Tools of the Trade

I'm not sure how regular this will be but I thought it might be interesting every now and again to post about the tools I use to make my art.
This time I want to share about the drawing pencils I use. I dug through my dad's art stuff from college when I first was going and ended up with a green and very light pencil. I didn't really know about drawing pencils when I first started college, I'd only used mechanical pencils with .5 or .7 lead, with those pencils I'd learned to make shades from white to black, or silvery black as graphite tends to be. In my first drawing class I think we were supposed to have a B pencil and maybe an H. For those unfamiliar, as I was, drawing pencils go from hard (light shade) to soft (darker shade). Hard pencils are Hs and go from H to 9H (fairly rare, very hard). Soft pencils are Bs and go from B to 9B, there are also a few pencils in between H and B. I think a standard #2 pencil is an HB.


Anyway I brought a the green, very light pencil to class with me and found out that it was Faber Castell, a very good German made pencil. I really liked working with that pencil and eventually bought a set of them.
I tend to use lighter pencils more, I generally use a 5H or 6H to sketch out my paintings or drawings. 5H and 6H are light enough that they just about disappear when the painting or drawing is done.