The behaviours of creep and stress relaxation (SR) during otherwise monotonic loading (ML) drained direct shear (DS) at a fixed shear displacement rate of air-dried specimens of three types of clean sand and a gravel having different particle shapes were evaluated and compared. As the particles become rounder, the grading becomes more uniform, as the specimen becomes looser and as the shear displacement becomes larger, the viscous property type deviates more from Isotach type. The SR envelope comprising multiple stress-shear displacement states reached after stress relaxation is always located considerably below the creep envelope reached by a creep process for the same duration of time. The difference becomes larger as the viscous property becomes less Isotach.