Ross has tons of really cool animations from a pencil-line-drawing slant at his great site, Pencilmation, home of Happy Little Toons. Be sure to check out our favorite toon, “A Sad Swim,” which features a soundtrack that reminds us of Wes Anderson’s films. Of course, you have to check out “Pencilmation #1” — the original.
[Screenshot content copyright Russ at Pencilmation, used with permission.]
Thanks to Martine and Max for each sending us information about the Pencil Building in Rotterdam. There is a block of flats in the large city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands called Potlood that is contained in a huge building that looks like a pencil. Max tells us:
“Great blog. This building is called ‘Het Potlood’ which is Dutch for The Pencil. The Potlood is in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. It is next door to the public library of the city. Het Potlood is an apartment building.”
I suddenly want to move to the Netherlands. That building would make a great headquarters for the Revolution.
[Photo from here.]
Lisa at Ninth Wave Designs writes about her beloved Blackwing 602s:
“I began using Blackwing 602 pencils as an art student years ago and have never found another pencil to compare with the richness of the lead. They give a deep dark black without being overly smudgy, and all the silvery range of greys are there too. The feeling that comes to mind is ’smooth’ and it is a pleasure to put this pencil to paper.” (Read on.)
The Revolution is without Blackwings to speak of and hopes against hope that Sanford will get that ferrule machine fixed or replaced. Maybe if enough members of the Revolution step up and write to Sanford Corp. it might help? It should be obvious to them that the fans of the Blackwing are willing to pay good money for it. Here is their contact info. In my experience, they do actually write back or at least read what people send them. Perhaps this is a job for the power of the Pencil People.
Our review today comes from Tom Leininger, a professional writer and photographer based in Lafayette, Indiana. Tom also has a blog on which you can see some of his amazing photos. We know that Tom is a huge fan of the Dixon Ticonderoga, so we asked him if he would review them for the Revolution, and we want to thank Tom at the outset for a great review and wonderful photos.
The technical stuff:
Material: Incense cedar.
Shape: Hexagonal.
Finish: Non-toxic yellow, high gloss.
Ferrule: Dixon’s famous green with yellow stripes.
Eraser: Soft pink rubber.
Core: HB (#2) graphite.
Markings: Green Foil. “U.S.A. Dixon Ticonderago 1388-2/HB Soft.”
Packaging: Varies. The box I have had 10 in it. Also available by the dozen and multi-dozen.
Origin: Manufactured in USA of California cedar; Company is based in Heathrow, Fla.
It was not until college that I understood how vital a pencil is to my chosen profession. I was sitting in my first journalism class at Western Kentucky University when the professor said we should always carry a pencil with us. Or, just use pencils all the time. They work in the rain, when ink runs. They work in the cold when ink freezes.
So, I have always had a pencil at hand, I just never really wrote with them all the time, until recently.
Before I found this blog I had been trying to go back to the fountain pen I bought when I was in college. I liked the fact it was messy and pretentious. It must have gotten lost in all of my moves. The disposable ones I tried did not always work. Since most of my writing is done in small notebooks standing up, I needed something simple.
The pencil. It was staring me in the face all along. I always kept one in my car, for when it rained or was extremely cold. I thought this might be what I am looking for.
So, I grabbed a generic one from the drawer at work, but was disappointed. A couple of people mentioned the Pilot G2 mechanical, which I tried. These let me down.
Coming home one day I found the rather patriotic box of Dixon Ticonderogas sitting on the desk. My wife, a former first grade teacher, said they were best for her kids. “I know you are reading about pencils,” she said with a smirk. “They are the best.”
So I sharpened one to a nice point. Unlike the mechanical one, the lead does not break easily. With pencils and keyboards, I am a little on the rough side. It works well writing in small notebooks standing up, or crouching down on the ground.
I gave one to a pencil wielding editor at the newspaper I work at. Maybe it is even better when used at a desk. “It’s a good pencil,” he said. It required one sharpening for a days worth of work. The generic he had been using needed to be sharpened every five minutes. He also noted that pencil has a more rounded feel to it. It does not leave creases in your hand.
“Another thing about that stupid pencil,” he said leaving the office. “It is strong and does not break.”
I have realized it can’t write on everything. My hand or checks to be cashed for example, At times it is not always easy to carry. These would be the biggest drawback to the wooden pencil.
Most of the time I will tuck it behind my ear, leading to the phantom pencil syndrome. At the end of the day, I still think it is behind my ear when alas, it is not. Luckily, it tucks into my Newswear chest vest and Mountainsmith Tour lumbar bag easily.
I do wish it came in a size that would fit a shirt pocket well. Sharpening is a breeze. The point is solid. They taste like wood. The eraser works well. And they can write on napkins. What more could one ask for? For one thing, these are right handed pencils, I am left-handed. So, all of the printing is upside down when I am writing.
The Dixon Ticonderoga has earned a spot in my kit. That is saying a lot, since I am kind of picky.
[All photos and text copyright T. Leininger 2005.]
“Those of us in the pencil industry are all quite proud of the origins and traditions of our companies. Many of us like to tell our historical tale of product innovation and organizational development. A number of us even claim to have produced the world’s ‘___est’ pencil. Pick your adjective.”
