Vilppu Educational Products

Lectures Series' on DVD

Art Supplies

Articles

Some Notes from Glenn on the Materials You Use

"The material you use to draw with is a personal matter.  A few practical suggestions and personal preferences follow.  First, I suggest that you use a good quality paper.  Do not use newsprint since it will not last but a short time exposed, and is not suitable except for the most basic exercise; it is not meant to last.  A good quality of bond paper, acid-free should be your basic drawing paper.  Canson, in various colors, is my preferred paper for finished works.  The pencils I use will vary on the kind of drawing I am doing, but generally, I prefer the Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils of various colors.  I prefer the Polychromos since they tend not to break as easily as some other brands, and they allow for easier pick up as well as blending.  In doing a larger drawing, I will use CarbOthello by Stabilo, Conte pencils, charcoal pencils, and vine charcoal.  I personally do not work very large.  Most of my head drawings are no larger than 8 1/2”x11”." 

Comments to his students going on the Italy tour with Glenn:

"My basic rule is that if I can't put it into my pocket or it isn't attached to my sketch book, I don't take it.  Secondly, I am sketching, not doing finished oil paintings or large scale water colors.  I also [work] no larger than 8.5"x11" [in the field].

"The materials I take are simple:  Small pan watercolor sets, I actually have two attached with Velcro to my sketch book that I can flip to any page I am working on.  There are a number of sets available on the market.  The two sets I have each have 12 colors...

"I almost exclusively use brushes that have the water in the handles, so that I do not need to carry extra water containers...

"I make my own sketch books so that I can have a variety of papers, both watercolor and good quality writing papers...  The writing paper I prefer is made by Crane and is 100% rag (this particular paper he favors is no longer being manufactured)...

"The reason I use writing paper is that I do much of my drawing using a pen, and that I rely upon a certain amount of bleeding of ink when it is wet with a brush.  Most art papers do not work as well for my purposes.  The pen I prefer is a Namiki Falcon for its flexibility. Pens are a very personal item and you need to have one that you feel comfortable with.  The criteria for my pens are that they should be refillable with my preferred ink and that the ink should be soluble in water and not waterproof.  I prefer a flexible tip fountain pen, though many of mine are fairly stiff.  You can spend anywhere from $5.95 to $350 (actually to several thousand dollars for the collectibles!), for a pen... You should try a variety of pens to see how they feel...(Glenn uses sepia or brilliant brown colored ink in my pens, alternating with black, to get a mixed color, brown/black)

"I also carry a small group of pencils with me.  I feel the best all around pencil is the Polychromos by Faber-Castell.  I usually have a couple of different colors.  I also bring a white pastel pencil that I use with some of the colored Canson papers that I put in my sketch book.  A knife for sharpening pencils and a kneaded eraser fill out the basic list of materials that I take with me...

"Look at the photos of my sketchbook for a better idea of how I put this all together.  This is the way I do it, but of course you can approach this any way that you wish..."