My Top 5 Drawing Pencils
After taking a four-month break from drawing, I had a good time easing back in with this piece. When the owner came to pick it up, he asked what I used to draw it, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to talk about my favorite pencils.
When I was a kid, I thought the only choice of pencil was wooden or mechanical. I would draw lighter or darker areas by pushing more or less on the pencil I was using. When I got to high school art class, I was blown away by the fact that there were actually different colors and hardnesses of pencils. It can be a little overwhelming to try to choose drawing pencils if you’re just starting out, so I thought I’d share which pencils I use most often. Occasionally, I will throw in a 9H, but for the most part I use the same five pencils in every piece.
Pencils are labeled H for Hard (lighter) or B for Black. The higher the number, the harder or blacker they are. In the photo on the left, I’ve shaded a rectangle for each color and then demonstrated underneath what they look like blurred with a blending stump.
From lightest to darkest they are 5H, 2H, HB (standard #2), 4B, and Mars Lumograph black 6B. It’s important to note that the 6B I’m using is not a standard 6B. Standard 4B and 6B pencils are very similar, and I often use them interchangeably. The Mars Lumograph is much darker, which I love, but I’ll warn you that it does not erase well.
When I’m drawing, I like to fill in my lightest and darkest areas first, then work in my medium tones. It’s really important to use the color appropriate for how dark you want the space instead of trying to press down hard to get it darker. If you press down, you will make a groove in the paper, which will show up even if you erase the lead. I only press my pencils harder when I go back at the end to make the darkest areas even darker. Then I erase out any lead that ended up on the white part. That brings me to my next subject: erasers…
Normally we think of using erasers to get rid of mistakes, but they are also really important drawing tools. I use regular pencil erasers for big mistakes, but specialty erasers for other purposes.
If I want to make a white line, I use an erasing pencil, which is an eraser you can sharpen like a pencil. In the photo, I used the erasing pencil to draw lines in each of the shaded areas at the top of the page. I also used a blending stump to show how it can erase a smudged area.
At the bottom of the page, I shaded in areas and then pressed a kneaded eraser against the top of those areas to lift off some of the lead. This is a great way to lighten an area or an entire drawing. You can also knead the eraser into a point and erase smaller lines, like I erased below the lightened areas.
I used my erasers and blending stumps a lot to create the section in the photo below, along with all of the pencils that I mentioned above. Let me know in the comments below if this was new information or if you have another go-to drawing tool.
