Hi there! So I did a video early on when I first started doing my dynamic drawing course on grip and it was basically just talking about the tripod grip extending it to an artist or extended tripod grip to get larger range and also underhand, oops, wrong way around, underhand and overhand sketching grips. Now I explain in that video that doing this kind of underhand overhand grip, that's mostly for drawing large forms where you use your whole arm to do nice gestural sketching, particularly useful when you're doing life art at the beginning of the life art session when you want to capture large forms and generally just drawing larger, like if you're doing a mural or working on a large three-speed working life art class, getting larger forms comfortably by employing the shoulder and elbow and wrist as the primary movement joints to get different kinds of ranges of movements. Your elbow lets you swing left to right, your shoulder up and down and then you coordinate all that, you can get much larger forms and you can't if you're just using your hand. And then the tripod grip, you know, it has its roots so there's the tripod version here, that's a writing grip and it's the small forms that you need when you're doing hand writing and it's perfect for that, it's also really good for details when you're drawing. For an artist it's good to think about extending it so the artist's tripod because right away again you get the larger forms using the same kind of dexterous movement, so you can do detailed movement but you can work at a larger space and you can reach, so just look at the range, the circle I make for the tripod without moving anything other than my fingers and a little bit of wrist movement, if I go to extended right away my circle is bigger and if I go to to extended it gets much larger, right? So, this is just about being able to kind of open up forms and not have a cramped. A lot of times people have a hard time drawing anything that isn't small and some of it is just that they're always using this very tight form and all the things they naturally reach stay within this sort of metric. So, those different grips are mostly just used to expand your range but something else that comes up is whether people have kind of something other than a tripod grip. For example, I'm just talking to someone online who just uses these two fingers apparently and I guess that means that everything else is folded down. I see a lot of people in my classes tucking their thumb somehow and you see a lot of people doing this. It's like a tripod but they've got the pencil wedge way back against the arch of their thumb and not really holding with their thumb, they're trapping it, it's more like it, right? And that can kind of work but it's a bit cramped and the other show I always bring up is whether or not you're applying too much pressure and you're holding it. So, I never really mentioned explain why and what's good about the tripod in my other video. So, I'm going to dress that down. If we look down the barrel, you can see what a tripod actually looks like. Some people do this more. I tend to hold it the side of my index, sorry, my middle finger a bit. You can hold it with a tip. That works as well. A lot of the detail about what part you brace it against has to do with the length of your specific fingers. I have very even symmetric balanced hands so my middle finger is quite a bit longer than my index finger so it can reach quite a lot further. It's more comfortable for me to use the side of the finger than the tip of the finger and holding. Now, the main thing though is that you're holding in three places. We talked about it in class and you start off, you're using these three fingers and it's a bit like chopsticks. I'm going to demonstrate that. I'll grab another pencil and imitate chopsticks. Chopsticks you hold like this. It's true. It's a bit like chopsticks. So, you've got three points of contact with this pencil. One, two, three with my thumb. And three points of contact with the second pencil, the other chopstick. So, it's again, it's still my thumb. Right there. Now, with chopsticks, this one doesn't move as much. So, it's okay that it's not as dexterous as the top one on you grab things like that. Right? That's chopsticks. So, tripod grip. You lose the lower chopstick. You're just holding the top one. You're using three points of contact because that's the most stable. Two, isn't a stable. And you can't safely comfortably kind of move around as much and freely while still keeping a good grip on the pencil. We're just two. And it's better if you're actually holding it. See, like right now, I've got them both, these two fingers are both on one side and the thumbs on that side. Now, it's not the end of the world, but it's better if you do it like this, which is the tripod grip. You're actually holding from three different sides. So, this thumbs here, this finger's here and the fingers on top. And that gives you a great amount of stability. All the movement comes from movement in the joints and these three fingers and the knuckles. You can add a little bit of wrist action to that too. And that gives you a really free moving grip. It's important that the grip doesn't involve actually being too gripped, too tight. It can't really see me right there. A little bit maybe. See the white. Yeah, that's not good. If your skin's going white, you leave ridges. You're holding too tight. Well, good test to see how tight your grip is. Take you, take them like this. Hold it as tightly as you would when you're drawing. And then just go, now if you're holding really tight, it ends up pulled in, tucked in like that. You should be really relaxed so that when you do that, it flops out. It's actually flung out. That is as much tension as I use to hold my pencils as a rule. Why? Well, first of all, if you're using muskical energy to hold it in place, that's muscles that you cannot then use the dexterity and movement of to draw. They're locked up. They're going to get in your way. They're going to actually fight. If you're trying to make a nice clean stroke and you're using it muscles right now, if I pull down like this and I'm pressing hard with my thumb, I'm pushing against my thumb. There's going to be shakes and resistance and lack of coordination in that stroke. The thumb should relax and brace but not get in the way. The same goes for any other direction. If I'm pushing really hard, I'm wasting energy and I'm losing dexterity. It's also a good way to get carpal tunnel. So that's actually pretty important health, health of a on our hand. You don't want to overpress and grip too hard simply because you're going to end up with a sore hand, which can happen over time anyway. But if you have a nice relaxed grip, it's greatly minimizes the chance that you're going to develop carpal tunnel syndrome. Just even demonstrating that, gripping it now, my thumb sore a little bit. So you want to be really careful about that. If you're feeling frustrated and you're drawing and you're finding yourself holding your pencil even tighter, good time to stop, take a breath, relax and make sure that your grip is not too tight. It is not going to help you with going to make the drawing worse. So relaxed. If you do this, well, people become competent artists to drawing with their mouths and their feet. So I'm not going to tell you that your grip is bad. You're a bad person. No, it's not true. But you are reducing a lot. You're the amount of mobility and free movement you have. So now it's trapped. It can't really move. Sort of like with the muscle pressing too hard. If you trap your thumb or lock it down, you've lost its role and movement and coordination. Same goes for any other fingers. If you're like, I've seen people do that, tucked in underneath tight. That's not good. Just because you know, you can't move this finger and it's all cramped up. So keep them loose. Let it fall out. Not literally your dry, but the point is like not so tight. You've got treads on your fingers. Fingerprints. That's part of the words related to gripping and just enough. Enough. Just barely enough pressure to hold it comfortably there without feeling pressure. And remember to extend your tripod when you want to do bigger forms. Go in tight for the details like the faces. And keep it relaxed. And three points of contact. Two can work, but it's just not as effective. And this is much more relaxing and effective. You're to try. Oh hey, and a reminder, I have a Patreon. Check it out. If you'd like the videos or just generally want to help me make my account books, getting my Patreon up to around three or four or $400 a month would be just the thing to make that happen. And at the very least you can get access to reading digital copies of all of my comics as a patron. See things I post there about progress on work. And I've reintroduced the option to become a student. So I'll be sharing instructional stuff. But if you're a Patreon student, I'll work with you one-on-one on things that you need to work on and give you direct feedback on your progress. So check it out. Go to Patreon, pledge $2 or more and help me make my comics. Take it easy.