how to draw with graphite

Hello to all!

Today I feel like sharing some useful videos about traditional drawing with pencils, which seems to be the most extended tool for beginners and also the most confortable for sketching.
First of all, what kind of pencils can I use? What do they mean all that graphite grades "3H, HB, 2B..."? This video can answer to the questions and explain lead grades in depth.

Now you understand how to choose graphite grades and what lead is better for you or suits your preferences. Exeperiment with them, smudge them with your fingers (or a blending stump/smudger) to see how the different grades look smudged.

Which are the biggest problems you can face? In my opinion, drawing hair is a bit tricky. I could have mentioned hands or feet, but they are difficult to draw with any tool and they deserve a whole tutorial dedicated only to them, so we'll forget about these anatomical nightmares.

I have noticed that beginners who use graphite tend to make straight strokes to represent hair, it is absolutely reasonable if you are still learning, I used to do the same.
However, it may not be the most recommended technique when we want to draw other kinds of hair.
For wavy and curly hair this video is pretty good:

In general, I find this YouTube Channel very useful, with all the techniques very well explained.
You can find some pretty good videos about hair drawing:

Yes, braids! Because curly hair is not complicated enough, now we attempt to draw braids. This tutorial is awesome, a bit long (almost 50 min) but it is worthy.
How can I do a dark shading or a strong claireobscur? Let him teach you, this is a quick video with all the steps explained, you'll see how it helps:

I reccomend you to browse the whole channel, not only the featured hair tutorial, but all the content you may find there. You can find some much needed hand and nose tutorials.

Once you can draw hair with graphite, doing it with colored pencils is pretty easy. Starting to draw with black and white trains your eye and your mind to better understand the light source and to draw realistic shading. It is important to know how to use the proper grey values to be able to colour and shade properly. You'll realize you are not going to use too flat and light colours: graphite drawings need depth and contrast or the forms won't be representated correctly.
This should help you to apply colour better and to choose better hues and middletones.

I hope this helps you.

Thank you very much for reading!

PS: I thought it would be fair to add some samples of my graphite work:

Vanity by Shesvii Hocus Pocus by Shesvii