and makes you switch to using your arm to do large forms if you're doing life art studies or the quick initial sketches to come out drawing and think about how is this thing gonna work? Oh it's a guy doing a thing. Oh my god he's jumping. Hey you woo you know it lets you grow quick simple scribbles and opens up the forms and helps you be looser when you don't want to get too tight right away. Very useful for quick study quick sketch. Even detail drawing for large formats and generally handy. There is also I just noticed an artist you doing this. It's a place between those two fingers and I tried it. It's remarkably comfortable. It's also great I think probably for hacking any tendency you have if you have a compulsion to grip really hard. This is a really good grip that feels nice and stable and doesn't lead to that compulsion as much. It's still a tripod see see what happens? It's still a tripod but by moving it here it's anchored more and it feels much more secure and it's a really nice way to come at the drawing and also to get away from the idea of like being kind of behind the drawing it makes you sort of come at it's sign ways. You know I bet that would be an amazing grip for a left hand. A left hand? Left hand is what I was trying to say. I'm technically as a kid I was ambidextrous. I have not practiced a lot so I'm not really great with this hand. But I think this would be an ideal grip for a left-handed person. Probably because I want to do this video is to address that grip. As an artist you don't want just one. So if you have a tendency to draw like this well you definitely want to address that because this isn't really healthy for what happens to your knuckles and you lose a lot of fine control. But even if you have a traditional tripod you want to diversify that and have other options. So think about it practice some do pattern exercises and basic drawing exercises using a variety of different grips to see how they feel. You'll probably have to use for a little while in practices before they start feeling natural. They're going to feel weird at first. That's kind of normal. But it's worth it. Do it. Give it a try. And remember don't grip it too tight just enough to hold it in place. You're not trying to keep it from escaping. It's not going anywhere. Now have fun drawing and I'll see you in class remember you can sign up to my patreon and become a student. Send me your work and I'll tell you how your grips doing. See you around the internet.