The harder pencils avoid being scratchy thanks to the finely ground graphite and clay, and even the softer ones hold a point for a long time. This set of a dozen pencils comes in a handsome green ...

I used 8B, 2B, and 2H graphite pencils to render the star magnitudes in my sketch. I created the faint base layer ofthe nebula with the tip of a blending stump that had graphite on it.

The pencils are graded by their ratio of graphite to clay. Grades ranged from 9B to 2H, where H denotes the hardness caused by the pencil’s clay content, and B denotes the blackness due to the ...

Carved from the graphite in a normal pencil: A highly-detailed boot Credit: DALTON GHETTI / SOLENT NEWS A miniature graphite chair Credit: DALTON GHETTI / SOLENT NEWS ...