Pencils

[John in Covina]

Perhaps the Best pencils?

Check out these Graf von Faber Castell Pencils and sets!
http://www.cultpens.com/acatalog/Graf_von_Faber-Castell_Perfect_Pencil.html

Fancy!

 

[MrNewportCustom]

Check out these Graf von Faber Castell Pencils and sets!
http://www.cultpens.com/acatalog/Graf_von_Faber-Castell_Perfect_Pencil.html

Fancy!

I saw these very pencils at an art shop in Huntington Beach, a few weeks ago. They're expensive in American dollars, too. But, they are very beautiful. I wanted them!


Lee

 

[AlanC]

Don't forget The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance.

 

[K.D. Lightner]

I have a wide variety of pencils for my artwork, from hard (for faint fine lines) to very soft (shading, etc.). I also have a goodly number and variety of erasers.

I prefer a 2B for writing, will write in pencil if I can't use a computer because I can erase, arrange and change much better than with a pen.

My address book has names in ink and addresses in pencil. In this day and age, with everyone moving around all the time, I found it was better to use pencils -- or I'd ruin an address book within a year.

Of course, I have an old Panasonic pencil sharpener, acquired 20-plus years ago when a publishing house I worked for left San Diego for parts unknown and I stayed behind, as did the stockroom. Our boss said help yourselves and I did. I love my pencil sharpener.

I don't much like using the mechanical pencils, maybe it's the way I press but it seems to me that the lead breaks all too easily. I really like the feel of a real wooden pencil.

karol

 

[John in Covina]

I rarely work in pencil and actually prefer mechanical pencils like the Pentel type. The reason why is that old wooden ones "smell" to me and I don't like that smell. Perhaps it has to do with doing too many company (auto part warehouse) inventories where we had to use pencil.

 

[zeus36]

I use two mechanical pencils made by Roting out of brass- 0.5 and 0.7mm. My nicest looking writer is a 0.5mm Pentel Sharp Kerry automatic. Pentel made a quite a variety of mechanical pencils and I picked up a few back in the 1970s for my drafting class in grade school. They have a dial sleeve to show which grade lead is in the nib. I used a 0.3 for fine work and 0.7 for most notes in my science lab workbooks, although my fountain pen affliction has since taken over in the note-writing arena.

I also have a thing for drafting lead holders and the harder leads. Picked up two heavy steel vintage desktop lead pointer made by Keuffel & Esser called TRU-POINT Variable Taper for those leads. These were still in the original boxes and someone was going to throw them in the trash!
Staedtler Mars and Alvin made some nice stuff before CAD became dominant.
Parker often sold the Parker 51 Fountain pen and other models with a matching mechanical pencil, and I have several of those, but no real use for them.

 

[MrNewportCustom]

Lietz sharpener (they're called "lead pointers"?) and Pickett lead holder. I took a semester of drafting in my freshman year in high school (1977). The instructor must have been in the market for a new set-up, because at the end of the semester he gave these to me. His name and SS# are etched onto the bottom. More of that crinkle finsh I love.

Lee

 

[Josephine]

Lietz sharpener (they're called "lead pointers"?) and Pickett lead holder. I took a semester of drafting in my freshman year in high school (1977). The instructor must have been in the market for a new set-up, because at the end of the semester he gave these to me. His name and SS# are etched onto the bottom. More of that crinkle finsh I love.

I've got one of those! I think. It was my dad's, when he took drafting, and I used it in my Landscape Architecture classes. Not sure where it is, or if I still have it.

 

[Lady Day]

I sketch only in sienna brown Prismacolor Pencils. I animate with a mechanical pencil, and I do underdrawings for paintings in pencils. So the pencil is my main tool

Got this puppy recently form an antique mall, and it is being used

LD

 

[MrNewportCustom]

Sorry About the Fuzz . . .

. . . but the cat was sleeping on the computer desk. In fact, I'm typing around him now.

Very nice, Lady Day. I like the wood handle. This one has been in the family for years.

Lee

 

[Mid-fogey]

I checked with...

...young Ginny in my avitar and she says they use regular pencils (that you have to sharpen) in the 3rd grade. They even use the pencil sharpener that you have to crank!!!

 

[Diamondback]

Y'all just made me remember a Space Race anecdote.

The problem: how to write in zero-g? A regular ballpoint won't work, needs gravity to feed the ink.

NASA spends umpteen million dollars to develop the famous Fisher Space pen, an elegantly engineered (overengineered, some say) solution to the problem.

The Russians? Just used pencils instead.

Just struck me as related and humorous.

 

[Viola]

I don't know anything about fancy pencils (or much about drawing, period, as the professors who tried to teach me hand-drafting would say) but I use plain-Jane yellow No. 2 pencils for just sketching ideas. And doodling when I should be working. And for endlessly redesigning room layouts and flowerbeds.

 

[Dixon Cannon]

My Dad's pencil sharpener from his school days prior to World War I.

You just don't get that kind of quality these days! Replaceable blade - leather case with snap;
Do you think any of our kid's school supplies with still be around 90 years from now?

-dixon cannon

 

[Dixon Cannon]

Here are the beauties that sit on my desk at home..

-dixon cannon

 

[Diamondback]

I don't know anything about fancy pencils (or much about drawing, period, as the professors who tried to teach me hand-drafting would say) but I use plain-Jane yellow No. 2 pencils for just sketching ideas. And doodling when I should be working. And for endlessly redesigning room layouts and flowerbeds.

So, that just means we'll have to introduce you to the joys of AutoCAD... Computer-assisted drawing is more patience than dexterity anyway, at least in my experience it's the reverse of hand-drawing.

 

[Viola]

So, that just means we'll have to introduce you to the joys of AutoCAD... Computer-assisted drawing is more patience than dexterity anyway, at least in my experience it's the reverse of hand-drawing.

I've got a degree in computer-assisted design, actually, Diamondback. I just had to take some regular architecture classes and I was the despair of the more old-school professors.

"You can't do EVERYTHING on the computer!"

"...yeah, I can."

 

[Diamondback]

Ummm... CAD degree? I think my heart just skipped a few beats... gotta love a gal who has a CAD- or CAD/CAM-system and knows how to use it!

 

[dhermann1]

Mechanical pencil

All these mentions of mechanical pencils reminded me of one that I have in the family archives:

It was stuck inside a little yearbook diary:

That belonged to my great grandmother, Hattie M. Lewis. Here's how the pencil tucks into the book:

And the year, 1864:

It has beautiful gilding on the edge of the pages. It was never used at all. She would have been 22 when it was given to her.

 

[Viola]

There really is something to be said for quick, not-terrible sketching as a portable skill. I used to trade-off with a design major because he was borderline computer-hopeless.

I'd still like to get better at pencilling. I mostly only use it to bubble-diagram spaces and stuff. But AutoCad's my jam, SketchUp not far behind.