musings and articles_ how to hold the pencil

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7/1/2016 Musings and articles: How to hold the pencil

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The least frequently asked question about drawing is How do you holdthe pencil?

Most people are simply unaware that there is more than one way tohold it. They unconsciously use the writing pen grip they learned inelementary school, and it does not occur to them to even think ofchanging it. Yet many typical beginners problems with pencil drawing,from wobbliness to hatched lines, originate from bad grip.

The scribes grip that feels natural for most people is surely the worstgrip for drawing: writing and drawing are fundamentally differentactivities. Writing Latin cursive or pica is done with minute motions of the hand and fingers,

with the elbow fixed for it, the grip at the pens tip provides the optimal range of motion.Drawing is done with broad movement of the whole arm, from hand to shoulderblade for it,the scribes grip is a killer precisely because it requires fixation of the elbow. Trying to draw

with a scribes grip is a frustration a flowing line is impossible, hatching gets curved, the pencilpressure becomes too hard, and in the end you feel tired and cramped yet thats what manypeople do.

I had encountered people who claim that the best way is to use whatever feels comfortable, and if thats the

scribes gripso be it. What these people usually miss is that its best when you already have an arsenal of skills andcan pick the most appropriate one for the task. A beginner thinks that scribes grip is comfortable because he

knows no others, and for him such attitude is counterproductive. Everyone is entitled to pursue an own style and

approach, but only afterthey mastered the basics and can be aware of all the choices.

There are only two basic drawing grips: the lengthwise pen gripand the crosswiseviolin bowgrip most of the other grips are variations of these two.

Pen grip

Hold the pencil like you would hold the writing pen, but much further from the tip. The closerto the tip your fingers are, the more control of the pencil goes to the fingers and wrist, and the

range of motion becomes smaller. Finally, at about 2 inches (5 /cm/) from the tip the gripbecomes suitable only for minute detailing, and less than that is impractical.
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This grip is good for detailing, and for small-size sketching on near-horizontal plane (inclinedtable or board set on tabletop). It is also the grip Wacom tablets are designed for. It offers highcontrol for smaller features, and works with propped elbow - but it becomes progressively

worse for larger motion. It is only good for working with the leads tip, but not with the side. Anadded problem is that the hand (or the little finger) usually must rest on the drawing, and yourisk smudging it more on that later.

Violin bow grip

Hold the pencil with the thumb against all four fingers. This removes most control from thefingers, and emphasizes the wrist and especially the arm at elbow and shoulder.

This grip is thepreferable basic drawing grip. It does not need a propped arm, and the motionrange is limited only by your arm span it produces flowing, economical sweeping line and isideal for rough sketching, hatching and tonal work with the side of lead. It works best on bigpage and a near-vertical plane (paper pinned to board), and is the preferred grip in academicdrawing. It enables working with the leads side, for darker flowing lines and shading. It cannot

be used with Wacom stylus.

Of course, when you are drawing, you are doing so on an oblique surface, not on a horizontal table, right? Sit

straight and either use a board propped on the table, or pin the paper to board and hold that vertically on your

lap. Working on a horizontal table makes you stoop and does funny things to perspective.

Gesture grips and variations

Between the pen and the violin bow, there is any number of intermediate grips, suitablemostly for gesture drawing with varying paper size and motion range. Usually, the smaller thepage or detail, the closer the grip will be to the pen. They still share the violin bows benefitof loosening the arm and not needing elbow support.


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A violin bow grip with all fingers straight is the scalpel grip. It is not used often it is goodwhen you need to lay the lead all flat on paper for shading, and also for making good horizontallines. For our purposes its still the variation of the bow. A violin bow grip with index fingerpressing on the tip is the rare knife grip, and is also suitable for drawing with full side of thelead. It offers a little finer control of the tip, but seriously restricts the arms motion range. It isgood for making short thick lines.

