So here’s my collection of mark making stuff – pens, pencils, pastels, graphite, charcoal and so on and so forth. I started off by trying them out in my sketchbook, varying the pressure of the line, and the position where I was holding the “implement”.

It’s all to do with control and so I drew a couple of “bowl forms” to see if I could control the shading – something I’ve always had a problem with. I’m pretty pleased with the second one – done with a 6B graphite pencil.

After working with some sepia and sanguine pencils (the sepia pencil was horrible to use – scratchy and sticky) I added a bit of colour in, using a green colour as well as the black for chalk pastels, oil pastels and felt tip pens – just to differentiate them from the other tools as much as anything – the chalk pastel especially looks quite like the charcoal. I was surprised to find that the felt tip pen mark didn’t vary to any significant degree whatever pressure I used.

I then moved on to a big A1 sheet of paper and drew big gestures with the 6B graphite pencil which was my favourite of the implements. I again tried a graduated shading one of the random shapes created. It’s not too even; I’ve still got some work to do there!