Finding your ideal Pencil!

Choose a lead hardness for standard or mechanical pencils. Lead hardness can be pretty confusing. Here are the basics.

• The usual medium hardness is called HB. This corresponds to a #2 pencil. If the pencil or the lead is not labeled, there's a good chance this is the hardness.
• The softest leads make the darkest lines. The hardest leads make the lightest lines. If you are drawing, you might outline with a harder lead, then darken and shade with a softer lead.
• If you will be shaping the lead, softer leads are easier and faster to shape but also lose their crisp edges more quickly, with the opposite effect for harder leads.
• Hardness runs from 9B (softest) to 9H (hardest). Numbered hardness values may be listed in the U.S.

MECHANICAL pencils

• Best part about it is the uniformity in width of the line but a mechanical pencil may not be always the artists best tool when it comes to sketching.
• If you are a heavy-handed writer who presses hard, try a 0.9mm pencil. 0.9mm pencils are usually darker because they are about twice as thick as regular lead.
• Pick a 0.5mm if you like to write lighter and easier. 0.5mm pencils have more precision so you can write in tiny places and it can still be legible.
• If you are in between, buy a 0.7mm pencil. 0.7mm pencils have a good medium lead size.
• Other sizes are available for artists and drafters, but larger leads may need to be sharpened even though they are in a mechanical pencil and finer leads may be very delicate.
• In general, larger diameter leads give more flexibility when you are sharpening the lead, a technique used in drafting and sketching.