(Read on.)
We pencil aficionados are usually at least moderately aware that Henry David Thoreau contributed to American pencil manufacturing in significant ways and that this is funny, considering how much he often loathed material culture. But we might not all know about the details. For instance, did you know that Thoreau actually invented a machine to ground graphite finer than other pencil manufacturers? Now you do!
“CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Ordinary materials – from paper cups and pencil stubs to tires, twist ties and playing cards – are transformed into extraordinary art in a new exhibition at the University of Illinois’ Krannert Art Museum.”
Read on.
(Thanks for the link, Hans!)
[Image copyright J. Maestre 2000.]
Personally, I have always been a sucker for pencils, but I really got interested in them last summer after reading Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast and Walter Harding’s biography of Henry David Thoreau, The Days of Henry Thoreau. I immediately got the urge to write with some graphite. There were some junky yellow pencils around the apartment, but I wanted something nicer and not yellow. So I popped out to the shop and picked up a dozen Papermate American Naturals pencils, because I liked the lack of a finish on the wood and the blue foil lettering. So it is only natural that this review comes next.
The technical stuff:
Material: Some non-cedar, white wood that smells like grade school.
Shape: Hexagonal.
Finish: Unfinished.
Ferrule: Plain metal.
Eraser: Pink vinyl.
Core: HB (#2) graphite. Ceramic, non-waxed.
Markings: Blue Foil. “PAPERMATE AMERICAN NATURALS.”
Packaging: Varies. Usually a cardboard box of ten or a dozen. Also avaiable in twelve dozen (one gross) boxes.
Origin: Jelutong (or Pulai, similar species; both grow in Indonesia), manufactured in Lewisburg, Tennessee, USA.
Availability: Widely available in office supply stores and online. Office Max is your best bet.
Considering that the target market for this pencil is “children and schools” and that some companies seem to (for some reason) market junk to kids for pencils, these pencils are a pretty nice find. The core is dark, and as my friend Dan in Baltimore puts it, “They feel right in your hand.” The plain wood, blue letters and plain ferrule combine to make one attractive pencil. The sanding is not as smooth as some unfinished pencils, but it is made up for by the fact that you can get a serious grip on this pencil. Whether you are sweating or whether you just ate half of a pizza, the raw wood will stay put in your paw. I’ve done some long writing with these, and they work just fine. Sharpening is smooth and clean, almost as much as cedar.
The two major drawbacks of this pencil are the smeariness of the core and the terrible eraser. While considerably dark, the core tends to smear onto your hands, the opposite page, and anything else that comes near it. While pencil marks will last until you actually erase them, this is not always so with this graphite. It is also considerably brittle and dry and almost feels like charcoal at times. The eraser is probably the worst pencil eraser I have ever tried to use. It is billed as being smear-proof, but all it really does is smear the graphite around the page and make a mess of itself. Of course, one could object that this is because the core smears. But I tested erasing the markings of this pencil with a nice Pink Pearl, and it did just fine. Similary, I erased some Forest Choice with the eraser, and it made the same mess, which we know is not from the Forest Choice core.
However, for the price ($1-2) a dozen and the ease of available, American Naturals are still pretty good pencils, largely because of the finish. I tend to like them for putting behind my ear while reading a novel or running around the library, and I almost never read Hemingway’s more adventuresome novels without an American Naturals pencil behind my ear or between my teeth.
April 2006 appendix:
Comrade Ashley has this advice to offer:
[Comrades] have mentioned several times the deplorable, inexcusable excuse for an eraser that is found on PaperMate American #2 pencils.
Recently in a pencil pinch (on vacation), I bought some of these pencils. As
pleasantly surprised as I was by the lead (dark and soft), and the matte,
easily gripped lacquer, I was nevertheless devastated by those erasers! I came
up with the following two solutions:1) Remove the bad erasers and replace with good erasers from other pencils that I do not like or use.
2) Place the ferrule of the PaperMate pencil beneath my heel, I snap it off
and replace with an eraser cap. I remove the ferrule to compensate for the
imbalance and weight of the eraser caps.
[Photos copyright John 2005.]
This comes via Journalismo, via 43 Folders:
“Among his collection of pocket-sized devices were scales, drawing instruments, a thermometer, a surveying compass, a level, and even a globe. To record all these measurements, Jefferson carried a small ivory notebook (pictured) on which he could write in pencil. Back in his Cabinet, or office, he later copied the information into any of seven books in which he kept records about his garden, farms, finances, and other concerns; he then erased the writing in the ivory notebook.”
I really thought I read somewhere that Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence using a pencil and then went over it in ink, but I cannot find anything to prove this one way or the other. Does anyone know anything about this?
[Photo copyright Monticello(?).]
From At One Remove:
“Mars Lumograph EE. Great pencil. Discontinued. Why do they do this? Last remaining stub. The tonal range would put a silverprint to shame, with a dmax darker than charcoal. The EB version at least, is still sold as 8B. Why did Staedtler make this pencil?”
[Photo copyright AOR.]
