Pencil Artist of the Week: James Back

This week’s featured pencil artist is James Back, a pencil artist from the United States who goes by the handle Ysssk on DeviantArt. James creates some truly fantastic pencil drawings using a combination of a standard #2 pencil and some deceptively brilliant (and budget friendly) materials and techniques. James was kind enough to give me a breakdown of his tools and his creative process:

“My Materials and methods are very simple.

I use a regular #2 pencil, usually with advertising on it from a bank or garage. I have used professional art pencils, and never cared for them. If I have a white area in the drawing, like the fret markings on a guitar or white letters on a shirt, I lightly draw them with a white colored pencil first, that way as I blend and shade no color gets on it.

My blend stick is a sucker stick, sharpened in a pencil sharpener. I use it to gently smudge and apply feint shadings to areas it needs. I also use a chopstick, also sharpened, for even subtler effects.

My paper is regular acid free card stock (from the office supply place). I DO use artist sketch pads when I need a larger size. I like to work on primed paper. I use craft white paint, applied thickly to the paper, brushed on with a stiff boar bristle fan brush, first side to side, then vertically. This gives the paper a nice texture like canvas. It also allows for easy erasure, which I do a lot.

I work at my kitchen table, where my light is best. I like to use photographs and images on royalty free sites to base my sketches on. I like to see how things look in reality, and try hard to replicate that.

So, my techniques are simple, because I am self-taught. My Equipment, basic, because that is what I had to practice with.”

I LOVE some of these techniques. Using a sucker stick as a blending stump is genius. I also like the idea of working on primed paper, something I’ve never tried. I can’t wait to get home and give some of these tips a spin.

Drawings by James Back

If you want to see more of James’ drawings, you can check out his DeviantArt profile here.

What do you think Pencils Blog readers? Do you know someone who should be featured as our Pencil Artist of the Week? Let us know in the comments!