Sunday Summary: What am I learning from my focus on pencil drawings?

This week’s Sunday Summary addresses why my creative outputs have focused on pencil drawings rather than other mediums and what has this focus has taught me. There is also the usual song of the week.

Summary of the Week (well…fortnight)

Readers, I hope you and yours are well.

Firstly, I want to apologise to those that read the blog regularly. The recent hot weather in the U.K. has meant a particular need to manage my disability in order to keep myself well. With the extra effort comes extra fatigue, and so I just simply didn’t have the capacity for words last weekend.

To compensate, I thought I would I would provide some extra content and so on Thursday evening this week, on the 24th July, 7pm, I will be going live on TikTok and Instagram answering your questions. I shall also attempt some live time drawing on TikTok. If it works, I might do more. Make sure to follow me on social media to keep up to date with news and events.

Why Have You Focused on Pencil Drawings?

Recently, I have focused a lot on drawing rather than other mediums. Many of you have asked why, having not really been much of a pencil drawer. I thought I would use some of this week’s blog to answer your questions. The short answer is…Time and Cost!

In January, after years of many people nagging me, I decided to commit to trying to be a proper artist rather than using art as a bit of a creative outlet. With other commitments such as a full time job, family, friends, and the disability, I perhaps underestimated what little time I had and how much of that spare time is spent trying to create an online business. While it is incredibly rewarding seeing the progress, especially now I have my first interaction with South America (Bon Dia Brasil), finding time to be creative can sometimes be a challenge.

Being creative is a necessity for me; I can’t exist without creating. Having a medium that doesn’t require lots of preparation, mess, and can be finished in an hour, is an attractive medium. While using something like pastels has also been a useful backup, good quality pastels like Unison Pastels, and pastel paper such as Pastelmat are not cheap. One Unison Pastel, which may last 10 drawings, will cost anything from about £5 per pastel, and the paper costing sometimes £8.50 per sheet. With all resources having recently gone into starting the online business, pastel paintings are increasingly becoming something reserved for a finished piece of work, especially when you can get a good set of graphite pencils for under £10.

Graphite Pencil Drawing of Pebbles, July 2025.

What Have I learnt from Pencil Drawing?

I have often described, particularly in the recent blog where I focused on composition, the importance of how light affects composition. When you are using a monochromatic medium, you tend to observe the light of the composition more as you can not rely on colour to help make a picture sing.

Another key consideration is the structure of the composition. Using pencils can be exposing, especially compared to an impressionistic oil painting where you layer colours, with just slight marks to help bring a lose picture together. While I can gradually build up a pencil drawing with block shading technique (this is where you shade parts of the drawing in order to help create form), it feels like you have less places to hide. With a pencil drawing then, at least for me, your marks on the paper are more intended, observational, and accurate.

Overall the drawing has helped me, I think, to become more polished in my work, which in turn, is helping my oil painting become realistic, especially when the subject matter requires it, such as for the painting of the Notre Dame I am currently working on.

The intricate facade of Notre Dame Cathedral would be more difficult to try and capture had I not applied what I learnt from the pencil drawing.

I encourage you all to pick up a pencil at home and just doodle with it. Learn how it feels in your hand, what happens when you apply different pressure, maybe even smudge a bit of it with your finger and see what you can create. If you keep at it, you will see an improvement. In the short time I have focused on pencil drawing, I am definitely seeing results, especially when you compare these two images, the first done earlier this year, with the later, more recently.

Top picture was done in June and was a portrait of a woman, the second drawing is of a marble bust done in March. The more recent drawing looks more human!

Songs of the Week

Looking at what I have listened to on Spotify a lot of the last few weeks, there has been A LOT of questionable tracks played.

However, Dad was in London last week at a Neil Young concert and so I have been listening to some of his tracks this week. Not going to lie, a little annoyed Dad didn’t ask me to go, especially when he went on his own - maybe he thought I’d cramp his style, although the weather would have been hopeless for me. I believe Cat Stevens was also supporting who I also love. So I have picked my two favourite songs by both artists.

The Neil Young song is probably one of my favourite of all times, from one of my favourite films, which again highlights the importance of treating people as sentient equals, something that feels increasingly scarce in today’s world. The version I have gone for is just a simple acoustic guitar version. Simple and effective.