Brush grip

Sometimes abrush grip is used for detail work it is the pencil held like a brush, in a pengrip with index finger resting along the shaft. It offers more motion freedom than the pen grip

and works with or without elbow support, but when used with a pencil it also takes away somefine control. It is fairly good for holding the Wacom stylus, too.

Brush can also be used when held backwards, but for a pencil such inverted bow grip offersalmost no benefits (in my experience). It can be used for making good vertical lines. You couldalso use it for stippling, but it shows little advantage even for that rarely used technique.

Pathological grips

I have seen other grips occasionally, which cant be classified in fact, most of them are painfulto look at. I have no explanation why these people choose to grab their pencils against the base


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of their thumb or bunch up their fingers I suspect these are simply bad habits, just less typicalthan the scribe grips. It works for them, but at what cost?

Fortunately, it is simple to test whether your grip is good. All working grips I have seen andused obey one common rule:

Do not choke the pencil tip.

Thats it. Just keep your fingers at least two inches from the tip, so you cannot press down, and

be sure to use your elbow and shoulder, not your fingers.

i hold a pencil the "wrong way" and my drawings are as good as someone holding the pencil the

"right" way. what ever way is most comfortable is the way you should hold the pencil.

cWed, Feb 22 2012 23:42

Sure, whatever works for you. But some grips are still more conductive for good technique thanother ones. And for some people, changing the grip does help even if you don't think it can help

you.

I go through grips without even thinking, depending on the size of the thing I am working on,for example.

Eugene ArenhausThu, Feb 23 2012 11:33

WoW this helped so much I have been reading that pencil grip doesnt affect you work thatmuch but the violin/gesture grip made a huge difference in my gesture drawings and it was

weird feeling my shoulder and elbow in motion.

Thanks Alot !!!!!

^Thanks again

Azuerous

Thu, Mar 1 2012 17:31

I'm glad the article helped you. :)

Eugene Arenhaus

Fri, Mar 2 2012 14:50

Do you care to elaborate on the Violin Bow grip? Like whether the pressure should be dividedequally or the most of it be put on the pointing finger and thumb.

Is it beneficial to grab the end of the pencil with the pinky ?
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Should I keep the pencil so that my fingers almost touch the surface or more like at a 30-45degree angle?

Is control over this grip something I'll gain with practice or am I missing something?

Lastly, is this grip only to get the flow and proportions of the figure and not the details?

HisokaSat, Jun 9 2012 15:48

Very helpful. Thanks a lot.Tong Liu

Mon, Jun 11 2012 14:04

Hisoka, the Violin Bow grip is meant to make you use the whole arm and force you to presslightly. So don't try to press much at all, just touch the pencil to the paper. Keep it at a lowangle. Touching the surface with fingers should be avoided, unless you are wearing a cottonglove, but keep them close to the surface.

Stabilizing the pencil with the pinky does help, but don't try pressing on the end with it. Just

put all four fingers across the pencil. (In some cases you can touch the *paper* with the pinkyfingernail, to stabilize the hand.)

As with any unfamiliar skill, you'll get better at it as you practice. Switching from a lifetime ofusing the fingers to using the whole arm takes time and effort.

And yes, the violin bow grip is better at broad sketching than fine details.

Eugene Arenhaus

Mon, Jun 11 2012 15:48

Which grip would you say is better for sketching something like animal fur?

ShayThu, Jun 28 2012 17:28

Depends on the size of your picture. Fur is usually a repetitive texture, composed of shortstrokes, unless you are drawing an Afghan hound, so I'd expect a gesture grip or the pen grip

would suit it.

It's not a matter of a precise grip-to-texture fit, though. As long as your arm joints are notlocked and you are working from the shoulder, you can use any grip that works in a givensituation. Even a violin bow grip might work to lay down texture, for example, when you are

working at large-size page placed vertically.

