Practicing with a pencil can be very useful when starting out with flex nib writing and you
can quickly become accustomed to the feeling of writing with a nib by producing thick and
thin strokes by pressure.
With a soft pencil (I use a 6B) the feeling is very similar to using a pen with a flex nib, but
there is no nib to dig into the paper - a common problem when beginning.
This technique is not an end in itself, but it can be a useful stepping stone to developing a
feeling for this type of script. All upward strokes are as light as possible and all downward
strokes swell with controlled pressure.
To achieve the stroke difference with a pencil, it may be necessary to blunt the point slightly.