How to use the Pencil Grade Chart
- Read the scale top to bottom. Rows run from 9H, the hardest and palest grade, to 9B, the softest and darkest. Each strip shows one pencil going from a feather-light touch on the left to firm pressure on the right, and the dots show how easily it smudges.
- Open a grade for the details. Click a row, or tab to it and press Enter (the arrow keys move between rows). You get its hardness, what it is good for, how well it holds a point and the mistake it tempts you into.
- Answer “which pencils do I need?” Pick a purpose — Beginner set, Sketching, Portraits, Technical drawing or Shading practice. The recommended grades are marked in the chart and listed in the box; Copy list puts them on your clipboard for the art store.
- Test your own pencils. Under Test sheet for your own pencils, adjust which grades to print, choose Letter or A4 and press Download test sheet to get a PNG. Print it at 100% and fill one row per pencil.
What the letters actually mean
A graphite pencil core is a baked mix of graphite and clay. More clay makes the core harder, so it wears away slowly and leaves a lighter line; more graphite makes it softer, darker and smudgier. The letters describe where a core sits on that slide: H for hardness, B for blackness. The number says how far along the scale it goes, so 6H is much harder than 2H, and 6B much softer than 2B.
In the middle sit HB, hard and black in equal measure, and F, which stands for “fine”. F is slightly harder than HB and keeps a sharp point longer, which is why it is popular for writing and technical lettering.
What the letters do not give you is consistency between brands. Each manufacturer calibrates its own scale, so one brand’s 2B can match another’s 4B, and the steps between neighboring grades are not even across a range. That is the real reason to print the test sheet: twenty minutes with your own pencils on your own paper tells you more than any chart, this one included. The tone strips above are illustrations of the general trend, not measurements of a particular brand.
Graphite also has a ceiling. Even 9B never reaches a true black, because graphite is a slightly reflective mineral; press hard and the darkest areas turn shiny and gray under a lamp. When a drawing needs deep, matte blacks, finish those passages with charcoal or a carbon pencil.
US numbers and the HB scale
American school pencils use numbers instead of letters. The usual equivalents are:
| US number | Roughly equals |
|---|---|
| #1 | B |
| #2 | HB |
| #2½ | F |
| #3 | H |
| #4 | 2H |
These are conventions, not exact matches; a “#2” from one company can run noticeably darker than another’s. For drawing, artists almost always buy by letter grade.
Mistakes that show up in the finished drawing
- Pressing a hard pencil to get a dark. A 2H pushed hard dents the paper and goes shiny instead of dark. Switch to a softer grade rather than leaning harder.
- Laying light tones over grooves. Indented construction lines resist graphite and appear as white lines when you shade over them. Draw guidelines with a light hand, even when the grade is hard.
- Starting with the softest pencil. 8B smears under your hand into every light area you meant to keep clean. Work from light to dark and hard to soft, and save the darkest grade for the end.
- Burnishing too early. Heavy, polished graphite won’t accept more layers. Build values in several thin passes and keep the last push for the darkest accents.
Tips from practice
Sharpen soft grades with a knife. 6B and softer leads snap inside many sharpeners. A craft knife leaves a long exposed lead you can use on its side for broad tone and on its tip for detail.
Keep a slip sheet under your hand. A scrap of paper between your palm and the drawing stops soft graphite from smearing across the page.
Test on the paper you will draw on. Smooth bristol makes every grade look darker and slicker; toothy sketch paper breaks the line into grain. Compare your test-sheet rows with the Notan & Value Study Tool to see which pencils hit which values.
Hold onto one hard pencil in a soft drawing. A sharp 2H or H is the cleanest way to draw fine highlights in hair, crisp edges and texture in light areas, even when most of the drawing is in 2B to 6B. For sheet sizes to match your sketchbook, see the Paper Size Chart.