Art Supplies - Which I Use, And Which I Don't

Leadholders

This is my weapon of choice when I’m going to draw.  The leadholder is actually the precursor to the mechanical pencil, and comes in various gauges.  I’ve settled on the 2 mm gauge since it offers the best balance of fine and solid lines, as well as the wide availability of lead.  In terms of lead grades, it features the full spectrum of darkness, ranging from 8H to 9B, and it functions very much like a regular pencil.  You do have to sharpen it with a different type of pencil sharpener, with the varieties looking like a regular pencil sharpener or a small trash can that rotates, and many leadholders do have their rear caps with a integrated sharpener, although I don’t recommend using this except in the case of an emergency.  Some of the other perks of a leadholder are that it has a nice, solid heft to it, giving you some great pencil control, and that the pencils themselves last virtually forever.  I’ve only had one ever break, and I have several leadholders that are over 20 years old and still work brilliantly.  That said, there are downsides to leadholders.  For starters, the market has switched over to mechanical pencils, meaning that you’re going to see very little varieties in terms of new leadholders, although you can still find some out there if you look hard enough, as I did when I purchased my Alvin (in the image above).  Second, if you’re wishing to do something with color, then I regret to inform you that this is not the tool for you.  I haven’t seen any official leadholder colored leads in any variety except for blue, red, and violet, although I have seen a contraption at Hobby Lobby that has colored leads in roughly 2mm.  However, they are great to use, and are my weapon of choice, though again, they aren’t for everyone.

 Mechanical Pencils

Mechanical Pencils are the descendants of the leadholder, and are where the replaceable lead medium is progressing for the foreseeable future, though occasionally you’ll see a lead pencil advanced up to the 2mm gauge (God bless the Staedtler company!)  In any case, the neat thing about Mechanical pencils is that they’re readily available, as is the lead, and they’re absolutely fantastic if you want to make a fine line or do some details.  That is also their largest drawback, as drawing to draw any sort or larger, or thicker line, is going to take several strokes.  Even the largest lead pencil grade, .9 mm, is going to take a lot of time.  Plus, even the more expensive lead pencils are going to wear out and break.  There is colored lead available for it, usually in a small variety of colors, but even then, it won’t be enough for you to try and do much with.  Another downside is the fact that the lead spectrum isn’t wide for Mechanical Pencils either, usually ranging from 2B, B, HB, and 2H respectively.  

 Traditional Drawing Pencils

Traditional drawing pencils are what you usually see sold in stores, and they come in different grades, ranging from 8H to 9B, going from light to dark.   While you do find them sold individually in some art stores, in the mega art marts, they usually come in sets, sometimes in a nice little bag or festive tin.  I have various pencils from assorted sets in my drafting desk drawer, though my favorites are probably the Staedtler and Ebony Blacks (which are almost another creature entirely, but I digress).  These are handy in that you have such a wide range of lead to work with, allowing you to use the harder leads for preliminary outlines and such, before going darker for the detail.  The problem is, well, this can get a bit unwieldy because of the amount of pencil’s you’re going to be carrying.  Plus, despite the presence of pencil extenders, there is going to be a point where the pencil itself is going to be flat out useless or impractical to continue to use.

No image to be found on Google, so Fuck it.

Compressed Lead Pencils

Compressed lead pencils are a different animal from the pencils I detailed above.  In general, they look very different, as they are all one color (it’s lead color), and really should only be sharpened with a pencil sharpener, as trying to use a knife can be incredibly messy (which I know from personal experience.)  That said, if you’re using black, you get some of the darkest blacks that you’ll have available in pencil.  When you’re drawing with these, you get a very sketchy sort of drawing, with very little defined detail unless you’ve sharpened the pencil, and even then, you’re likely to see that pencil tip disappear in very short order.  All in all, these are nice to use.  I mess around with them on weekends.

Charcoal

Charcoal comes in a variety of forms, aside from the briquettes that you use to grill on weekends.  I’ve seen them in pencil form, long whisps, and blocks.  In regards to their artistic use, they allow you to get some really dark blacks and some interesting effects regarding light and shadow.  The only problem is that they can get really messy, so you have to watch with smearing.  These really aren’t for me, although I do have a carbon black pencil that I do use for accents and the like.  But some people are able to use them, and are phenomenal with them.

 Pastels

Pastels really are just pieces of colored chalk that you can use to add and blend color onto a piece of newsprint (which it works really nicely on), or which ever paper medium you choose.  There are several benefits to using pastels as an art medium.  The most obvious and major reason why people like to use them are that they are available in such a variety of colors, allowing you to create some really beautiful, eye popping pieces.  They also come in a version that is oil based, allowing you to take a brush with some thinner and allow you to blend it, like paint.  The downside of pastels that I have found in my personal experience is that doing detail in terms of a small scale is difficult, if not impossible, so you have to go big in terms of a piece, although it's possible that this could be different if you are using a pastel pencil.  The other major downside that I've personally found it is that you get that chalky sensation when you use it.  *shudder* But that said, people do like them and can create some beautiful works with them.  One of the versions of The Scream was done with pastels.

Art Sticks (or Stix)

This is another variation of the pastel approach, only this time, rather than like chalk, these are made from the same cores as Prismalcolors colored pencils.  I have purchased some of these and found them to be quite pleasing to use when I want to add some color to a sketch.  They have almost all of the benefits of pastels, but this time without that chalk use sensation.  They give you some rather lovely shades of color, in particular the blues.  The downside to these are, again, the detail aspect, which could be solved by using just a regular colored pencil, and the fact that, unlike pastels, which come in almost any color in the spectrum, there are only a select number of colors that art sticks come in.