Scribbly stan: uses of putty rubber

Our guest beginner artist has written a bit to explain how he uses a putty rubber (also called a kneaded or kneadable eraser).

putty rubber

This little beauty has saved me on a number of occasions primarily because it can erase coloured pencil. As I mentioned before I often combine coloured pencil and pen-and-ink and if you’ve got a nicely defined illustration and then stray over a line it can really spoil the look of the piece.

In a discussion with an artist friend last weekend however I discovered that there are different ways of using putty rubber that I hadn’t thought of and vice versa. My friend’s modus operandi is to take the whole thing out of its little packet, screw it up into a ball and use the whole thing all at once. Perhaps it is a reflection of some of the detail in my work that I have never done that.

The thing about putty rubber is that, though it takes away colour unlike many standard erasers.

plastic eraser

It also doesn’t crumble or crumb, meaning that the colour or graphite lifted from the page is still attached to it. Because of this, my approach when doing fine work is to pinch off a tiny amount and use it carefully to clean up the tiny patches I am working with and then, when it is dangerously close to the point that it could put colour back onto the page where it could cause me more problems, I throw it away.

This approach allows me both the accuracy I require and protects my
work from smudging other colours onto the white space.

What works and what doesn’t
In my previous post about different coloured pencil brands I pointed out that in my experience the cheaper ones tend to be harder and carry less pigment. Because of this, I have found that if I’ve used a harder pencil (and often this means more pressure to create the desired colour intensity) it can be harder to lift off with rubber of any sort.

On the other hand, using very soft pencils such as Luminance can mean that there can be less accuracy in the drawing, with coloured dust falling where you wouldn’t want it to. In these cases I would try and build up layers gradually to avoid having one heavy layer of pigment in the wrong place.

Other uses
One other thing I found myself doing (perhaps by instinct) was using crumbs of putty rubber to create texture. Much in the same way one would use a piece of sponge to lift away colour on a watercolour if trying to create a mottled clouded sky, I have used crumbs, rolled between finger and paper to create texture in a shaded area.

Try it for yourself.

Any more ingenious uses I’ve not thought of?