What You Will Need

I am excited to introduce our new or green artists to figure drawing.  However, jumping in fresh can be intimidating.  While you're welcome to use whatever suits you, this is a good beginner's guide for what you may want to try.

Charcoal

One of my favorite mediums for figure drawing is charcoal.  It is forgiving and adapts to many styles.  It works well for line work and shading and blending.  I like to blend it with my fingers but a paper blending stump is a good idea for detail blending and for people who are afraid to get a little dirty.  Get it here.


Vine Charcoal

Perfect for loose gesture sketching.  I use it to begin all of my charcoal pieces.  It is lighter, softer, and is easily erased and blended with your finger.  Also good for wide areas of gray tone.


Pencil

It seems like an obvious choice for figure drawing, but I would recommend against it for beginners.  Pencil is great for detail and cross hatching (see previous post's image, done with soft colored pencil) but it can lead you to focus too much on small areas and not enough on the gesture and proportion.  With great power comes great responsibility or something.  However, if you must use pencil, try a kit like this that has a wide variety of lead softness.  And I love and recommend Prismacolor colored pencils.  Get a pencil sharpener while you're at it.


Conté Crayon

Not waxy like the crayons you grew up drawing with (or eating when your babysitter wasn't looking), conté is like the love child of charcoal and colored pencil.  It's a joy to work with.  Draw broadly on its side or on the tip.  They come in many colors but black and brown colors are traditional.


Erasers

A kneaded eraser is a must.  It will not leave eraser shrapnel all over your precious drawing.  For a more traditional eraser, Factis makes a good one.


Drawing Pad

Oh yeah, paper.  For figure drawing you'll want a very large, decent pad.  18"x24" is best.  We will also be doing gestures, so we will want a cheaper grade large pad for more disposable drawings as we will go through lots of paper- it is more for exercise than for drawings you'll want to show off.


Clipboard

You should get a clipboard to support your pad too.  There are few things that look sillier than watching someone trying to draw on a bendy pad of paper.  Except maybe this.


Easel

This is optional of course.  I have a portable easel that I will be using, but this is a personal choice.  Find one that suits you.  Please bring extras if you have them.  I'll bring my two.