Conté à Paris have been manufacturing some of the finest artists' materials available for more than 200 years. Many artists and grand masters have used Conté à Paris products because of the selection of pigments, lightfastness, and the exceptional brightness and purity of the colours. Conte offers a traditional range of Drawing and Sketching Pencils with a variety of exceptional leads. These pencils are excellent for portrait, landscape and still life work. The Conté Pencils compliment the Conté Crayon perfectly and blend well with them. Conté Sepia Pencil - reminiscent to burnt umber. This pencil shades easily. With a sharpened lead, you achieve an accurate and delicate finish. It can be used sparingly on its own but it can be blended with the Sanguine, White, Charcoal or Pierre Noire pencils for a more complex finish. Recommended for quick sketches for bare (shading of the most contrasting body parts); for portraits (values ??of a face); for landscapes (color of a trunk or the front of a house). It is recommended that the barrel alone should be shapened with a knife and the lead shaped with a scraper or sandpaper.