While I could draw without erasers, my drawing technique would be tremendously different without them. From grass seed heads to my cat’s whiskers, my erasers have helped me draw every graphite piece I’ve ever made. I depend on my erasers as much as I depend on my pencils, so I guess I’m officially a pencil and eraser artist.
However, I hardly ever apply an eraser to the paper in its original form. I usually pinch it, cut it, or alter its shape somehow to help create the effect I’m looking for.
Here are the erasers I use and how I use them. I’ve listed them in the order I use them most.
The Best Erasers
Kneaded erasers are the most useful for erasing and manipulating graphite. I like General’s Brand. They are slightly sticky, but not too much. You can lighten a shaded area by gentle tapping or rolling. And you can pinch them into a point and then use the tip to create subtle detail and texture.
If you have a dark area in the drawing that you need to remove, pull up as much graphite as possible using a kneaded eraser first by pressing and lifting. Then use a polymer eraser to erase the remainder. If you don’t use the kneaded eraser first, you could end up smearing the graphite and even driving it farther into the paper with a polymer eraser. (Yes, I learned this the hard way.)
Kneaded erasers are great for general clean-up work around the edges of the drawing, too. However, since they’re sticky, they tend to get lost. I usually keep the one I’m using stuck to my drawing board, in a small pill box, or stuck in the cap of a Coke bottle, but they still get lost. It seems to be their nature, so I buy the small ones and get five or six at a time. Happily, they’re cheap.
As far as I know, no one has discovered that the Kemper Wipe Out Tool can be used as an eraser except me, so don’t take this into your art class because you’ll get a lot of weird looks. It’s actually meant to be used for shaping clay, but the tips are made of rubber and rubber is an excellent eraser. One end is wedge shaped and the other is a round point. If you use them to draw details by gently stroking and dabbing, the points will last a long time. Clean the points on your kneaded eraser.
Pentel’s Hi-Polymer Erasers are excellent for removing graphite without damaging the paper.
I’ve started topping my most used HB pencils with eraser caps, and now I wonder why it took me so long to remember what I normally did with every pencil I had when I was a kid.
These caps are especially handy when I’m planning a drawing. It saves so much time to just spin the pencil around and use the eraser when I need to move a line. The wedge shape is surprisingly good at erasing in tight spots, and now I can always spot an HB pencil, too. :)
Some of you might not know that the first erasers were made of real rubber from the rubber plant, so there’s your history lesson for today. Cretacolor’s Monolith Eraser is made of real rubber from India. They are large and inexpensive.
This eraser lifts graphite a high polymer eraser won’t touch, and it doesn’t damage the paper.
The Tombow Mono Knock Stick Eraser is bright green and easy to see, grab, and maneuver.
The eraser is thick and stiff so you can erase large areas, but it can be cut into points and wedges to erase highlights and details. However, Tombow makes a smaller eraser that’s better for tiny details. (See next.)
The Tombow Mono Zero is a small round stiff eraser, but it doesn’t damage the paper. The eraser’s diameter is much smaller than the Mono Knock Stick Eraser, and it’s excellent for tiny detail work. You can trim it into a thin but firm wedge for delicate erasing in tight areas. It’s refillable too, but one eraser stick lasts a long time.
The Helix Cordless Eraser is a good, low-priced battery powered eraser.
The eraser tip spins so you can sharpen it on sandpaper to a fine point. That means you can lay down a background of graphite and draw into with your eraser. You can pull the eraser farther out of its metal sheath when it gets too short, so you can ‘sharpen’ one nib several times.
I’ve used my electric eraser to draw back lit stems, tiny stamens inside flowers, highlights in eyes, insect wings, leaf textures, grass patterns, and reflections in metal and glass, to name just the few things I can think of off the top of my head. Get a pack of extra eraser nibs. They’re not expensive, and you’ll go through a lot at first.