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My 5-Pencil Method uses, you guessed it, five different grades of pencil-4H, 2H, HB, 2B, 4B. I always recommend you start with your lightest pencil first, which helps to lay a foundation for the darker color values that will lie on top, creating dimension and contour.
Because graphite is, obviously, has only one color scale-varying shades of gray-we are only able to suggest color when drawing and shading with graphite pencils. When suggesting a very dark shade, such as black, I still start laying the foundation with my 4H pencil. It's easy to get in the mentality that the area will be very dark anyway, and I might as well cut to the darker pencil to get it done, but there are several reasons I would not recommend doing this.
I want to be in control
I want to be able to be in control of how dark I go. I may not even have to make it as dark as I might have anticipated when suggesting a particular color, and I certainly want to have some value in reserve, for contouring and shadow.
Better saturation of value
You want to have a better saturation of value for the shadowed areas of your drawing, in particular. If I want to suggest that there is less light in an area, I do not want the subliminal white pits in the paper texture to contradict, when I'm trying to suggest there is little or no light. I feel that the smallest things are often the most powerful in interpreting the overall effect.
Regulation texture
When skipping to a softer, so darker, pencil before laying the appropriate foundation, you risk showing too much texture. The softer and darker the pencil, the heavier the texture will be. Then if I do not like the texture that is created, I try harder to fill it in. The tension becomes to make it darker when trying that. The more value, the more I have to work to contour that area, and often the only way to do that is to press harder until you ever do not have a darker value left.
Keep a dark value reserved
When jumping to a darker value, you also have a harder time judging how much of the dark value you will have in reserve. I always teach my students to keep a reserve of dark value in case you need it at the very end. I certainly do not want the dark color to become a large dark mass, with little contour and dimension. I watch students run into this often when they are anxious to get a drawing done.
Large dark areas are also ominous and they can become intimidating tasks to deal with. There are some unique situations where I might use a brush when there is a definite texture that can be maintained, such as I do with hair. But then, especially when there is a very dark area with a greater quantity of the softer and darker graphite on the paper, more of it tends to shift around when brushed and once again you lose some of the depth and contour. What were the darkest values now get shifted into lighter areas and you have to reestablish the darker values all over again.
Minimize large dark areas
I would tend to keep to a minimum the large dominating dark areas in my drawing, especially when it distracts from or overwhelms some of the very important smaller dark values in my subject. I want to control where the focus is going to be.
As always, have fun drawing!
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