Pencil vs. Pen Sketching

This past weekend was another outing of the Urban Sketchers.  Three of us met at Kathryn Albertson park.  Usually when I do sketching, I use a mechanical pencil.  The only thing I don't like about it is that it does smear (I use a 2B lead).  

I know lots of people use pens for sketching.  I like to be able to erase and am not that confident with using a pen.  But I decided to give it a go this time, because I will never get confident if I don't do it.

Here is the first sketch I did, which was started with pencil, and then I went back over with pen later (which some other people do, as well).

I had brought my little watercolor set and my Neocolor II water soluble crayons.  I used the crayons to add some color to this one.  And here is what I was looking at.

As you can see, I took some artistic license with what I was drawing.  Since I decided to draw vertically, instead of horizontally, it got squished in a little.

The next sketch I decided to do with pen.  I just jumped in without doing any pencil drawing at all. I used a Sharpie extra fine point pen.

Here is the view I was looking at.

I added a little bit of color with the crayons to distinguish some of the areas.  What I liked about the pen is that it doesn't smear and will be more permanent.  What I didn't like was the quality of the line which was mostly all even.  With a pencil, I can change the pressure to get different types of line.

In addition, I have to figure out different ways to shade with the pen.  It needs to be either more lines, hatching or cross-hatching.   I can't just put more pressure on it.  There is also much more contrast with the black lines against the paper.

I need to experiment more with the pen and different types of pens to make a determination of what I like better (or maybe it's a combination of pencil and pen).  One of the other gals there that day had some fountain pens which would change the line with some pressure.

If you do any kind of sketching, what tools do you like to use?  Do you have a preference?  And if you use pens, I would love to hear what brand/kind you like.