What are white lead pencils good for?

[ragged]

They don't show up well on black card, they make a wax film on ordinary paper. Do they have any other use? They are sold separately, so they must have some special artistic function, right?

Do you mean a chinagraph pencil? I use one to mark up dark fabrics when I'm sewing- I find it better than tailor's chalk though of course being waxy means you can't easily brush it out, but you can make far more accurate marks. You can also mark up plastic film etc. It was always much more useful in the past before the ready advent of dry markers for whiteboards!

IF you mean white coloured pencils, 'cheap' ones where white has been included to 'complete the set', they're useless! Good quality ones do mark dark card well. It's all to do with degrees of pigment!

I think it's the useless one I've only ever encountered :). When you acquire a set of coloured pencils for the DC, set usually includes a pencil with white lead in it, and I think... what for?

ah thooooooose white pencils, um yes not that good, you need to do pencil stuff on dark paper but it has limited effect. i would not do a huge white section on dark paper but it can be uesed for smaller sections and can be uesed to make other colours lighter.