Drawing vs Painting

There was a discussion online recently about drawing and painting, it began with someone who loves to paint saying how she doesn't like drawing. A discussion ensued  with some strongly agreeing and some, including me, saying I find drawing relatively easy and pleasurable but painting harder. I found it interesting to know that some people like art but find drawing a chore.

Anyway looking at some of the things people said/asked about when we had a project where people were to wrote down things they found difficult , someone wrote: I'm fairly happy with drawing but often feel I go on to spoil it when I apply colour.

I have to say I often used to find this myself, I would make a drawing I was pleased with then try and turn it into a painting and find myself getting quickly stuck and disappointed. I realised that there can be quite a gulf between drawing and painting.

Anyway I thought I would look at that this week, starting with the obvious: you don't have to paint to be an artist, if some people can devote themselves exclusively to oil painting then there is no reason why some cannot devote themselves to drawing, even exclusively to pencil drawing. I always think pencil and paper is one of the simplest and cheapest ways of having a good time. So if you find painting a chore, keep drawing.

And of course you can have quite a range with drawing: pencil, (pencils-there are in fact a range of different kinds of pencil to try hard soft graphite, carbon, warersoluble pencils)  But for drawing a good choice for a bit of a challenge is pen (or pens, for again, there are lots of different kinds of pen from the humble biro-do check out online what some people do with biros; you will be amazed! italic pens, markers of various kinds, proper drawing pens, waterproof pens, water soluble pens bingo markers white pens silver pens etc ) and if you want colour, coloured pencils, do get good quality cheap children's coloured pencils are not much good. Charcoal pastel.

There are different kinds of paper to draw on too and it does make a difference, smooth paper, paper with a bit of 'tooth' as they say- slight texture, thick paper thin paper, very smooth card like paper , good for fine work and pen, rough paper good for charcoal or soft pencil, watercolour papers, coloured papers and card,pastel papers, cardboard, all kinds of surfaces. There is no reason why drawing should be boring.

Here is a nice drawing by Paul Snape, i

n a modern cubist style, an etching in fact but you could do this with pen.

And an old pencil drawing of mine of a bit of torn paper.