Eugene Arenhaus

Sat, Jun 30 2012 18:25

I tried these grips for a while but kept running into the same two problems: 1) Where did mypressure go? 2) Where did my accuracy go?

Rereading this article, I have an idea of what I was doing wrong but I want to check:

Is pressing hard with the pencil just a mistake, and one should get a softer pencil for darker
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lines? (Or mostly press lightly, and at the end switch to a grip that can handle more pressure?)

Will these grips *not work* for small detail, and they should be used on large (A4+) sizes only?

Are these grips designed for fast, confident lines? That is, if you try to go slow they will beshaky?

Will you get decent accuracy for long lines after practice? Suppose I wanted to trace the shapeof a zeppelin, which needs to be exact -- would these grips be better than using a french curve or

curved rule?

One of the reasons I want to switch to these grips is that I get hand pain very quickly whenusing my normal 'scribe's grip'. I suspect it's a habit of choking the pencil, partly caused by

wanting dark lines, partly by not being used to the correct grips. (I got to the point where I wasswitching to my left to continue doing studies while my dominant hand rested. Notambidextrous, but better than nothing. Any other tips for hand pain?)

Also, I was wondering why my hatching ends up curved! Mystery solved.

LulieTue, Feb 12 2013 17:18

Lulie - yes, you are right, pressing hard is a mistake. Use a softer pencil and/or more hatchingto get a darker value. Heavy pressure interferes with control.

Generally you want to adjust the grip to the size you are working at: violin bow grip for broaderlines, pen grip for smaller detail, gesture grip in between. If you don't feel confident enough toswitch on the fly, use the gesture grip for everything. But no matter what size you are workingat, keep your arm relaxed and joints loose. Put as much shoulder and as little wrist into themovement as possible. Even when you are working at tiniest detail, keep the shoulder free.

These grips are designed for control. You don't have to work fast to get it right any speed

works. If you find the line hard to control or shaky at slow speed, it is probably because of toomuch muscle tension. The pain that you say you feel reinforces that guess. Putting antagonistmuscles in a fight with each other kills control.

Relax. Pay attention to how you breathe. Wave the arm around, make sure all joints move. Do afew drawing motions without touching the paper, make sure your grip is light and movementeasy and smooth. Do a few lines with the same motion, S-curves, straight lines, ellipses. Usethat as a routine exercise before you draw and during breaks.

An exercise for precision is drawing a freehand line, then drawing over exactly the same lineagain and again. With full control, the line will get darker and more refined, but not "hairy". Dothat too, with enough practice your accuracy will improve.

But for a clean technical drawing of a zeppelin, where the requirements to the line are different,I use French curves too. :)

Eugene Arenhaus

Tue, Feb 12 2013 19:33

So you were saying that you use as little of the wrist/fingers as possible, and always keep thearm/shoulder free to move, but the wrist/fingers is used to an extent or even primarily in smalldetailing?

I was going to make an argument along the lines that the arm is larger and heavier and less
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designed for fine detail. But it seems you are saying the point is to favour arm movements, notstop hand movements altogether, and either may assist as long as the muscles are working witheach other instead of stiffly against.

Regarding "pressing hard is a mistake": What about the burnishing technique for colouredpencils? Is pressing hard only a mistake for graphite pencils? (Or is there a way of burnishing

without pressing hard?) Which grip is most suited to that? I guess one should also take morefrequent breaks to let the hand rest in that situation.

Lulie TanettFri, Feb 22 2013 15:28

Yes, that is correct. Less fingers, less wrist, more elbow and shoulder, as little muscle tension aspossible. But if you need to add some fingers or some wrist, do it. Just don't prefer them to thelarger joints.

As for the arm being too heavy for small detailing, you can go do a little experiment: try to drawa 3-mm circle using just the shoulder and elbow. Use the pen grip and rest the hand on thepinky finger if you need it. You'll probably find that it's quite possible, even if it seems strange.(At least, I can do it.)

