Pencils are one of the most used out of all art equipment, even if you don't draw everyone has a pencil in their house or pencil cases. You can easily rub out pencils or smudge them in for shading or practically anything.

When practicing art it is easier to get the hang of pencils first, but that is not always the case.

Colouring pencils can be difficult to use sometimes, you have different options such as oil ones.

Something some people do is dip the pencils in water and use it to colour since is glides over a lot more smoothly with barely any of those annoying white spots.

 

You can get dark pencils and extremely light ones, the light ones can be difficult to rub out sometimes, but they are best when you are barely sketching anything, so then afterwards you can just go over it.

A few people sketch out what they are going to paint before painting over it.

 

Pencils are not for everyone, but it is very common to use in traditional art.