Portrait Artist and Painter Anna Bregman

When buying pencils for drawing and sketching, it really is worth buying good quality pencils from one of the main artists' suppliers. There are other, smaller brands available from art shops, but stay away from what they call 'student' ranges as the quality of these pencils really won't be very good. There are two key things I look for in a drawing pencil: the lead should be strong and well-enough secured in it's casing so that it doesn't constantly break, and the leads should be well-processed when mixed with their binder so they don't 'squeak' and scratch your paper. With a cheap pencil, you will often find it suddenly stops making a mark on the paper if you hit a bit of the clay 'binder' which hasn't been well mixed in with the graphite. The best makes of pencil will be well-mixed to give a smooth and consistent feel to the lead.

Here, I'm only reviewing brands of drawing pencil which include the full range of grades, from the hard 'H' grades through to the softest (8B or 9B)

DERWENT 'GRAPHIC' PENCILS

These are an excellent brand of pencils from Derwent, which come in an extremely wide range of grades from 9H all the way through to 9B. Derwent and Faber-Castell make the most reliable pencils in my experience, with strong leads even in the softer grades which rarely break and are never scratchy. Derwent Graphic pencils are extremely consistent in their tones and are perhaps just a tiny bit darker than Faber-Castell's 9000 range ( see below)

Derwent are a British company who specialize almost entirely in pencils, and if you want to work in colour, I highly recommend their beautiful 'Artists' or 'Colourfast' ranges.

FABER-CASTELL '9000' PENCILS

The 9000 range is Faber-Castell's main drawing pencil brand, and these are also excellent pencils which never break or scratch - in fact, they break less than all the other brands in my experience. Faber-Castell 9000's are a little lighter than Derwent, and I tend to use a mixture of both Derwent and Faber-Castell pencils depending on what I am drawing. They are great for highly delicate work and come in grades from 6H to 8B ranges.

CARAN D'ACHE 'GRAFWOOD' PENCILS

Caran D'Ache's Grafwood range have one brilliant innovation, which is that they are painted in gradated tones, depending on the grade of the individual pencil so that the softest pencil (9B) has a black painted casing, and the hardest (4H) is painted white. This is such a clever idea that I wish Derwent and Faber-Castell would copy it! If, like me, you use quite a range of different grades when you are drawing then it really saves you time constantly looking for the pencil you want.
Grafwood are a wider pencil than most brands and I find them just a little too large and chunky for my hands. They are fairly dark and good for darker tones or covering large areas.

DALER-ROWNEY 'ARTISTS' GRAPHIC' PENCILS

These are a the darkest and softest pencils of all the brands I have tried, and are a little too soft for my style. Whilst they do have a nice velvety feel, I found that the leads broke a lot in the softer grades which is very frustrating as you can sharpen away a whole pencil trying to get a firm lead!
Another problem was that because the leads are so soft, whenever I sharpened the softer grades to a point it would simply crumble as I drew with them.

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