Check out silverpoint or metalpoint drawing. I have started painting and in my research came across a technique called the Flemish technique. It is a layered approach that I have begun dabbling with. In further researching that technique, I learned about silverpoint drawing.
Graphite did not exist during the Renaissance and the under drawings were literally drawn with very fine silver (or other metal) wires. This is what gives the brown cast to many Da Vinci and Michalangelo because the silver tarnishes eventually to brown, copper to green and gold does not tarnish at all.
http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/drawing/renaissance-drawings.htm
There is a bit of a resurgence in silver or metalpoint drawing in the U.K. and that is where I got most of my materials. I did find one source in the U.S. for goldpoint.
The interesting thing about metalpoint (I currently have silver, gold, brass, bronze,copper and nickel wires) is that it cannot be erased. You have to get it right the first time. I read one article that said students were required to master silverpoint drawing before being permitted to work with paint. That is an amazing skill level.
I continue to work with graphite and oils, but the metalpoint drawing is giving all of my work new discipline.
One of the classes we had to take as art history majors at University of Chicago was a fine arts spread across all the old techniques, on the theory that you couldn’t criticize if you didn’t know exactly how the results were achieved. So we actually DID use silverpoint which, I agree, is very exciting. And the backwards layering of egg tempera from laying down the shadows first was fascinating. Cellini, by the way, has a wonderful section in his autobiography on the difference between city eggs and country eggs for egg tempera.