Many artists bring simple art kits with them when they go out so they can take advantage of interesting scenes in moments of downtime. Pencils for sketching should be soft enough for quick drawing, but also smudge resistant so that your piece doesn’t smear beyond repair in a closed sketchbook. Grades from 2H–2B are right in the sweet spot for sketching.

Faber-Castell 9000 Pencils smudge less than most.

Shop Now

Forest green Faber-Castell 9000 Pencils are available individually in grades 6H–8B or in convenient sets of six or 12 pencils. These sets are packaged in slim, sturdy tins that slip easily into bags and protect the pencil tips while you’re on the go. Each set includes a variety of different lead grades: the six-pencil tin only has HB and softer lead grades, while the Art Set and Design Set both have more variety.

Faber-Castell 9000 Pencils are quite smooth and maintain excellent consistency as you use up the leads, although the high H grades may feel somewhat scratchy. We also found that the Faber-Castell 9000 leads smudge less than most pencils. They sharpen easily and hold their points well, making them ideal for fine details and occasions when you don’t want to bother with a sharpener. The leads are break resistant due to being glued to the wood on both sides down the whole length of the pencil.

Painters often make preparatory drawings to plan out their vision and guide their painting. These are vital parts of the painting process, but badly chosen media can hurt more than they help. Pencils for underdrawing need to make fairly light lines so they won’t show through the finished painting or cause the paints to get muddy. That’s why it’s best to stick with harder grades for underdrawing—6H–2H are ideal.

Staedtler Mars Lumograph Pencils erase cleanly.

Shop Now

Staedtler Mars Lumograph Graphite Pencils make marks that are slightly lighter than the same grades in other lines, so they work well for underdrawing. They’re buttery smooth and can provide great control as well as perfect shadow buildup. They also erased more cleanly than any of the other pencils we tested.

We’re impressed by their range: they come individually in grades 7H–12B and, in their 24-pencil set, all the way from 10H–12B. Their casings are made from sustainably harvested cedar that sharpens smoothly with no cracks or splits. They stood up very well to hand sharpening.

Fine art pencil drawings use graphite from start to finish to produce a fully developed image with incredible detail and shading. In some cases, the final product is so realistic that it seems to be a black and white photograph. Fine artists working with graphite pencils need a full range of lead grades at their disposal to achieve realistic tones. Our top recommendation, the Uni Mitsubishi Hi-Uni, is a fantastic pencil for fine arts, but we’ll also recommend a pencil that can bring a striking range of textures to your graphite work.

Caran d'Ache Technalo Pencils write with water-soluble graphite.

Shop Now

Unique water-soluble Caran d'Ache Technalo Pencils can be activated with water brushes, letting you create washes in your graphite drawings. This opens up many options for filling shaded areas, blending, and producing dramatic effects outside the normal purview of pencils. They lay down smooth, consistent lines and sharpen to fine points, whether with sharpeners or by hand sharpening. They erase well when dry but do smudge a small amount. They resist erasing after being activated with water. Caran d’Ache Technalo Pencils are available in B and 3B.

If you're bewitched by the effects of water-soluble graphite, branch out with graphite watercolor paints. Though they aren't erasable and aren't as portable as pencils, they're available in subtle colors that add fascinating tones to your artworks.

Comic artists often use a process called penciling to determine a comic page’s layout, from the arrangement of panels to the positions of speech bubbles. These penciled layouts are often more structured than sketches or thumbnails because they’re typically finished before inking, in which the final version of the comic page is rendered. For the purpose of penciling, it’s best to use HB–4B because they’re dark enough to be clearly visible without smudging badly. Darker pencils help emulate the look of inks but can increase smudging.

Tombow Mono 100 Pencils have smooth, high-density leads.

Shop Now

Tombow Mono 100 Pencils are another well-loved line of smooth, high quality pencils. They’re especially known for their high-density leads, which resist breakage and help the points stay sharp longer. They also smear less and are a bit darker than other pencils, making them a good choice for penciling. Tombow Mono 100 Pencils sharpen easily and stand up well to hand sharpening. They’re available in grades 9H–6B.

A single pencil can make darker or lighter marks if you vary the pressure you use or build up layers of graphite, but using multiple grades helps achieve specific tones and increase the variation in your art piece. Check out the video below to see different pencil grades in action!

Pencils in the higher H grades sharpen to fine points, hold their points for longer, and make light marks. This makes them ideal for filling in lighter areas and underdrawing. They can also help blend the edges of darker areas for a gradient effect.

The higher B grades are soft and dark with high proportions of graphite. They won’t stay sharp as long as the other grades, but they’re also smoother. They can produce the most variation between light and dark with different levels of pressure. They excel at filling in dark areas, like shadows and facial contours.

The middle grades contain relatively balanced levels of clay and graphite. They are dark enough to show up well but are still hard enough to keep a sharp point. This makes them good all-purpose pencils if you only have room for a few, but detail work really makes them shine.