One Pencil, One Book: Grades and Paper

A pencil and a sketchbook: that's all it takes to get started outdoors. That's precisely what makes the pencil the most honest medium for the street. You don't set anything up, you don't mix anything, you don't wait for anything. You pull the pencil out of your jacket pocket, open the book, and the first line is already on the paper before anyone else has even unclasped their paint box.

Why pencil works so well outdoors

Pencil doesn't dry. There's no wash that bleeds because the sun is beating down, and none that takes twenty minutes because it's foggy and cool. You need no water, no container, no rag, no free hand for the palette. That sounds trivial, but it decides whether you draw at all on the tram, on a stair step, or standing at a house wall.

There's a second advantage: the pencil shows you everything you do. Every hesitation in a line, every bit of too much pressure, every spot where you couldn't decide stays visible. That's uncomfortable and for exactly that reason instructive. Anyone who sketches consistently with pencil for six months will draw better afterwards with every other tool too.

Grades: what the letters mean

Every pencil carries a code. H stands for hard: the lead contains more binder, releases little graphite and leaves a pale, scratchy, very precise line. It suits technical construction work, but tends to press a groove into the paper that you can't get rid of later. HB sits in the middle, is the classic all-purpose pencil and already usable for sketches, but rarely genuinely dark.

B stands for soft, and the number in front says how soft: 2B is noticeably darker than HB, 4B lays down a rich grey with little pressure, 6B is so soft that the tip goes blunt quickly and the drawing smudges easily. For urban sketching, two pencils are enough: 2B for lines and the mid range, 4B for the dark values, shadow sides and window openings. You don't need anything above or below that at the start. What matters is the thinking behind it: the grade doesn't determine how hard you press, but how dark you can get at all. You reach dark tones with a softer pencil, not with more force.

Mechanical pencil or wooden pencil

A mechanical pencil with a 0.5 millimetre lead gives you a consistently fine line, with no sharpening, no shavings, no mess in your bag. For contours, window frames, railings and small details that's ideal, and you can get one from around CHF 5. Its drawback: building up areas is tedious, because the thin lead knows only one line width and snaps under too much pressure.

The wooden pencil can do both. Sharpened, it draws a fine line; turn it flat onto its side and you lay in a whole house wall as soft grey in a single stroke. This broad-side technique is why I recommend a wooden 4B for going out, with the mechanical pencil alongside for the line work. A small sharpener with a shavings container is enough; a long-exposed lead gives you extra surface area.

Paper: smooth or lightly textured

Smooth paper, such as Bristol, has barely any surface texture. Fine lines come out razor-sharp on it, the pencil glides, and even thin contours stay crisp. Hatching on smooth paper quickly looks blotchy, though, because the graphite finds little grip and smears into a shiny surface.

Lightly textured sketch paper at 120 to 150 grams per square metre is better for our purposes. The fine tooth pulls a little graphite off the lead with every stroke and holds onto it. That lets tones build up in layers, keeps hatching lively, and lets you work from light to dark without the area clogging up straight away. An A5 book with a firm binding that you can hold in your hand is the most reliable choice.

The eraser draws too

Don't think of the eraser as correction, think of it as light. A kneaded eraser can be shaped into a point or an edge and lifts graphite out of an existing area instead of scrubbing it away. That's how you get the bright edges of a gutter, the strip of light on a window sill, or the light rim of a hat against a dark façade. So you lay in the tone first and pull the lights out afterwards. That's faster and looks more natural than laboriously reserving areas as white. A hard eraser still belongs in your bag, for sharp edges and really thorough removal.

Preventing smudging, without fixative

You don't need fixative outdoors. It smells, it needs a windless corner, and it makes your drawing final before you're sure it's finished. Far more practical: lay a blank sheet of paper between the freshly drawn pages before you close the book. That reliably protects the facing page. While drawing, the same sheet helps under the edge of your hand – that way you don't drag your own hatching across the façade with your little finger.

Exercise

Stand at the window or on the balcony with your sketchbook and give yourself 15 minutes. In the upper half of a blank page, draw a scale for each of your pencils: a strip about ten centimetres long that you take from very light on the left to the darkest tone on the right that this pencil can produce. Do this for 2B, for 4B and, if you have one, for HB. Then compare how dark each pencil can really get.

In the lower half, pick three windows of the building opposite and draw them with the 2B only. Frame, glass surface, the shadow inside it – nothing more, no house around them. Make a point of building the dark in the glass with several layers rather than with pressure. Finally, use the kneaded eraser to lift a bright reflection out of one of the windows.