In this guide, you will learn:
- What the numbers and letters on a pencil mean
- Which pencils you should use
- Which pencils are best for drawing portraits and pencils for sketching
- The reason why there are so many pencil grades
- How the quality of a pencil can affect your artwork
Pencil Grades
The letters on a pencil will tell you its level of hardness or softness. For example:
H: Hard
F: Fine Point
HB: Hard Black
B: Black
Hard pencils produce light lines while soft pencils produce dark lines. Why? Because soft pencils deposit more graphite onto your drawing surface. The softer the pencil, the smoother the graphite.
The number beside each letter represents the level of hardness or softness. So a 9B pencil is softer/darker than a 2B, while an 8H will be harder/lighter than a 3H.
Here’s a list of pencil grades in order from lightest to darkest or hardest to softest.
9H, 8H, 7H, 6H, 5H, 4H, 3H, 2H, H, F, HB, B, 2B, 3B, 4B, 5B, 6B, 7B, 8B, 9B
Value Range
Each pencil is capable of covering a wide range of values. If you look at the first image, there are some gradients under each square. This shows you how flexible each grade of pencil is. Even though 9B is the softest pencil, you can still use it to draw an entire portrait with values ranging from medium grey to black. Although, it would be a big challenge since it would require a lot of effort to keep from shading your drawing too dark.
The Best Pencils For Drawing
Don’t be intimidated by the number of pencils I listed up there! Most likely, you’ll only need to use 3-5 of them. The pencils you need will depend on the type of drawings you do.
Architectural / Product Sketches / Technical Sketches
If you’re into drawing buildings, cars or technical sketches, a set of hard pencils will suit you well. Hard pencils don’t smudge easily, so your drawings will always be sharp and clean. You won’t need to sharpen your pencils too often because the graphite is hard enough to hold a sharp tip longer than any B graded pencil.
If you want to add dark shading to your drawing, pick up a few soft pencils so you can make your drawings pop out of the page.
Portraiture / Animals / Realism
Why You Should Use More Than 1 Pencil
Each pencil has its benefits and can help you get the job done faster! I could use a monkey wrench to drive 1000 nails into my patio deck, but it wasn’t designed for that job. A hammer is so much more efficient!
Here’s how each pencil below helps me get the job done faster and more efficiently:
HB: This pencil helps me shade the lightest areas of my portrait such as eyeballs and highlights without having to spend too much time focusing on the amount of pressure I’m putting on the paper and worrying if I’m shading to dark.
6B: Without any effort at all, I can easily shade large areas of a portrait or background with a smooth dark layer of graphite.
If you feel really strained after you finish a drawing, you might need to add a few more pencil grades to your toolbox, or learn how to use them more efficiently.
Graphite Quality
Graphite pencils are typically mixed with varying amounts of clay. Which means that a low quality pencil could contain many sand-like bits that feel scratchy and can damage your artwork.
If you can’t test a pencil before buying it and you want to be sure it won’t be scratchy, check to see that the packaging says it’s mixed with high quality, pure or smooth clay. Keep in mind that no matter how high the quality, you’re not going to get a 100% pure pencil.
Pencils that I’ve used and recommend are Derwent Graphic and Daler Rowney Graphic (not sketch).
Have a question? Leave it in the comments!
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Darlene created RFA In 2013 with the goal of sharing simple yet detailed drawing tutorials with other artists on the world wide web. She is a self taught pencil portrait artist and Youtuber.
I think there’s a challenge here in using only 1 pencil to create a portrait sketch. I’m only really starting now but I think you could get away with only just using one of the middle range pencils like just an HB or an H. I can the difficulties with each – an H pencil would have difficulty in achieving the really dark blacks for deep shading and the HB might have a rough time at getting some really light shading but with both you couldn’t get really dark so a sketch of a portrait might just be a soft pop and not a WOW pop. But to get those darks with a lighter H pencil you really gotta press and that will cramp up your hand but even then the shade might not be there.
I am self-taught, or should I say self-learning cuz I do have a long way to go. I have been drawing architectural/engineering plan & perspective drawings for many years. In those types of drawings, we use “pen weights” (the thickness of the tip of the pen) to draw bolder lines to minimize the need of multiple pen strokes. In nutshell, a 9B pencil will produce a bolder, thicker line than a 9H would. I know Derwent makes wood encased charcoal pencils rated as: light, medium & dark. Why . . . when . . . should . . . you use a light charcoal pencil vs a 9B pencil? Then there’s the EBONY pencil . . . why use the EBONY vs 9B vs dark charcoal? Derwent even makes an ONYX pencil. When and why would you use the onyx. So I guess my question(s) is: Graphite vs Carbon vs Charcoal vs Onyx vs Wash pencils? I would like to know the differences and their application? Can you please help