Pencil Grades
Published by Matt Glover June 20th, 2006 in Tools and Media
You see them all the time, but have you ever wondered what those little letters and numbers stand for on the end of your pencil?
In a nutshell, the pencil grading system that the bulk of the world uses starts at 9B and goes through to 9H. The “B” stands for blackness and gives an indication of how dark a line will be if drawn with this pencil. Thus 9B is the darkest (blackest) of all the pencils; 8B is a little less dark; 7B is a little less dark again and so on, right down to B.
In reality, blackness is a measure of the softness of the graphite compound used in the pencil.
The “H” stands for hardness and gives an indication of how hard the graphite compound is and, as a result, how light the drawn line will be. Thus a H pencil draws a light line, but a 2H draws an even lighter line and so on. A 9H would barely show up on the paper it’s that hard, and I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody that uses one!
Right in the middle there’s an “F” grade (who knows what the stands for) and the commonly used “HB”.
For the cartoonist/illustrator, it’s helpful to know what the grading system means, but in reality, there’s only a need for three or four different grades.
HB is good for general doodling, when you’re brainstorming ideas.
2H is good for beginning the light line work for a final piece.
2B is good for the darker lines and the lettering.
If you’re doing very detailed work, with lots of shading and shadows, then you’re likely to use many more of the available grades. If a simpler look is your style, one grade and a black marker could well suffice.
Fortunately, pencils are relatively cheap, so getting hold of the different grades for the purposes of having a bit of fun is not going to be an expensive exercise. However, the extreme grades can be a bit hard to find and tend to be used only in specialist fields.
There are other grading systems around, most notably the American system based on numbers, but my understanding is that many US pencils now have both markings. (Can anyone confirm?). In any case, a US#1 = B through to a US#4 = 2H. A US#2.5 = F and again, who knows why?!
At the end of the day though, an artist uses the tools that they can produce the best work with. A pencil is no different, so find what you like, by them in bulk and draw to your hearts content!
Hi Matt- this essay was helpful and informative up to the point where you mention the F grade and say, “who knows what that stands for?” Well, if you’re going to write a piece on this topic, why not find out what it stands for and let us know? It’s nice to read your blog but if you start out to be informative you should follow through, no?
Best,
Gerry
G’day Gerry,
I wrote that because it is the truth! Nobody seems to know exactly what the F stands for. Some say ‘fine’ or ‘fine point’ or ‘firm’ but none of them can be confirmed.
Strange, but true…
Matt,
All my my sources say F= Fine indicating it holds a fine point, in comparison to HB and B series. For what it’s worth the the classification using numbers and letters is called the Brookman system.
The plain numbers, 1-6 with 1 the softest, used in general purpose pencils and some other drawing emplements like charchol, is the Conte system, after the person who invented the the modern pencil as well as art crayons and chalk.
A very thick book could be written on the various kinds of pencils. My wife and I are both pencil fanatics.
Neat blog, I’ll be dropping by regularly. Mine is down, my host went south, and it wasn’t backed up. I knew the bit about how to change the heading, but needed a copy of my blog or at least of WordPress to explain it. Good to see you figured it out on your own.
G’day Arnold,
Nice to have you drop by! And thanks for the extra info on the names for the different grading systems.
Pencil fanatics huh?! I think there’s support groups around for that…;)
Looking forward to having you contribute from time to time.
Hello. this is very good and has helped me a little bit, was fun reading through this. thanks man!
Hey, what type of pencil would you reccommed for basic types of outlining on canvas. This surface makes it hard to erase because of the texture and easy to damage if the pencil is too hard. I originally went with a 2H but now am finding the erasing time needed to get my image is lagging me from getting to the painting. Thanks!
I’m not sure that anything would make it much quicker on canvas Dennis. It’s a porous surface which means you need a harder grade, but that can often mean longer erasing times.
It might be a pain, but you’re probably not going to do much better than 2H.