Blue pencil sketching

Sketching in blue pencil is a very effective communication skill and is used for a number of reasons. Firstly, the blue pencil work should always be with a mechanical pencil (0.7mm) as this gives a sharp edge to the soft blue lead – if you use a blue coloured pencil it will become ‘blunt’ very quickly. With a mechanical pencil you can press harder and also use it delicately (pressing very lightly) which helps to create ‘Weight of Line’.

Blue pencil is also very difficult to erase and as such will therefore show all of your ‘working out’ in sketches which is a good thing. The blue colour is a particular tone of blue which helps to create ‘layers’ when then combined with black fine line pen and markers. Black is a more dominant colour than the blue and so the black fine line work becomes the top layer and the blue ‘sits‘ behind it. This gives your design sheet multiple layers (see examples below) and becomes more visually exciting to look at. You should also consider the ‘weight’ of your lifework – see Weight of Line.

Weight of Line