Practice Graduated and Continuous Shading

A simple pencil grayscale is your first step in getting control of your pencil shading. Draw a ladder grid of five one-inch squares. Using the tip of a sharp pencil, shade the first as dark as you can, and the last as light as you can. Shade the remaining squares in even steps between the two, so that the middle square is a good mid-tone. Try this with a range of pencils - from 6B through to 2H - so that you can see the range of tone that can be achieved with each one.