Pencil Movement: Watching People Draw

There's a lot of physiological mysteries in drawing. Sometimes I like to watch videos of really awesome artists draw and see how they move.

Me: My natural instinct is heavy handedness- just feel it out in the beginning, get any kind of silouette desired any way possible, no matter how messy. I draw like Wanderlei Silva, I swing for the ropes and hope it lands, and if it doesn't I keep on trying.

Artists whose pencil movement I like:

Eric Goldberg: I think his pencil movement is the simplest to understand, and is the most effective in most cases. He has almost an etch-a-sketch quality to the way he moves his pencil- it barely ever jumps off the page, so he has a quality of pushing the line to make it what he wants. He also uses his small fingers to thrust subtle smaller lines to be more confident, which is an awesome idea, as it allows speedy coverage and easy closure of shapes. He arcs his wrist frequently to make the most out of his pencil tip and get an ideal angle. When he moves to different body parts, he DOESN'T PAUSE at all, he almost teleports his pencil tip across the figure as if he intended everything as one piece.



Jim Lee: I like his pencil movements because he's brisk in a good way, the best thing about him is his CONSTANT movement. He never pauses, wherever his pencil is, it's doing something. And he does this because he wants to keep the entire image unified. He never lingers in one place for too long. Watch him draw that hard line of the Joker's jaw- you can FEEL that he felt how hard the bone is just from how swift the line was at 1:27. And he draws details he keeps it light, brisk, and easy. He switches up his grip from time to time- further back to start, tighter when things are tighter. He shows you that you can do a lot with simple tools.

Artists who are amazing, but have movements that don't work well if you attempt it:
Glen Keane: His video is actually the first video I've seen of an artist that really inspired me just watching him draw, but I think I picked up a lot of bad habits from him. He draws very heavy-handedly. He hacks down lines, and his grip is constantly stiff. When I watched this video a year ago, I felt as though the boldness of his line is how every statement should be- so not knowing any better I imitated this behavior to bad effect.

It's bad because Glen doesn't have much dynamics to his pencil movement compared to Eric Goldberg, every line is fierce- frequent elbow/shoulder movement. Less fine control. He draws more like Mike Tyson compared to Eric Goldberg's more Sugar Ray Leonard fluidity.


Skottie Young: is a huge mystery to me, he draws freakishly well and fast. I can barely analyze how, because he's left handed and he has a really odd grip on top of it, and it doesn't even appear that he has any under-drawing at all on that sketch. Furthermore, it looks like he's using a Faber-Castell brush pen, which is, in my opinion, a very difficult pen to use. He jumps around almost as if he's drawing drunk. Must be talent.