7 DRAWING HACKS Pro Artists Use That Actually Work 

Just want to add a tip/hack for keeping colored pencils sharpened-when they start to get dull, you can also use sandpaper to “sharpen” the tip to avoid having to use a sharpener that eats away all the pigment with the wood.

I’m a museum conservator. In support of Kirstie’s comments , by all means, blend your own art with anything you like. But please please don’t expect it to last long term. Some of these products age badly. It’s totally your right and prerogative to make this decision but please make it in an informed way. It’s awful to see ruined art that the artists intended to last. Or a disappointed client who’s paid a lot for something that ten years down the line has developed weird stains. We had one recently where the paint peeled off the substrate in sheets, heartbreaking to see as the work was otherwise lovely. Information and intent are key. Make sure you have both. It’s absolutely fine to use whatever you like. Sculpt in cheese or chocolate if you want. (It’s fun🤪). But be informed about the consequences.

I've been drawing and painting for 40 yrs now. I use to sell my work but the demand for more and more got overwhelming to me and took the fun out of it for me. Now i do it for myself or for gifts and loving it all over again. Some people ask me how I make everything look so realistic. I tell them that I was taught how to draw an egg. I taught my daughter this when she was 13 yrs old and she's a great artist too. You see, an egg isn't really white at all. It will have a white spot on it depending on where your light source is coming from though. The rest is shading and making a shadow under your egg from your light source. Once you can master an egg, you can paint and draw anything. Happy Holidays Everyone! 😊 Patty

There was a time when I was in depression. Didn't know what to do with my life. I mean I had a job and all ..... just landed my first job actually but didn't know exactly what to do with my life. Also I was having some personal issues in my life. Things that really affected me mentally. I needed an escape. Then I came across this channel and I watched like all of the videos. Sketching was something that was close to my heart in my childhood but slowly I became distant from sketching. Now I finish atleast one face portrait once a month every month. All thanks to this channel

Kirsty is one of those Art youtubers who genuinely want the subscribers to learn art in the most professional way possible while maintaining the ease one needs when they start their art journey. We appreciate you for that Kirsty.

As a beginner artist and self taught your tips and hacks really improved my drawing. You are really an inspiration for me. Lots of love from India❤️

The "rotate the pencil" hack to make the lead last longer is actually something that used to be taught in high school drafting classes. It's typically used when drawing with a lead clutch against a straightedge. As for the household products hack...I've found that one way to increase the working time of acrylic paints is to mix a bit of KY jelly into the paint. It's cheaper than the mediums most people use and is mostly glycerin so it's non-toxic. Thanks for this video.

Using your tips and techniques I could see a huge difference in my drawings. Found you a year ago. And watching regularly. Thanks for all your videos

As a novice, I'm eternally grateful their are artists like Kirsty out there. People who are generous with their artistic knowledge & techniques. Personally, I cherish people who freely impart there intellectual property without desiring monetary reward. God bless you Kirsty. I'll thankfully use this color pencil knowledge & convert that knowledge into wisdom by becoming proficient as a color pencil artist. Lastly, armed with your incite on the correct paper mediums to use, my blending & shading has expeditiously improved. Please keep your zest as an artistic teacher! Sincerely your appreciative fan Jimmy.

Me: bored *Rae and Kirsty let's end your boredom!*

I used to use a small, oddly-shaped piece of leather to blend my charcoal and/or pastels, that I had no idea where it came from. It always worked beautifully. TYSM for the tutorial!

The Stylist to put the little lines in the watercolor paper & coloring over that. It’s looks genius! Now let’s see if I can pull it off! Thank you!

I guess nobody uses a "colorless" colored pencil to blend colored pencil work. Prismacolor makes a blending stick that is colorless. It works beautifully. It blends, smoothes, protects, and intensifies the color. And they last forever.

Love these hacks and use them often. When using a stylus to create indentations in the paper, I place a sheet of clear acetate over the paper and apply the stylus to the acetate. Prevents damage to the paper while still creating even the heaviest of indentations. As always, wonderful video!

Congratulations on your RU-vid success! It shows that perseverance can take your natural artistic talent to a mastery of charcoal, color pencils, etc., as well as inspiring beginners like myself to make practice a daily habit. I will encourage others to visit this channel as an excellent resource with many practical tips. Kirsty, keep up the good work!

