Part One – THE PENCIL
10
HARD PENCIL
Hard pencil marks have very little variation in
the range of mark making. They only usually
vary through a linear progression. Tone is
usually made from a build up of crosshatch
effects. Hard pencils are denoted by the
letter H. As with soft pencils, they come in a
range, comprising HB, H, 2H, 3H, 4H, 5H,
6H, 7H, 8H and 9H (the hardest).
These pencils are mainly for use by
designers, architects and people who
produce precise technical diagrammatic
drawings for which a fine, accurate line is
essential, such as perspective or other
projection drawings. Although the marks
made with hard pencil show very little
variation it can be used in an expressive
manner. As with soft pencil, tone can be built
using a cross-hatching system, although the
result is much finer and more formal, the
cross-hatching emerging out of a series of
linear progressions.SYSTEMS FOR HARD PENCILS
Hard pencils are mostly appropriate for
drawings requiring accuracy. As we have
pointed out previously, such drawings are
usually done by engineers, industrial
designers, graphic designers and architects.
The final drawings they produce have to be
to scale and precise so that other people,
such as craftsmen, can follow the
instructions to construct or make the
designed object. These drawings come in a
number of different types of perspective, or
parallel projection systems, ranging from flat
orthographic plan or elevation drawings to
3D perspective illustrations.Materials and examples of marks