Pencil

The modern lead pencil is not made of lead but is a compressed mixture of clay and graphite in a wooden or plastic casing. It is a versatile and sensitive drawing tool, often used by artists for preliminary studies which can easily be rubbed out, and comes in varying grades of softness and hardness. Pencils also come in a range of colours, and with the water-soluble kind a line can be made into a wash of colour with a brush and water.