Tag: Pencil Facts

How to Prevent Pencil Smudges? Tips You Should Know

gayathri63Leave a comment

Pencil Smudging is one issue that every artist has to face while drawing. Pencil or graphite is such an amazing and easy medium to use. You make a mistake? No worries. Just erase and draw again. As two sides of a coin, it has it’s own down-side to it: smudging.

So how to prevent pencil smudges? With little tips and care, it is possible to prevent pencil smudges and preserve your sketches.

Firstly, let your dominant hand lead. That means, start drawing from the upper left corner if you’re a right-handed person and move your way down. This will prevent hand smudges while drawing.

Secondly, place a clean sheet of paper under the drawing hand. By doing this, you cannot only avoid smudging but also protects your drawing from oils in your skin.

Thirdly, make use of a mahl stick. It is basically a slender stick used by artists since centuries. It is used to rest the drawing (painting) hands rather than resting it on the canvas.

Finally, make use of a spray fixative. It prevents the drawing from getting smudged and preserve it for longer period.

Follow these simple tricks to prevent pencil smudges and hold on to your art work forever.

How to preserve your pencil drawings

achuvs96Leave a comment

Nothing is more painful than seeing the drawing that you’ve been working so hard on going to waste due to a lack of proper preservation. Learning how to preserve your artwork is just as important as drawing itself. 

Let’s see some ways to preserve your pencil drawings.

Parchment paper: Use parchment paper in between two drawing sheets. This waxy paper will help to preserve your drawing for a long time.

Lay your drawings flat: Store your drawing horizontally, thus preventing rolling corners and wrinkling of the paper.

Fixatives: Use a matte or glossy finish spray fixative to coat your drawing to prevent it from possible future damage. Be careful to use the fixative in a properly ventilated area.

Avoid frequent handling: If you want to archive your artworks, avoid handling them now and then. Preserve them in a practically inert space with lesser interactions with humidity and sunlight.

Use clear bags or laminations that allows your work to be seen without being removed from the protective covering. All techniques have pros and cons. However, it’s always better to resort to one such technique to make your artwork live longer.

Why are most pencils yellow? Here’s the reason

Renjith RavindranLeave a comment

Pencils are an integral part of one’s drawing habits. In fact, we use it so much that we barely give attention to the characteristics of pencils.

Have you ever noticed that most of the pencils out there are yellow in colour?

There is a reason for this. The Pencils were painted yellow since 1980s. The idea was to give the users an indication that Chinese graphite is used in the pencils. Back in China, yellow indicated respect and royalty. And the manufactures in the United States wanted to convey this feeling to the customers and thus went out with Yellow colored pencils.

So next time you use an yellow colored pencil, remember why it is yellow in the first place.