How to Choose Paper for Pencil Sketching and Line Drawing

Although an artist can draw on any paper, she achieves the best results with paper specially designed for sketching or line drawing. The right paper will allow the artist to create shading, draw clean, uniform lines and blend more effectively to create better results.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Determine what tools you will be using for your artwork. Charcoal vines, soft graphite pencils, watercolor pencils, pastels, colored pencils and artist's pens all have their own paper requirements.

2. Buy cold press paper for charcoal, pastel or pencil drawing. This paper has "tooth," a rough surface that will catch and hold the charcoal, chalk or graphite from the pencil. It allows you to create a variety of shading effects.

3. Buy hot press paper for ink drawing. This paper is very smooth, which will allow you to create a smooth, uniform line. There is no rough surface to catch on the pen nib.

4. Consider colored paper for pastels. This will give a colored background to your drawing and show through the chalk, giving a unity to the colors.

5. Buy heavy paper for watercolor pencils or ink drawing that will include washes.

6. Buy sketch paper for practice or for preliminary sketches. It's less expensive than drawing paper. If you want an even less costly option, buy newsprint or see if your local newspaper has remnant rolls of newsprint they will give you or sell at a greatly reduced rate.

Tips & Warnings

• Translucent paper will allow you to trace a photograph. You can also place it between pastel or charcoal drawings to help prevent smearing.
• Take care not to ruin a smooth paper by making preliminary sketches with a hard pencil, which will scar it. A hard rubber eraser will scar a rough paper, and any paper will warp if only part of the surface is dampened.

Resources

• Learn more about paper and where to buy it at Squidoo.

[mardev]

on 6/10/2009 Good basic tips for choosing paper for pencil sketching and line drawing! Thanks and a tweet at http://twitter.com/cyberthoughts !