Burnishing technique in colored pencil is a different thing. It is done to an area, not to a line itis a way to get a particular smooth texture or blend and adjust layered colors. (Burnishing witha colorless blender pencil intensifies color, burnishing with white pencil washes it out,

burnishing with a light-colored one washes out and shifts color.)

You do have to press hard to burnish colored pencil, so these grips aren't very applicable - theyare designed for light pressure used in drawing. Use whatever grip that keeps the pencil close to

vertical - hard pressure will crush the soft color lead if it is at an angle. For example, modify awriting grip so your curled middle finger's back side puts most pressure on the pencil, and theindex and thumb only keep it in place.

Put most pressure down from the shoulder. Don't try to press down with your fingertips, oryou'll get tendon pain.

Eugene Arenhaus

Sat, Feb 23 2013 08:26

thank you been struggling with my grips n looking for answers ... I didnt realize that thedistance from tip of the pencil = different pressures on the page. I was wondering why my linedarkness, and hatching were inconsistent.thanks.

TheidleoneTue, Mar 19 2013 01:05

Hi,

Thanks for the article I'm a complete beginner and I've been trying to do this, I'm having a littledifficulty, I'm using a drawing board which is 15 degrees do you think this is enough for thisgrip to be effective, when I try and draw horizontal/vertical without adjusting the pencil themarkings are uneven. when I try to hold the pencil vertically to draw a horizontal line I find itquite difficult sitting down with this board as my arm goes into my body and it feels difficult toget that loose movement. Also shall I assume that the violin bow grip isn't going to best foraccurate lines and what I mean by that is having an exact distance you want to hit and usingthis grip?
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Sorry I'm a complete novice and I'd really love some example of these techniques a bit more so Iknow what to sort of expect when applying them as i'm trying to just get my basic hand-eyecoordination going with drawing lines but I do struggle to get the distances correct to finish asquare with these grips.

Thanks for the wonderful article, I appreciate when somebody tries to help us beginners :)!

Jon

Jon SaundersWed, May 8 2013 10:55

I tried these grip but I have poor control. The same i have with regular pengrip (that is alsobad).

So I was right, turning the paper is also a bad habit.

NordlysWed, Apr 22 2015 16:33

Control is something that improves with practice. Remember to use your whole arm whendrawing, and keep the joints loose. Straining kills control. So does limiting your movement.

Try working in larger size it forces you out of habitual movement.

Eugene Arenhaus

Wed, Apr 29 2015 08:42

Hi, thanks for your post! I have a question: I'm thinking of buying a Wacom intuos small tablet.How do you suggest I use my pen in that case? The pen grip, as you mentioned, is good for anear-horizontal plane, but my desktop is fully horizontal. Should I buy some sort of support for

the wacom, or is it fine to use it horizontally as well? (I also heard that the tablet should be fullyparalel to the screen for best performance)

Cheers!

ThalesMon, May 18 2015 22:56

Hi Thales.

Try holding the Wacom stylus like a brush, with the index finger along it and its tip on the

rocker switch. Hold the tablet at an angle.

Supports can work, but I simply put the tablet on my knees and rest it on the desk - and thatonly because I work on vertical screens. When I work on horizontal screens, it becomes equallyeasy to put the tablet flat on the desk.

Putting the tablet parallel to the screen is completely irrelevant. You adapt to whatever position,once you learn to draw while looking on the cursor instead of the actual stylus.

What may be important is the tablet size. I find it easier to work when the tablet is closer indimensions to the screen: a tablet that is smaller than half your screen may be too small foraccuracy. Zooming in on detail can help in that case.
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Eugene Arenhaus

Sun, May 31 2015 10:45

Hi Eugene, thanks for the reply.

I will probably get a medium sized wacom pen and touch, it's probably the cheapest good tabletI can afford xD Also, since my screen is horizontal, I"ll probably use it flat on the table like yousaid!

ThalesSun, May 31 2015 12:06

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