Faber-Castell Pitt Graphite 9B Pure Pencil

Product Information

It is beloved by many designers, draughtsmen and animators but is equally acclaimed for fine art sketching. You can read more on the pencil grading system here, but to summarise briefly: pencils are graded on a scale that runs from the hardest grades which have a lot of clay in them and which make a very light mark, to the softest grades which have the least clay and mark very darkly. The "green pencil from Faber", which was already being mentioned with approval by Van Gogh and Goethe, has now become part of everyday life. Derwent Graphic Pencils are available in a full range of densities from 9B (softest) to 9H (hardest). Grafwoods have one brilliant innovation which is that the casings are colour coded, so you can identify the grade of the pencil visually without reading the written grade indicator.

All in all I didn’t feel that the Grafwoods were for me, but I’d advise you to try them for yourself and make your own mind up. The ‘HB’ grade is in the middle, the soft pencils are labelled ‘B’ for ‘black’ (B, 2B, 3B and so on) and the harder pencils begin with an ‘H’ for ‘hard’ (H, 2H, 3H etc). Lumograph pencils never scratch or feel gritty and as they rise up the scale the shades become darker in a most reliable and uniform manner.

For example most people will probably prefer a pencil that doesn’t smudge very easily especially in the lighter grades, but if you actively want to smudge your pencils as part of your drawing technique then you’ll probably get on better with one of the softer brands, and may even seek out a range that gives off a lot of graphite dust. The Cretacolor Monolith pencil is woodless - just 7mm of graphite with a thin lacquer coating - which allows you to use a huge range of strokes and techniques. We also take huge pride in how you receive the goods, making sure they were received securely and without any damage. Therefore you get quite an extreme degree of tonal gradation between the lightest and darkest pencils. They have a pleasing black casing that is slightly thicker than some of the other brands, and nice retro lettering.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.

I found the Grafwoods a very unusual pencil and I think they will polarize people in quite a number of ways. Another observation I made was that despite the softer ‘B’ grades being blacker than almost any of the pencils I’ve reviewed here, their leads were super strong, gave off no graphite dust at all and would hardly smudge even when I tried. My favourite fact about them is that their colour scheme was chosen by Count Alexander von Faber-Castell to match his military uniform! The pencils are fairly expensive here if bought individually and are better value when purchased in a tin, where because because the range of grades (only 3H to 6B) is so small you receive several duplicates.

One of the best parts about being an eCommerce owner is the opportunity to pack and prepare your new purchase, with care and passion, and ensure it is delivered promptly. Art Design pencils are encased in pure cedar wood with an ultra-fine, extra-resistant graphite lead.They are extremely large in diameter and feel very chunky in the hand, which some people will like and others will not. I decided I’d be happy to draw with round pencils as long as I had a tin to keep them from rolling around. Bonding means the way that the lead is glued to the casing (I’m going to continue to refer to the ‘lead’ here, although as we all know, pencil leads have always made of graphite) A poorly bonded pencil lead will break constantly especially when you sharpen it.