Drawing medium advice

[fireheart]

So I've taken up drawing lately as a hobby. I generally like to be arty and crafty and try a whole bunch of things, but this is really taking my focus as of late. I've been mainly practicing the basics with a travel kit and to some extent, a home kit*.

Now I'm wanting to extend myself a little bit further and work through with another drawing medium. I'm not too keen on painting mediums, partially because of the mess involved and the time setting it up. (I also currently lack a space to set up something and keep up something)

Despite this, I don't know what medium to try next! I'm tossing between pastel and pencil (watercolour or not) but I'm not sure which one to go for. The pastels I can move between soft, hard and oil, whereas with pencils I can go for plain, pastel or watercolour. If I do go down the route of watercolour, I know you can get a waterbrush which eliminates more of the setup. (waterbrush=the handle is a reservoir with water in it and you just squeeze out a little bit of water here and there)

Does anyone have some advice about which one I should try next?

*-Here's what I currently have: standard drawing pencils (2H, H, HB, 2B, 4B, 6B), willow and compressed charcoal, kneadable eraser, regular eraser, stick eraser, sharpeners. This is both home and field.

[protege]

I know a guy who draws some *amazing* sports cars with various markers. He'll start by lightly drawing the outlines with pencil, and then goes to town with the markers.

[fireheart]

I know a guy who draws some *amazing* sports cars with various markers. He'll start by lightly drawing the outlines with pencil, and then goes to town with the markers.

I actually debated about using markers, but I already plan on using those for doing posters and whatnot in the classroom.

My main areas of interest for drawing are most likely going to be landscapes and people.

Speaking of, I can be very immature sometimes. The other day, an art and craft store had 2 of their drawing mannequins left out. I wasn't able to put them into a sexually explicit position (the mannequins don't bend at the waist) so I settled for having one kicking the other one in the butt.

[houdini]

I personally like watercolour pencils - they give you the ability to draw in colour and ignore the watercolour bit if you want to, but you can then also use a paintbrush to smooth them out - so there's a nice range of effects. Otherwise, I have a large pack of coloured pencils that I love using, as if you sharpen the tips properly you can use the tip to get sharp lines and the side to get more of a wide stroke.

[Seraph]

Copic markers.

Seriously. Wow. They are...just wow.

[fireheart]

Copic markers.

Seriously. Wow. They are...just wow.

I thought about those. Maybe further down the track.

Thanks guys for the advice!
There is an Australian based (i think?) company down here called reeves, which creates a lot of art supplies for retail sale. Their stuff is generally decent quality, but one of the things they do are <medium> by numbers kits. At the moment they do painting (various levels and with different types of paint...their oil one is one you can mix with water though), pencil, watercolour pencil, pastel and sketching. I'm wanting to get one of those to practice various techniques with but also couldn't decide between the pastel and the pencil.
Now I'm definitely doing the watercolour pencil! (which means a little more for a water brush, but they are so worth it)

[KhirasHY]

I've always been a fan of pencil drawings too...for the longest time, all my drawings were done with nothing but a mechanical pencil, which can be a pain, but it's nice to be able to finish a drawing and have it look awesome Even now that I'm doing mostly digital drawings, a lot of the time I still enjoy just doing hand-drawn stuff instead...

[fireheart]

I have a few friends that do digital art and one of them does some hand-drawn stuff as well. They look AMAZING.

I did a bit of scoping at the outlet mall today in this art supply store (which charges the same prices as their non-outlet store...go figure -.-) and found that to my surprise, they actually carry Derwent pencils . I've used Derwents before, they are AMAZING. (I've had both their Studio and Watercolour ranges at some point)

Turns out that Derwent have branched WAY out from the pencils I grew up with as a child (they just had Studio, Watercolour and Artist when I was a kid) and now have some variations on their traditional watercolour pencils.

These are: Graphitint (basically a 4B graphite pencil with some colour added), Aquatone (woodless), Tinted Charcoal (sorta counts) and Inktense (basically a brighter, more rich colour).

I'm actually considering their Inktense range, because they can also be used on fabric to produce some interesting colours there. You can buy the pencils, or the blocks, which resemble hard pastels. You can even buy like a little cheese grater for the blocks and make a wash from it. Since I tend to dabble between art and craft, it'd be great to try out some silk painting.

[aqutalion]

So I've taken up drawing lately as a hobby. I generally like to be arty and crafty and try a whole bunch of things, but this is really taking my focus as of late. I've been mainly practicing the basics with a travel kit and to some extent, a home kit*.

Now I'm wanting to extend myself a little bit further and work through with another drawing medium. I'm not too keen on painting mediums, partially because of the mess involved and the time setting it up. (I also currently lack a space to set up something and keep up something)

Despite this, I don't know what medium to try next! I'm tossing between pastel and pencil (watercolour or not) but I'm not sure which one to go for. The pastels I can move between soft, hard and oil, whereas with pencils I can go for plain, pastel or watercolour. If I do go down the route of watercolour, I know you can get a waterbrush which eliminates more of the setup. (waterbrush=the handle is a reservoir with water in it and you just squeeze out a little bit of water here and there)

Does anyone have some advice about which one I should try next?

*-Here's what I currently have: standard drawing pencils (2H, H, HB, 2B, 4B, 6B), willow and compressed charcoal, kneadable eraser, regular eraser, stick eraser, sharpeners. This is both home and field.

I don't know if you're still looking for advice, but I would recommend not wasting any time on waterbrushes. They don't actually eliminate any setup, as you still need a palette to mix colors (probably the biggest space-consumer), and the amount of water they hold is so tiny that you'll have to be refilling constantly if you switch colors often. I would recommend two or three ordinary round brushes, instead. That makes it faster to switch colors, which you'll need to do once you get into layering effects or blending.
I put together a travel watercolor kit consisting of a small palette, three brushes and my main set of paints that fits in a pencil box. I also recommend taking a ziploc bag or two to put used palettes in, in case there isn't a good place to wash them out after you're done.

Have you tried ink? I love drawing in ink.