Drawing Materials

In these strange housebound times it will be difficult to get hold of equipment but there are many ways to improvise.  If you want to try out some of the exercises and ideas on this site, some of the following might be helpful:

Pencils: I never use anything harder than a 2B.  From 2B to 6B is a good range. Charcoal pencils and other coloured pencils. Graphite pencils.

Rubber: Crumbly ones work far better for me than plasticky ones which I find smear dark indelible marks on my drawings. It can be effective to cut them off with a blade so you always have a sharp edge if you need to be accurate with it.

Charcoals:  Willow charcoal of varying widths (if you don't have any you could try to make your own or burn the end of a stick).

Putty Rubber: This is a good tool to use with charcoal, to blend, rub out or make marks...Blu Tack is just as effective.

Sharpeners: The normal kind, otherwise a craft knife or a blade/scalpel.

Pen and Ink: Black Indian/drawing ink (or sepia or any other colour), dipping pens, wooden kebab/cocktail/chop sticks; sharpen any bit of wood or a feather quill to make fun marks. Any other pens from biro to felt-tip.

Surface: It doesn't matter what you draw on from a napkin to wood.  Weightier cartridge paper is a good all rounder but charcoal works better on paper or card with a bit of texture. Similarly if you are using a liquid like ink thinner paper either falls apart or buckles.

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