MINOT – Some artists use paint, some music, and some, like Sawyer Duckwitz, Moffit, use a special kind of pencil, called a graphite pencil.
At her table at the North Dakota State Fair, Duckwitz said she starts her work by identifying an object or building she will draw, then placing herself at the angle she wishes to draw her picture.
“It looks more interesting than straight on because it has more perspective,” said Duckwitz.
Duckwitz moves her table to the correct spot to get the angle she needs.
Some of Duckwitz’s pictures she will color in, but others she leaves black and white.
“I’ll use charcoal for really dark stuff, if I want black,” said Duckwitz. “The colored ones are pastels.”
A lot of Duckwitz’s work has to do with measuring.
“I’ll take my pencil and measure how big it is compared to one side of the building,” said Duckwitz. “So I can have it more to-scale to proportion.”
Duckwitz said pencils were invented at the end of the eighteenth century, where people from that century had the powder that is in the modern graphite pencil. When the powder was mixed with clay, it made the graphite harder.
“The more clay, the harder, and the less dark it is,” said Duckwitz.
While Duckwitz has been drawing for a long time, she started this specific type of drawing last year at the fair.
