To see what marks could be made from a variety of drawing implements, I draw a chart an sampled each one in these four categories: Line, shading, cross-hatch and stippling/dots.

Pencil: Good for lines, shading, cross-hatch and stippling/dots with some range of thickness.

Berol Colourfine: Thin lines were good, but solid shading was less effective although sketchy shading was ok. Cross-hatching worked better and I could get a more three-dimensional effect by shading over with pencil crayon.

Berol Colourbroad: Thick lines good for suggesting shading in a cartoon style.

Thin Ch​arcoal Stick: Excellent for shading, cross-hatching and detailed marks using the tip. Plus facilitated a textured effect using the side.

Soft Pastel: Quickly covers larger areas but hard to work in detail. Would be good for shading – with more practice!

Conte Crayons: I had never used these before and found them quite difficult. Again they weren’t useful for small details, but worked well side on.

Soft Charcoal: Quick to apply, smudges a lot, ok for sketching and cross-hatching on a larger work. Thin sticks snapped too easily for me and small details / strong shapes were hard to produce.