I had almost forgotten how much I enjoy sketching with pencil, same old #2 pencil we were forced to use for math classes in grade school. I’ll be using pencil a bit more, to practice value, shades and shadows. Call me crazy, but I do love the smell of a freshly sharpened pencil and the whisper it makes when shading on paper. Yes, there is the downside of the smudging, especially for us lefties, but it is cheap, versatile and easy to get. By the way, my favorites were Berol Mirado #2, now extint… The current version by Papermate just doesn’t smell the same…
Here is a couple of quick sketches I did yesterday at lunchtime, #2 pencil on canary yellow tracing paper:
