Pencil Artist of the Week: Ed Hall

This week’s featured pencil artist is a self proclaimed “editorial cartoonist with bite.” His name is Ed Hall and he is the weekly cartoonist at the Baker County Press in Macclenny, Florida. He’s also an award winning cartoonist who has been honored by the Florida Press Association and The Society of Professional Journalists, among others, and a drawing instructor for About.com.

Ed’s style lends itself perfectly to satire and cartoons, but he also has the ability to draw realistic works that capture the essence of his subjects. His creative process is also cemented firmly in the graphite medium. When asked to describe his creative process, Ed shared the following:

“I am never without my sketchbook, and I constantly have a compulsion to sketch people and places. As a political cartoonist, I use these drawings to strengthen my caricatures. Whether visiting the local coffee house, sitting at the bookstore, or accompanying my wife shopping, I am interested in catching people in unassuming states of being. Now I find myself following the same behaviors in animals, and I find that the pencil sketch is the best and quickest way to capture that action through gesture. But the pencil can also be used in longer, more precise and formal poses. My pencil of choice lately is the Blackwing Palomino. It has the flexibility to create very thin subtle cross-hatched lines or very thick, heavy and dark lines, depending upon pressure.”