You can't beat the classic Eberhard Faber Ebony pencil or a softer leaded (grade #1) classic yellow pencil by Sanford or Dixon. They are very responsive and smooth on paper. Artist grade 4B pencils are also a popular choice. All of these are soft leaded and smudge easily but offer great tonal range.

Standard #2 pencils laying around your house will do in a pinch but they vary widely in quality and depth of value, gray to black. Test each pencil you happen to come upon on your paper to see how it feels. Use the one that feels the most responsive to your touch.

For beginners I recommend an EF Ebony pencil #6325 and a good pencil sharpener. Working with a soft dark pencil forces you to loosen up and commit at the same time. I've used Ebony pencils from high school through art school until this day. A mainstay for most artists, Ebony pencils are of consistent high quality and responsiveness.

The softness of graphite artist's products are rated alphanumerically around this basic scale:

The pencil grades most often used by artists are marked in bold. These are the softer grades that are more responsive to your touch on paper. Hard grades will give a silky light gray finish that can resemble silverpoint drawing.

Graphite is a form of crystallized carbon. So are diamonds for that matter. Graphite by nature is very soft and greasy and flakes easily. This allows it to be pushed into the fiber or tooth of the paper you are drawing on.

Harder graphite pencils require more clay and additives in their formulation for added firmness. The addition of hardening agents shortens a pencil's available tonal scale.

With the same amount of pressure the hardest grades can only achieve a light gray while softest grades achieve deep blacks.

Metallic lead, the poisonous one, has much of the same properties as graphite and slivers or rods of lead have been used for drawing since ancient times. After it's discovery in the 18th century graphite was found to be superior to lead as a drawing medium. It's Greek name meaning "to write or draw," pieces of graphite were held in wooden or metal clutches like chalks. New formulations in the 19th century allowed the wood-encased graphite pencil to became widely available.

Silver has been used as a drawing tool for centuries. Pure silver leaves a light gray patina like a hard pencil on the paper. The light gray silverpoint values will darken with time as the silver tarnishes from gray to black. Gold will also leave a unique mark on paper but it does not tarnish like silver. FYI: To try this historic medium pop some jeweler's silver wire in a mechanical clutch lead holder and shape the point on sandpaper. Burnish the tip on scrap paper before you draw.

As the graphite choices get thicker they move from leads for mechanical clutch holders to solid rods or sticks for broad sweeping strokes.

Pictured on left are several thicker graphite examples I had laying around the studio and one I bought for the occasion. You can see their results on paper pictured below the photo.

I've found the large lead clutch and General's Sketching pencil the most useful for drawing and sketching purposes. I've used the graphite sticks primarily for creating carbon transfers of drawings to watercolor paper. Solid graphite sticks are a quick and inexpensive way of creating chemically inert transfer papers.

Recommended brands: General Pencil, Derwent, Eberhard Faber, Faber-Castell Goldfaber, Dixon, Berol (Sanford), Sanford DESIGN (formerly Venus), Staedtler, Cretacolor