A dear friend commissioned this graphite portrait of a chocolate lab. She made a gift of it to her nephew, the dog’s owner.

Very Basic Supplies for drawing in graphite

Many traditional graphite artists insist on drawing with wooden pencils sharpened with razors and sandpaper. Such sharpening is an ongoing process that I choose not to engage in. Why? Because life is too short. I discovered that mechanical pencils in a range of grades produce effects that please me, without the time required to keep them sharp.

• 3 or 4 (.5mm) Pentel Mechanical Pencils

• Pentel Lead Refills in three sizes, 2B, HB, and 2H.

• Any good drawing paper. Carol Rosinski on Carol’s Drawing Blog offers reviews of some good choices.

• Kneaded eraser

Before beginning a drawing, play with the different sizes of pencils, shading in parallel strokes, crosshatching, drawing lines both firm and delicate.

You may eventually wish to get other supplies, straightedges, blending stumps, other lead grades. Pentel Lead 2B can build up to a pretty dark value, but to get even darker, you may wish to use a 6B pencil. I used to use a lot of blending in my graphite drawings, but I now prefer to use the very hard 2H grade lead pencil to “blend” with light parallel and crosshatching lines.