How to: draw a line...like an artist

Whenever I get time in our spare bedroom [aka my studio] to tinker around and paint or draw or make crafts, it's so fulfilling!

For example, I made these awesome fascinators for a friend's wedding. Fun city!

The right side of your brain never ever gets to 'workout' like the left side...day in and day out at work and whatnot. I've had fun drawing ever since I was little. In art school I learned a bunch of tips and techniques and learned even more just through experience and over time.

Want to learn how to draw a line [the right way?] like an artist?

You'll be drawing caricatures in no time ;) Just kidding, I can't guarantee that, this is for fun silly!

Most of our lines drawn come out looking fatty-fat like this

I mean, nothing is wrong with this line. It's a pretty darn good line. But what about if you want to learn to draw using different values of shading and color? What if you don't want your anger to strike you at the wrong time, causing an unsightly hole in your paper?

It's all about how you hold your pencil...really!

Most people hold their pencil like this when they draw:

The problem is, when you do that, you don't have the ability to change the color value of your lines and you tend to just have one, dark, color range in your drawings.

The key is to change your finger-grip & also to change how far back on the pencil you place your hand/fingers.

Here's a good placement for regular drawing. If you want to do a light sketch you'd move your hand farther back on the pencil.

When you do that, you can start light and then darken once you're happy with how your drawing/line looks (depending on how you're feeling you might want to do more than a line...go ahead, go bananas!)

See, it's that easy! 

Once you change that, you no longer get big, fat lines, and can sketch like a pro!

Any questions folks?
Let me know any ideas you have for other 'artsy' posts I can do, now go draw!