Pencil

A juniper or incense-cedar plank with several long parallel grooves is cut to make something called a slat, and the graphite/clay strings are inserted into the grooves. Another grooved plank is glued on top, and the whole thing is then cut into individual pencils, which are then varnished or painted.

Many pencils, particularly those used by artists, are labelled on the European system using a "degrees" scale from "H" (for hardness) to "B" (for blackness), as well as "F" (for fine point). The standard writing pencil is "HB".

Using Pencil

The usage of pencil is such a common thing that any description of it will be stating the obvious. Most of the time, graphite is slowly layered over an area -darkening a section with multiple layers. Other artists prefer to carefully smudge or blend the pencil to create suitable variations. Another technique is to lift areas of graphite with a kneaded eraser, which can lead to very minute details