What is your favorite pencil for sketching?

APHOTICMOTH

Cheap 10cent kids pencils, usually have a plastic coating with some animals on it or something.

The current one I'm using has little kids all over it in athletic clothes saying "Great job!"

erinrew

@CLCanadyArts Sounds good to me.

RachelArmington

I love love love Eagle 314 pencils...they are smooth and dark with just the right amount of grab. I have some that were made before 1900, but the cores tend to be break so those need to be sharpened often. The ones made after 1930 don't have that issue as Eagle started treating the pencil cores to make them adhere better to the wood casing. I buy them on eBay (the pencils made after 1930 will be labeled "Chemi-Sealed").

Eagle became Berol became Sanford: Berol 314 and Sanford 314s feel pretty close to the originals. General makes a G314 that's supposed to be comparable, but nope, very scratchy.

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Melissa_Bailey

@erinrew great question! I have 3 favorites:

Sepia Jumbo Jet pencil from Jerry's Artarama (on the expensive side but SO creamy and comfortable!)
Derwent Onyx graphite pencils (also available at Jerry's Artarama & Blick)
Plain ol' Dixon Ticonderoga #2 pencils

Since I live in the middle of nowhere, I rely on sites like Jerry's and Blick for my art supplies. And every year when school supplies are on sale at Meijer, I grab a back up pack of Ticonderogas.

willicreate

I've heard animators swear by the Blackwing pencils. It was favored by the early Looney Tunes and Disney artists. It was discontinued in the 1990s but the brand was revived some years ago, so not certain if the quality is the same.

If you're interested in color pencils, the Prismacolor Verithin series is the least waxy color pencil I've used. Feels close to graphite.

Cayleen

@CLCanadyArts Ha! I was going to say a broken one from the junk drawer. I feel like they don't ask a lot of me or judge me like the fancy pencils do .

RachelArmington

@Melissa-Bailey-0 Those black-cased Ticonderogas are some sophisticated-looking pencils...

APHOTICMOTH

Thought I'd share my treasures. Behold!!

Go to the clearance section after back to school to nab them for cheap cheap. 50cents for a dozen normally.

jdubz

My fav setup: the cheap mechanical pencil + a blending stick or fingers for blending.

erinrew

@Cayleen To funny!

erinrew

@CLCanadyArts Love it! Reminds of my pencil collection I had in grade school, back when they had a school supplies cart you could buy things from for a few cents.