Drawing

Graphite Pencil

Graphite is the most common drawing material and is available in a few styles. You can get traditional wood bound pencils, woodless pencils, or you can get various sized mechanical pencils (0.2-2.0). The graphite itself can be found in a range of hardnesses that affect how dark a pencil is capable of being.

Usually referred to as ‘artist pencils’ they can range from hard (H - for hardness) to soft (B - for blackness): 4H 3H 2H H HB B 2B 3B 4B and continue out on either end depending on the brand. Lead for Mechanical pencils are also available in just as many hardnesses, so there is no reason not to enjoy the convenience a mechanical pencil can provide.

Charcoal

Charcoal comes in quite a few forms such as pencils, sticks, and what is known as vine and willow; and are available in a number of hardnesses. As far as pencils are concerned, the exact composition will depend on the brand - some containing graphite, while others rely on actual charcoal. Sticks are usually compressed charcoal mixed with a binder - visually similar to pastels, but do not have the same buttery smoothness of pastel. Vine and Willow charcoal are known as ‘natural charcoal’ and made of actual, factual, willow or vine. You’ll notice that natural charcoal comes in various shapes and sizes depending on the source material.

You can also find Liquid and Powdered Charcoals which extend the limits of what you can do with it!

Sharpeners

When using a traditional pencil there will be a need to sharpen your tool. There is a wide selection when it comes to sharpeners, but we will start with a traditional hand driven sharpener. These are usually made with a single blade that has been fastened to either a block of wood or plastic. Unfortunately these can be hard to use as they don’t necessarily cut smoothly, so they have a high chance of breaking your pencil tip rather than sharpening it.

Alternatively you can use an electric sharpener which is going to be the easiest, fastest, and most reliable way to sharpen a pencil. This is primarily because it is a lot less likely to break your pencil tip - but it can also eat away at your pencil very quickly if you are not careful. Other benefits include an auto-stop feature, the ability to sharpen mediums that come in different sizes, sharpeners that plug into the wall or run on batteries, as well as the ability to break down the sharpener for easy cleaning of debris.

A third option is sharpening your pencils the old school way which is to ditch the sharpener all together and use a utility knife instead. The main difference a utility knife offers is one, you can get a very fine point, and two, its ability to remove the wood of a pencil exceeds the capacity of the two options mentioned above. Some drawing techniques make use of a pencil like this as it can fill in much larger areas of paper with the side of the exposed graphite thanks to this method of sharpening.

Erasers

The rubber eraser is going to be what you are most accustomed to. Made of rubber or vinyl and a slightly abrasive material such as pumice, this type of eraser allows you to gently, but completely, remove pencil or various other mediums by simply rubbing the surface of the paper.

The kneaded eraser is considered to be an artist eraser which means it is not as widely known as the previous one. They are made of unvulcanized rubber which is how they remain playable, unlike rubber erasers. This eraser has a lot of qualities that are useful for the artist because it can be broken, stretched, or molded into any particular shape for precision detailing or to erase back only certain areas of your drawing. The kneaded eraser only lightly lifts materials and is capable of picking out details, such as highlights, in a drawing. This eraser does not shed, and because it can be ‘cleaned’ through kneading, this eraser can be used and reused indefinitely.

Pencil, mechanic, or electric erasers are all very similar to one another and are largely made of the same materials as a rubber eraser. What makes them special is that they are much smaller in diameter and therefore designed to be capable of cleanly pulling out fine details such as highlights, erasing thin strands of hair, or removing small errors.