OCA Illustration 1: Mark Making

Pencils..Pencils..Pencils, for me, pencils have always been a means to an end, solely a way of creating an outline to be hidden in the end piece, a guide for another medium.
Concentrating, as I have in the past on pen and ink and then painting in acrylics, I have had a tendency to stick to what I know. In this respect it has been very easy to become accustomed to only viewing and handling pencils in this temporary, transitional way. Thus ignoring the potential of this medium.
I find that to be asked to experiment is both alien and challenging.

Pencils at the ready...
My initial foray is to take a piece of heavy handmade water colour paper made at the Moulin de Pombie, France.

Using 3B, 6B, 2H pencils and charcoal to make samples of variations of cross hatch and stippled shapes.
My observations; the 'weave' of the paper has a definite direction which makes the line quality of the opposing angles of the cross hatch strokes appear different. The roughness of this particular paper and therefore the friction of the medium against the surface 'draws out' more medium with less pressure. This makes it particularly tricky to handle the charcoal as there is a lot of surplus 'dust' which makes the image more prone to fill in.
With the harder 2H pencil the reverse seems to be the case, it was difficult to make a viable impression particularly with a pointed pencil the surface was scratched by it. More pressure was needed to make a mark.

Moving On..For my next sampler I use a wider range of pencils from soft to hard, each used in the same way to show a direct comparison between the grades. The paper is 100gms Soft sketchbook

An example of stippling with a technical pen is the centre piece.

You old smoothy The next marks are to experiment with changing the media. I first chose a smooth white card, I believe it is inkjet photocard.

If anything this shows that pencils are best suited to this smooth surface. The surface has less direct physical influence on the line drawn; therefore it gives more scope to the artist for showing technique and tonal effects.
An observation that I made during this part of the exercise.
When cross hatching the tendency is to alter the way the pencil is held in the hand, to make the change in direction, this can by default lead to an unintentional change in the quality of the drawn line.
Whereas by turning the piece and using the same hold on the pencil uniformity is maintained. Of course the variation described may be what is required for effect, by the artist. I find that even with charcoal there is more control, potentially more scope to experiment with this medium.

Just to diversify, I decided to look around for something else to add to the mark making experimentation.

These marks are made using a japanese bamboo pen and an FC PITT Art Pen (B) on 240gm2 textured watercolour paper. I found that the bamboo pen was quite versatile with the potential for some pleasing effects but was labour intensive as the ink was transferred quite quickly. The Art pen, being quite free flowing, was difficult to stipple with on a small scale. This brief experiment introduced the element of absorption of the paper as an extra consideration.

My last group was achieved using a smooth copier type paper and I found that using the pencils on this surface reinforces what I found with the card the end product isn't as heavily influenced as it is with textured papers.