I love all things art and I am a beginner watercolorist. I have tried pencil drawings from time to time, but when I look at your incredible work, I can honestly say that I doodle at best!!. I could use any of the multitude of adjectives to describe what I think of your work, but none would be descriptive enough!!!. So I will only say You have a God given talent.❤

You are one of those youtubers who actually help people to improve their art.....I love u a lot sis,thank u 💜

Thank you! I think the one I’m Most excited to try is the indenting to preserve the white or some base color.. I can imagine so many uses for that technique .. your post really stimulated my imagination. Thank you 😊

I love the idea of rotating your pencil so it stays sharper long and you lose less of the pencil. It had never occurred to me.. Thank you!!

I've been painting with acrylic and focusing on that a lot but yesterday I was thinking about how much I miss painting with colored pencils so this video is just what I need, so new subscriber here!! Thank you for sharing your knowledge!!

I'm such a fan of your work! Im always inspired and motivated to do more with my art work! you are seriously so talented. I was wondering if you would ever consider a sketchbook tour or showing all your recent work in a video?

Thank you for this video. I haven't used coloured pencils or graphite pencils for years, so you reminded me of many techniques I had forgotten and a couple of new tips along the way. 😊

You always inspire me whenever I feel like giving up . Thank you kirsty .

I am fairly new to the world of art and I really appreciate your videos!! Thank you!!!

yep, been using the window technique for over 15 years now! Used it yesterday, too. It's comforting to use sunlight!

Another hack I just saw the other day was for charcoal/graphite shading. Instead of using a cloth or cotton swab, use a make up sponge. It makes a huge difference in the smoothness of the blend.

Like the first ones I have not thought of that, an I'm happy that someone still know how to save the panel an traces on the window...that was always one of my favorite things to do.

I have been thinking about getting back into drawing and painting. I will definitely keep these tips in mind when I do. It makes the drawing look so much better.

3:43 the denting tool is also the same as a nail art dotting tool and also works the same as this i use them all the time with my artwork lol!

The indenting the paper trick is so cool! I’m gonna try it on something I’ve been working on. So funny cuz I kept eye balling a tool like that at the cash register at ACE hardware and my mind kept telling me I should get it lol but the other side of my mind was wondering what for. Now I gotta go make a trip there to get it

I like using the tool to etch the lines so you can put layers of color over leaving the color below showing through. So helpful for so much. Like animal patterns and all kinds of stuff.

Hello Kirsty thank you for the tips and I appreciate the time you put into helping me learn different techniques! Enjoy your day!!❤❤❤

Wow I must be old-school. I have a BA degree in fine art, and my professors taught us to never to smudge with fingers, use baby oil, Vaseline etc. The only thing I would consider doing is the scoring or scratching of the paper to get the light white areas. We were taught to sharpen pencils with a knife. No waisted colored pencils! Smudging with your fingers or cloth is going to ruin the tooth of the paper and then the paper won’t except more layers of color. It will be very difficult to add the layers that you need. I’ve been teaching Art for 35 years and I use ONLY Art materials made for artists, even with my young artists, so that their Art will last a lifetime. YOUR Art is precious. If you learn proper layering and blending techniques you won’t need to use baby oil and Vaseline to blend your colors! Use another color value and use that as your blending tool. Basically proper technique is all you need to learn. Practice blending with just colors first.

Thank you Kirsty, I am a beginner artist in RU-vid & your videos always inspire me to create better and better. From India 🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳

I have been doing art with colored pencils for years and have taken art through middle and high school (I am a freshman in college). I am most excited to try out the window tracing technique, I actually just traced one of my drawings onto different paper a couple of days ago using my iPad on a white screen, but it kept shifting around and it is hard not to bend the paper when the iPad is smaller than your drawing. Thank you so much for the tip, I love this channel and it has been incredibly useful to me!

Aren't you incredible? A blessing for us who want to improve our drawing skills. Be blessed.

The tracing paper/ parchment paper trick is really good for us lefties, even for handwriting!

I watched this last fall when I was putting together my Christmas wish list. I am watching it again as a refresher, while I'm doing a colored pencil drawing. I was wondering how I would indicate trees on a distant hill when you mentioned the incising tool. Oh yeah, I think. I have those! Perfect. :)

My favorite is how you keep hairs detailed by indenting the paper before applying color! Thanks for sharing

You are the only youtuber that actually gave me some imp. Tips and I was finding this type of video from 1 year and suddenly your video came recomended and now I'm super happy cuz things that u said to use to make a painting or sketch better are already at my home....... And I hope my painting or sketch will become much better 😌

Kirsty, love your artwork and thank you so much for these tips and the free guides, very kind of you. 💖🙏🏼

Amazing hacks! Thanks Kirsty I would definitely apply these to my process. Yay, exciting 😁

Thank you for sharing. I really like the blending hacks and also using the window rather than a light box. Terrific hacks!

