Smudgy pencils

[avram]

A question for you practising artists out there: Do you use pencils in your sketchbooks? The sketchbooks you carry around with you, I mean, not the ones you leave at home. And if so, how do you keep the pencilled work from smudging to hell and back? (I suspect the answer will turn out to be Spray it with fixative when you get home, but maybe there’ll be another possibility that poses less danger to my lungs.)

Maybe I should join one of the artist’s communities on LJ and ask there.

I’ve been restricting myself to pigment marker and occasional watercolor pencil in my travelling sketchbooks, but there are times when ordinary pencil work would be easiest, and I’d like to be able to go back to it without having to worry about the work turning into a cloud of graphite within a few weeks.

(I’ve got the germ of an idea for a web comic strip, and I’m going to try to get it to sprout over the next couple of weeks.)

Comments

[mamishka.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm. I don't ever recall having this problem. Perhaps you are using a very soft pencil? My greatest suspicion is either that or your book has too much give in the pages (is it one of those big spirally bounded type books with big holes in the pages for the wire to go through?) I tend to use the black bound drawing books, which have a traditional binding. Less convenient in some ways, but the pages don't have the permission to wiggle, so stuff doesn't smear generally. I also generally use harder pencils when drawing. I also always make sure that when I draw on one page, the opposite page remains blank. Probably a big "Duh", but that certainly cuts down on smudging. And if I make an image that's particularly susceptible to smudging for some reason, then yeah, I spray fixative on it.

[avram]

Yeah, I'm a fan of soft pencils. Big, thick ones, 4-9B, the B-er the better. But I've generally also been using spiral-bound books; maybe it won't be as much of a problem with the Moleskine.

If I were planning to ink it, it wouldn't be an issue. Though generally, nowadays, if I'm drawing something to ink and not planning to color in the actual drawing, I use blue pencil. Saves the trouble of erasing. That's how I create the linework for most of the colored art I've put up here. Blue pencil, ink on top of the pencil, scan in at 300dpi in bitmap mode, then convert to grayscale in Photoshop (at a 4:1 pixel ratio).

[mamishka.livejournal.com]

I suppose another solution is to ink the pencil drawing as soon as possible after drawing it. Definitely less toxic than fixative.

[arkanfel.livejournal.com]

hmm. I agree on the large ring-bound sketchbook point. I've had the same problem with those. Yes... fixative. Since i like my nose attached to my face, i tend to use nice smelling hairspray.
Yes... inking right away does the job as well, i tend to do that a lot.

For large sketchbooks, what you also might try, is get a few large acetate sheets (the ones used for projectors, "Graphix" for instance), and tape it over the work area/page. I found that it's also quite good for extra protection for graphite or charcoal. Sorta like permanent or temp glass-like protection for pages. It will keep aqarelle paint & pencil sketches from fading as well. Downside is that the sketchbook might get a bit bulkier.

that's all i can think of.