Drawing Materials: Pencils 1

Pencils category of drawing materials is vast.  So much so that it deserves its own post just to cover the very basics of pencil types.

Historically, records show that graphite in solid form was discovered around 1500's. It was easily sawed into strips and wrote well. Pencil in many foreign languages means "lead pen".

The term "lead" was used for graphite as early chemists thought it to be a form of elemental lead, Pb. Graphite is an allotrope (form) of carbon.  Others are diamonds, carbon fibers, etc.  To a see more complete list, if you have an interest, visit this page on Wikipedia. 

Because graphite is soft and needed protection, it was first wrapped in string or sheep skin for protection.  Later on other materials like wood were attempted. 

Oldest Known Cased Pencil - Collection - Faber-Castell USA

Early Development of Wood Casings

Today, graphite lead for pencils is manufactured by mixing finely ground graphite with clays to produce 18 grades of lead, from the hardest, 9H, to the softest, B9. The ratio of clay to graphite determines the hardness by using more clay for a harder lead.  Lead pencils do not contain elemental lead.

From this point on, there are many types of various pencils. Colored pencils like Prismacolor has eight varieties of pencil types. There are hardened grease markers with peal off paper.  A newcomer to the industry are colored and graphite pencils which when wet with water, act like watercolors.  And the list goes on: pastel pencils, (See Post: Drawing Materials: Crayons 2 - Chalk & Pastels) and mechanical lead holders and eraser pencils, to mention a few.

To see a more complete list of available pencils, visit this page at Dick Blick.  It is overwhelming.

Drawing Materials - Crayons 4 - 5.6 mm "leads"

Crayon is defined in a dictionary as: 

 cray·on  n. 1. A stick of colored wax, charcoal, or chalk, used for drawing.

There are other stick materials which vary slightly from the dictionary definition in their compositions.  They partially fall into Pastels and Charcoal but are really different in their composition and performance. 

Very similar to the Conte crayon of the last post are Cretacolor 5.6 mm "leads" in their composition and behavior.  They are easy to point up in a hand type pencil sharpener or even better, on the Microplane shown in a previous post of

Drawing Materials - Crayons 1 - Chalk & Pastel

Cretacolor 5.6 mm leads. True length of 4.75" is not represented in this photo. From left to right are: Graphite: 2B, 4B, 6B - Charcoal: 1 soft, 2 medium - White - Negro: 1 soft, 2 medium - Sepia dark - Sepia light - Sanguine oil, (Sanguine dry is not shown).

Cretacolor clutch holders.  Top holder is all most 5" long.

I have the top lead holder, which I do not use.  All of the holders are very chunky and not my ideal for a drawing implement.  Being familiar with the contents of our local art supply store, I remember seeing a holder for charcoal willow sticks.  This looked like the solution for me.  The experiment worked out well. I cut off the long wooded handle as I like holding the 5.6mm lead just like a piece of pastel.

From the Top: charcoal holder with 5.6 mm lead,  5.6 mm lead by 4.75 in., and a cut down handle of the top holder.  The tape is only to keep the friction ring from sliding off when repositioning or changing the lead.

Cretacolor "lead" is my first choice in sketching.   I use the point and the side or angle portion for various line weights. For my sketching style I use both sepia values.   I like to use my fingers to blend in lines and smudge in the shadows and contours.  An eraser bring up the high lights.

A studio sketch using the Cretacolor lead on the rough side of the Canson Mi-Teintes sheet.

Drawing Materials - Crayons 3 - Conte Crayons

Crayon is defined in a dictionary as: 

 cray·on  n. 1. A stick of colored wax, charcoal, or chalk, used for drawing.

There are other stick materials which vary slightly from the dictionary definition in their compositions.  They partially fall into Pastels and Charcoal but are really different in their composition and performance. 

Conte crayons are a mixture of compressed powdered graphite or charcoal mixed with a wax and/or clay base in square cross-section sticks.  They were invented by Nicolas-Jacques Conte in 1795 in response to the shortage of English graphite during the Napoleonic Wars.  The Conte crayons were easy to manufacture and cost effective.  The process allowed for grades of hardness.

Now the crayons are offered in colors as well and are harder than hard-pastels and very slightly waxy.  They are also harder to break and the blacks are more difficult to erase.

 

The basic four sketching set.

Today they are most commonly found in black, white, sanguine, bistre and shades of gray. Their line has been increased to a a more complete color spectrum. The colored sticks behave much like hard pastels.

I like the look of a quick soft sketch done in Conte Crayons.  I enjoy the finger blending and smudging as an enhancement to the line work.  A kneaded eraser works well to add or enhance a high light.

Conte Crayon Bistre quick sketch at Silvermine Guild