The power of the pencil is astounding.Mechanical and wood-bound pencils provide a portable, durable means of carrying and using the marking material without making a mess of our fingers.
At this point I suggest you take a visit to http://www.pencils.com./. The information that you will discover there will tell you some important things about this writing instrument that we too often take for granted.
If you want to defer that visit, that is OK, but be sure to make it at some POINT.
Here are the pencils I use the most:
1. "H" pencils, starting at number 6 hardness. I don’t like the mess of the pencils containing the "B". Most of the pencils are actually in lead holders, some antique and very precious to me and some are the latest and greatest designs. I prefer the pencils from .5 mm and smaller. I use a variety of pointers and make especially fine points with hard leads using chamois and just polishing the point down to my need.
2. Watercolor pencils ( I can draw letters and sketch and then play with the designs with a slightly moist watercolor brush.)
3. Paired pencils for the good old double-pencil calligraphy discipline.
My pencils don’t have erasers. Lead-holders don’t have them and maybe there is something, to me, about making an error and either making something out of it or moving on.
One of the great things about pencils is that the majority of them contain some level of graphite and that makes their marks archival.
Maybe out there is someone that will spend some time singing the merits of the soft "B" leads, if so, I await your song and will probably dance to your tune but still do my work and art with my precious H’s.
Whatever your choice of pencil, pick one up and make a mark - make YOUR mark.
The volumes of painfully written and smuggled records of the lives of the hell of Russia’s Gulag were written with handmade pencils on the poorest paper. The power of their words may have been the first wedge hammered into the Iron Curtain and the words written by the mighty pencil made that wall come tumbling down. What power lies in your pencils?
Don’t forget your visit to http://www.pencils.com/
