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Fun drawing exercise : Distressed Graphite Postcards

distressed graphite cards
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Fun drawing exercise : Distressed Graphite Postcards

Summer is a great time to be experimenting with fun drawing exercise on postcards sized paintings or drawings. The advantage of this project is that anyone can do it, adults and kids alike and that it doesn’t take much time, plus you can always send a card with a drawing of a place you are visiting by snail mail, it doesn’t happen very often anymore so it will be a nice gesture.

You might also like : Summer Fun: Watercolor Ombre Postcards

fun drawing exercise distressed graphite postcards

To make these distressed graphite cards, you will need:

  • A very soft graphite, I used a 9B Derwent pencil
  • A white eraser
  • Card-stock paper
supplies you will need

You can either draw a scene like a landscape, plants… or draw an abstract design.

fun drawing activity

You can draw a scene at home.

You can draw plants- learn how to draw

You can draw plants

draw a mandala for a postcard

Or you can draw abstract designs, here a “mandala inspired design”

You might also be interested in  : Zentangle and Mandala Inspired Christmas Cards Ideas

graphite mandala

This is a fun drawing exercise that you can enjoy as a family.

simple drawing exercise

I am a Blick Art Materials affiliate and I receive a small compensation for sales. That does not effect in any way the cost of the purchaser’s order but it helps me keeping the content of this blog free.

Strathmore Artist Tiles

Ideal for pattern drawing and meditative art, these affordable, pre-cut artist tiles by Strathmore help make the process of combining repetitive marks, circles, lines, and forms both fun and easy to learn. – 300 Series Bristol Artist Tiles.

Strathmore 400 Series Mixed Media Cards


Strathmore’s 400 Series Mixed Media is a heavyweight, 140 lb paper that combines the attributes of a watercolor paper with a vellum drawing finish. Ideal for wet and dry media, these cards accept watercolors, gouache, acrylics, graphite, pen-and-ink, colored pencils, markers, and collage. – 400 Series Mixed Media Cards, Pkg of 100 with FREE Stencil.

simple drawing activity

This technique will work better if you make the outlines of what you draw very dark, you cam go over them a few times. You can also color in a few areas.

When you are done with the drawing, take the eraser and move it on the surface of the drawing. Here you are not trying to erase lines so much as to smudge lines on the surface of the drawing, so it will work better if you are using a light hand. Some lines will be smudged and some lines will be erased, it will all blend together.

easy drawing exercise

You can decide to erase with straight lines or curved lines and can experiment with both styles.

When you are done, you can erase a bit around the edges of the card to make it look cleaner, and outline or not along that clean edge.

easy drawing activity

I just erased along the edges without outlining.

make you own postcards

Or outline along that clean edge.

distressed graphite postcards
have fun drawing distressed graphite postcards
5/5 - (1 vote)

Comments (8)

  1. […] You might also like: Fun drawing exercise : Distressed Graphite Postcards […]

  2. Barbara Balkin

    I’ve just discovered you and am so enjoying your posts! These cards are such a fun (yet simple) idea for our upcoming vacation. The technique has a very unique look. Thank you!

    1. Thanks Barbara 🙂

  3. Mary

    Hi Sandrine, thanks for the great tutorial. Question: Do you use a spray fixative when finished, so that it doesn’t smear further? Also, I just love the revamped site. Awesome!

    1. Thanks Mary:), I did not use fixative but that would be a good idea if you want to mail them.

  4. Interesting effects! I need to get some card stock paper. I’m guessing it comes in tablets. Does it specify “card stock” or go by another label?

    1. You could use Bristol paper that will be acid free or you could use card stock from an affine supplies store, the kind you can print on. It is cheaper but not acid free.

      1. Diane

        Thank you!

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