I knew couple of these hacks. But I really like the brush idea. I've used a cloth before for blending and a sheet of paper for helping protect the drawing as I'm drawing. I knew about using a window to replace using a light box, but have never actually used it for one reason or another. The only time I've used a light box was at my aunt and uncle's studio. The tips for colored pencils is awesome. I may have to try it some time.

Great tips!! Beautiful artwork too! I'm definitely trying the alternative blending solutions. Tfs 😁

For the blending hack I have something better than a paintbrush. There are these tools made of rolled up paper specifically made for blending and they come in many different sizes. I find that they work pretty well

I love your channel so much! You are such a big inspiration!❤️

These were great tips, so thank you. The one I love the most is using the metal tool for depressions into the paper to create the whites. That was amazingly useful.

Hey Kirsty.So cool when you're more consistent!I learn a lot from your videos.Thanks!!☺

Thanks so much. Am a competent crafter about to attend a mixed media art class and think these tips are priceless. Very clear, precise tutorial - I have subscribed.

Wow this video just changed the way I will do art from now on. Thank you so much, this stuff makes it so much easier and changed the way you can do things that are complicated

I’m very happy to try out all of your tips but I am extra excited about the indenting tool tip 😃

hey Kirsty, this is the first video of your channel that came to my feed as recommended cause I literally learned a lot in the beginning from youtube and I still follow a lot of the art demo, Conservation , history, artist bio, art theories and lectures channels.I also do write abt art. The commercial work I do is mainly designing book covers of poetry and short story. I knew most of the hacks you showed and I use the brush and cotton tip for blending and use my tv sometimes for tracing as well as the window or create a temporary with a glass surface and torch light. I haven't tried the oil or household item using technique in pencil drawings...but, now that I know I can use hand sanitizers too, I will give it a try. cause there's a lot of sanitizers laying around in the house because of Covid.🙂 The only thing new I.learnt from your video is the pencil rotating hack to keep them last long. I think, It's a great tip! thanks for that. You have a great voice and I really liked your to the point narration style. So, I subscribed. there's a lot of interesting titles am seeing in your channel-- some of which I'll watch and also will be looking forward for your new videos. watching art videos has now became a part of my daily entertainment, so I sometimes watch them eventhough I know the content from some other channel just for fun. every artist and youtuber describes things differently and I find the subtle nuances and idiosyncrasies differing from one another very intersting. wrote a long comment,ain't I? anyways, happy drawing and sketching and coloring and making videos abt them etc. bye. --yusuf banna * ( both the 'a' sounds in 'banna' is 'aaaa' like the 'U' sound in 'Umbrella '🙂)

Love your videos ❤ They really helped me a lot to improve❤

In school we used the window to copy outlines, this was over 50 years ago and I still use this method. I was very impressed to use the dotter to keep lines white. I use this with my alcohol inks for interesting mark making. TFS

Thank you for sharing those hacks. I particularly like the craft knife one. I have always wondered at how artists achieve the white lines, that really make a difference to a piece of work. 👍💖

One of my favourite artists on RU-vid ✨🥺

Great hacks and tips! Thank you ❤️

I loved the one with negative white space!!!! Also method for sharpening pencils AND window tracing!

Thanks for the helpful ideas. I didn't even know there were blending solutions for color pencils but the best new idea was using makeup brushes for blending charcoal/graphite -- they're really perfect for it!

My favorite of these hacks is the indenting tool - I've been thinking of how to approach the grass in the foreground of a landscape, and it was a revelation! Thank you . . . I wonder, though, if using alcohol or some other solvent a legitimate technique? Will it harm the paper in some way or still look acceptable in subsequent years ?

Excellent tutorial! I particularly like your suggestion of using a sunlit window as a lightbox. Subbed!

I'm new to drawing and the money-saving hacks were great!

very good to see classic tricks and hacks performed by a young talented artist ... using a window pane as a lightbox is also an old workable solution but it's limited to daytime ... hence the need to have a real lightbox with electric lights that could work day and night ...

