The long point

A machine sharpener exposes about two millimetres of lead in a short cone. It blunts within a minute of shading and can only make one kind of mark. A long point, cut with a craft knife so that eight to ten millimetres of lead show, then shaped on a sandpaper block, gives you a needle at the tip for line and a long flat facet along the side for tone. It is the single cheapest upgrade in drawing and every master in this program used one.

Cutting it: hold the pencil in your off hand, blade in the drawing hand, and shave the wood away in long strokes toward the point, rotating the pencil a quarter turn each stroke. Do not touch the lead with the blade. When the lead is exposed, roll it on the sandpaper block to taper it. Two seconds on the block re-points it any time it dulls.

Keep the point sharp for contour and architecture and let it dull slightly for tone. A dull long point laid on its side is how you get Corot's soft foliage without a stump.