TALK SOFT and CARRY a BIG PENCIL

or how drawing with a bigger pencil has changed my life.

(this article was originally published in 2020 for my Patreon. I’ve been using this big pencil for a few years and it’s never stopped helping me)

I was on the Draw Drinkin’ (now

J Alex Morrissey

’s Tradcraft) podcast the other month. The hosts of the show all went to SVA (The School of Visual Arts) when Will Eisner was teaching there. So naturally, when I am on the show- which has been a few times now- we talk one of the biggest influences in not only my work but my artistic career.

One of the hosts, Alex Morrisey, mentioned that Eisner drew with a big chunk of pencil. One of the things I really love about Eisner’s pencil work is the big chunky lines that are almost just the suggestion of form that he then goes in and tightens up with ink. It’s something that I have been wanting my pencils to look like for a while but my super dull 2mm Prismacolor Turquoise just wasn’t cutting it.

So what did I do? I went and got ONE. BIG. PENCIL!

After doing some research I went with the Colte 5.5mm lead holder. It can hold a 5.6mm lead- which is what is in there now. They don’t make -as far as I can tell- 2b lead in the 5.5mm size. I like a dark pencil line without a lot of pressure in my pencils, 2b seems to be the best for me in that regard. Sure the paper may get a little messy but the graphite sits loose enough on the paper that a kneaded eraser is good enough for clean up.

The barrel of the 5.5mm pencil holder is much bigger than a normal one. You can’t really hold it at the base like a normal pencil. The weight just doesn’t feel right. Instead you hold it towards the middle of the barrel with a loose grip. Like the way people look when they sketch from life. The weight of the pencil is making the mark, not you pressing down on the paper. With that comes a looser gestural quality to the line. A quality, that I find, is harder to lose in the inking.

In the past, when I tightly pencil my work I would always be a little disappointed in the quality of the inking. Tracing the line seemed to deaden all of the work that I had previously done. Maybe this just has to do with my shortcomings as an inker, but I have found the looser my pencils can be the better my inking looks. So, a tool that forces me to be loose in the penciling stage is very welcome.

This is also good for my hand. I tend to hold with a pretty tight grip and there is no easier way than to physically burn myself out, and get that little twinge in my finger than to hold a pencil too tight. The change in grip and position of the pencil in the hand has made all that twingey business all but fully go away.

But enough of that is technical mumbo jumbo. How does it feel to draw with a pencil that big? How has it changed my art? My life?

It’s slowed me down a bit. Not in a negative way. It still takes me the same amount of time to draw a page as it once did. But, because of the 5.6mm mark being bigger than the 2mm the amount of graphite on the page can get out of hand pretty fast. It’s made me think about the marks on the page more than before. A real measure twice, cut once mentality. I still do all of my roughs with a blue pencil so that’s where I can be free to figure out form. But, when it comes to the darker line, a little more thought and a little less pencil on the page is forcing me to visualize in advance. I am thinking about shadows more. Making sure I hit those lines first with the pencil. I’m not feeling my way through a figure. I’m making direct cuts.

When I started off inking and would talk to pro inkers the advice I always got was to just draw with the inking tool. No penciling. Just a brush and white piece of paper. I feel like this big pencil has brought me back to that practice. By taking a little time to think about the drawing before I make a mark it has opened my mind up creatively. It’s made it easier for me to visualize the scene. Not just on the page, through a thicket of dark lines. But, just in my head. I can see what a drawing needs to look like constructively. The form, the gesture.

Draw Big,

Jamie

(recently I have bought some red and blue graphite for the holder and it’s saving me so much time in not having to erase the page. Which is also saving my wrist and arm. A win win all around) -2023 Jamie