I believe that you can up your game by adding fruits or vegetables or flowers anything natural to your portraits, like more motion... Making it like a screenshot of a video or real life events, that sort of thing. 👌🌹❤️

I love your peaceful way of teaching. Just beautiful. How should someone start drawing? Where to start? I never did it but I love the peace comes with it when drawing.

Thanks Kirsty, I love the tip on drawing grass.... well done, you are a stunning artist!

Literally the best artist I've ever seen its so satisfying to watch her draw

I appreciate your beautiful artwork and tips. Using the embossing tool for whiskers & hair I must try. However the “cotton bird” is the one that made me smile. I didn’t know I had cotton birds but they do look like my Q tips. 😄 I’m just across the pond in A country called Texas so this one was new to me.

I‘ve actually used several of these tips….hadn’t thought of trying to use cloth to blend pencils though…may need to try it.

Thank you so much for your help and also the guideline book you made and also for showing us these hacks,once again Thank you.

Love the indenting hack , I work mainly in paint but am enjoying using charcoal and pastels at the moment , will definitely try this for animal fur , 👍 excellent video , well put together clear and concise. Thank you. 🤗

Besides rotating the tip of your pencil to extend the life of it, you can also use fairly smooth sandpaper let's say 240 grit and above, it is basically the same concept of extending the life of the sandpaper itself by moving the sanded object around the sandpaper to use it quite equally. Thank you so much for the nice tips.

I personally use watercolors pencils so I can easily blend it with water it helps me a lot 😊

Thank you for adding the information of household items not being archivial. I would never have thought of that on my own

i really appreciate all of your knowledge and suggestions but was especially thrilled with the eyeglasses cleaning cloth idea for blending because i have extremely dry skin and work with my hands so much that the skin is always very rough and often cracked and then glued with krazy glue to keep from bleeding on my work. this suggestion alone will allow me to blend in ways which has always been impossible for me. thank you so much :)

I am curious how these hacks can help in colouring books? I can’t really draw but love colouring books especially with pencils

Hi Kirsty, it would be super cool for you to sell templates with this technique stamped on on various types of paper for other artists and even for yourself... With 3D printers anything is possible. 👍 I hope you find this helpful, business speaking.

Thank you so much. As an experienced artist I appreciate you & your tips, and am aware of long term weaknesses. Your artwork is beautiful, thank you for sharing this with us.

These are some great tips, and your artwork is stunning!! I hav'nt realy spent much time on a single drawing in months, and this has inspired me to start puting work into my drawings again so tysm for taking the time to do this vid!

After we use baby oil, or vaseline can we add layers over it? Does it take long to get dry?

Hi kirsty.. I am spoorthi from india .. I love ur art videos .. And i am 4 th view and 4 like .. Expecting a heart from kirsty... Lots of love india..

I needed this kind of video to be sane for a few minutes. Thank you for explaining so well.

My current medium is markers but I had never seen you before and I lived this video. You're beautiful, your voice is just right, the content well explained sans extra drivel ... Well done!

Drawing on the vertical surface of a window is difficult. If you have a tablet, opening a document to a white page will give you an effective light box screen.

first :))

You’re amazing to share these hacks with us. This by far is the best video I’ve seen especially to those just starting out.

All your hack ideas are so helpful. Thank you Kristy

I was surprised you didn't mention burnishing, at least to contrast it as another blending/smoothing method. I've resisted buying a dotting tool through my nail art phase, my crafting phases, my paint phase... but I suppose I should finally give in and get something like that. I wonder if even using the sharp back of the pencil would work. I will keep the rotating thing in mind too. Thanks!

All your hacks are really nice I can't choose a favorite cuz you turned me onto a lot of new ways to draw and use my colored pencils and shade and blend thank you

I like your little tricks/recommendations which are very handy. I will try the paper at the window as I don´t have my light box with me. Thank you for taking time to make your videos.

Thank you!! I'm honestly excited by all of these I can't just choose one XD

These are great tips! Thanks, I'm always looking for ways to work smarter...

Thanks for sharing these hacks, I am excited to try the cotton bud technique.

thankyou so much for making these tutorials. i am very blessed to have such an amazing artist make awesome and very helpful art videos.

ok so the window tracing changes EVERYTHING. THANKYOU!!!!

Thank you so much for these tips! The coloured pencils hacks were really useful! ☺

I definitely like the last advice the most - using natural light going through a window to trace pictures onto a drawing 😊 will try it out!

I didn't even start watching the video and I already like you. PLEASE DO MORE

I think the embossing tool was a game changer. Thank you.❤❤❤❤