A Question for Will: Why is it Important to Position the Pencil Correctly?

I wondered who figured out YOUR ‘correct position’. There are quite a number of ways one can hold a pencil, with some ‘correct’ for certain ‘jobs’, while inefficient for others. My suggestion is, in the first place, that you not get habituated to ‘one size fits all’.

As example; when I need to use a very light touch, I back my hand [way] up, close to the unsharpened end, using a fairly new [full-length] pencil. Sometimes; particularly while standing to draw from the figure the rhinoceros, at the zoo, I anchor the butt end of the pencil centered in my palm, and grasp with thumb, index, middle finger, and sometimes the third, or ring finger. I can think of six other grips; all useful, all related to what I see happening on the page, or when I’m lettering, from darkest darks,etc., to fast sketch work, or slow and deliberated. Each works well for some things, not well on the others.

WR