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I love to draw! Much of my professional work has centered around drawing in one form or another, from animation studies to medical illustration. I didn’t begin focusing on painting until around 2006, and while I enjoy its scope and complexity, I’ve never lost my attachment to line.

My more realistic acrylic paintings begin with a carefully observed drawing, developed from life, museum specimens, photos, or a combination of all three. Personally, I find that transferring or tracing a drawing can diminish some of its character, so I draw on rice paper and attach the original directly to the canvas.

Warthog drawing on kinwashi rice paper

Early on, I struggled with the idea that the immediacy of that drawing might be lost under layers of paint. I experimented with very transparent pigments but eventually began incorporating soluble pencils—and found that they offered some unique advantages within the painting process.

Here are a few ways I use them:

1. Mapping out values
Saturated color is compelling (and a little addictive), which can make it difficult to step back and evaluate a painting’s value structure. After attaching the drawing, I use soluble pencil to establish the background values, helping to direct attention toward the focal areas before committing to full color.

Bighorn Ram drawing in rice paper

2. Building texture
Used wet or dry, soluble pencils are excellent for developing texture. This detail, from a bison painting, began with light acrylic glazes over the original drawing. I then used soluble pencil to reinforce the fur patterns—sometimes blending them smoothly, and sometimes allowing the natural grain of the pigment to remain visible. I enjoy leaving areas like this less resolved, so the underlying structure of the piece remains part of the final image.

Bison fur detail, acrylic and soluble pencil on canvas

3. Adding neutral and semi-neutral tones
I’ll admit that building rich neutrals doesn’t come naturally to me. Simply adding gray or black can flatten a color, and even complements don’t always produce the effect I want. I’ve had success combining blue, brown, or black soluble pencils with rich transparent acrylic glazes—quinacridone nickel azo gold, phthalo turquoise, even dioxazine purple. Layering these combinations can produce complex, chromatic darks; I used this approach extensively in developing the fur of a juvenile bear cub.

Juvenile black bear detail, acrylic and soluble pencil on canvas

A quick note of caution: depending on the brand and how heavily the pencil is applied, pigments may reactivate under a liquid varnish. I recommend using a fixative before varnishing to stabilize the surface. If you’re interested in testing approaches, I’ve shared some experiments in my earlier post, “The ‘Archetypes’ Series: Testing Spectrafix Fixative and Varnish on Mixed Media.”

Even as my work has become more painterly, drawing remains at the core of how I think—and soluble pencils have become one of the most effective ways I’ve found to carry that line forward into the final painting.