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Basic techniques with Pitt Monochrome Artists’ Pencils and Crayons

The monochrome colours of sanguine and sepia can be found in life drawing classes at almost every art academy. Enhanced with white, and with the shadows deepened with black, they lend vitality, liveliness and expression to the drawings. This old tradition of figure drawing dates back to the Renaissance. Pitt Monochrome crayons hark back to this long tradition of figure drawing, which is why the crayons designed for sketching are harder than conventional pastel crayons. For this reason, the lines do not disappear completely when smudged. The sanguine and sepia crayons are supplemented by oil-free and oil-based drawing pencils for sketching details and lines. This assortment of highly pigmented artists’ pencils and crayons in a range of monochrome shades is primarily designed for figure drawing. The oil-free pencils and crayons can be used for line drawings and shading surfaces, and can be combined with one another.

Artists' Recommendations

Oil Base pencils

Unlike the oil-free pencils and crayons, the pencils marked as Oil Base adhere firmly to the background and are smudge and waterproof. The black drawing pencil comes in 5 grades of hardness, offering a wide range of drawing and sketching possibilities.

Oil-free pastel pencils and artists’ crayons

These pencils and crayons in a variety of earth tones can be easily smudged with a finger to create coloured areas and delicate colour transitions, and require light fixing to preserve the drawing.

Basic technique

We recommend using the edges of the artists’ pastel crayons for shading. This will achieve more even and defined stroke widths, which adhere better to their background.

Drawing lines and areas

The artists’ pencils are ideal for drawing details, while the artists’ crayons are better suited to large or broad lines and areas.

Lightening with white

The different earth tones only display their full and unique character when lightened with white. Depending on the individual pigment, the shades also take on either warm or cool nuances.

Blending with white

White is not only used to apply highlights (especially on coloured paper), but also for smudging and blending. Two different grades of hardness facilitate the various shading techniques.

Fixing

The products adhere so well to textured backgrounds that only minimal fixing is required. The colours are unaffected by exposure to sunlight.