We’d like to welcome to the Revolution our friend Woodchuck at Timberlines. Woodchuck comes from honest-to-goodness Pencil Royalty (the only kind allowed in a Revolution). His great- grandfather was the legendary Heinrich Berolzheimer, who immigrated to the United States after 40 years of pencil making in Germany. Heinrich “founded the Eagle Pencil Company, which introduced the famous Eagle and Mirado brands.” It was Woodchuck’s grandfather Charles who ventured west to bring us CalCedar. Royalty indeed!
To boot, Woodchuck is the President of California Cedar Products Company, the manufacturer of Forest Choice pencils. And, despite his position otherwise, he seems to us to possess considerable artistic talent, which we certainly hope he will continue to share with the readers of his new blog.
And it turns out that we each played a role in the birth of one another’s blogs. The timing of the births of The Revolution and Timberlines could not be more fortuitous.
In only a week, we already have some great posts from Woodchuck about pencils and the pencil manufacturing world. Here is a post about pencil certification, and here is another highlighting the ways in which we use pencils. To be sure, Woodchuck is an ambitious blogger and is as passionate about pencils are we are — maybe even more so! And we are lucky to be have such a great source of not only information, but also a source of inspiration in our own pencil adventures.
I know we promised a review of PaperMate American Naturals for this Friday, but things have come up, which prevented this from getting written. Next week, promise. And plenty more goodies in the meantime.
Fred from Orange, Connecticut wrote in recently about pencil caps:
I am 76. I recall that when I was young, we used to have available a metal , rocket-shaped item, ending with a dullish point. The purpose was to put this over the sharpened tip of one’s pencils so that they would not break, hurt someone, or by accident mark up something….they have since vanished, in part because pencils have been replaced (for walking about) with mechanical pencils, so that real pencils now are alomst always kept in offices, rooms, desks, etc., and there no longer is the need to cap the tip. I have out of curiousity looked all over the place for any remains of this metal protector but, alas, have not found any. Most folks either have forgotten about them or are too young to have known about them.
I know that General’s Pencil Co. makes some plastic caps called Sav-A-Point that go on the tips of pencils and that Cretacolor makes a metal cap for woodless pencils. But Fred and I wonder if anyone out there knows where to get some metal pencil caps like they used to make?
I’m thinking that it might be interesting to have some custom Pencil Revolution pencils made. The problem with customized pencils, of course, is quality. I for one would not want to write with a junky pencil just because of what it says on it. I think I’m going to try to look around for some printable pencils that are worth having made, or maybe I’ll try a quick dozen from this company to be fair. I wonder if Sanford Corp. would make us some nice Mirados? Or if we can find some other nice model with Pencil Revolution on it?
Our friend Lorianne from Hoarded Ordinaries recollects her recent trip to the Currier Museum of Art:
The coolest thing about sketching, though, is you can do it anywhere…almost. Knowing that photography is disallowed in the Currier, I couldn’t imagine that sketching could harm anything until a friendly guard approached me while I was standing, sketchbook in hand, in front of the Picasso. “Is that a pencil?” he fretted, alarmed by my Pentalic woodless graphite pencil, which admittedly doesn’t look like a pencil from across the room. After I assured him that I was using pencil and wouldn’t dream of drawing in pen, he confided, “You wouldn’t believe how many people do,” adding as an afterthought, “We even give out pencils if people don’t have them.” And then as if to demonstrate that there were no hard feelings, he quietly reappeared with a stool for me to sit on. “That’s why we have them,” he explained.
(Continued from part I.)
It seems to me that handwriting is associated more with pencils than with pens these days. Maybe this is because we learned to write in pencil. Maybe it’s because our first pens were Bics or Papermates that did not produce as thick and expressive lines that pencils can live up to. Maybe it’s something I would never think of myself.
But there are a lot of people out there writing about it. Here’s a good one: Memory Keeper on Handwriting.
This is the very first review featured on PRevo. It has been reserved for Forest Choice, namely their cedar graphite pencils — because of their generosity and because I have personally always wanted to their pencils and finally got to this week.
Some General Information:
Material:Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified Incense-cedar.
Shape: Hexagonal.
Finish: Unfinished cedar, sanded extremely smoothly, no varnish or lacquer at all.
Ferrule: Solid green metal, thin paint.
Eraser: Soft pink, non-smudge.
Core: HB (#2) graphite.
Markings: Dark green gloss. On one side, the FSC insignia and “FOREST CHOICE.” On the flip side, “www.forestchoice.com.”
Packaging: Ribbed kraft paper, by the dozen and the gross.
Origin: California (wood); Thailand (manufacturing).
Availability: Forest Choice online store.
That’s the technical information. Now for the good stuff.
It is certainly fortunate that the inaugural review on PRevo is of such an excellent pencil. The shape is a pleasantly rounded hexagonal barrel. The colors of the ferrule, the paint, the woodgrain and the eraser play on the senses in such a way that one would wish to have something important (but earthy) to write with one of these fine pencils. The touch and appearance factor are definitely to the advantage of this pencil.
Writing with a Forest Choice pencil is just as pleasurable as holding or beholding them. The core is as smooth as the sanded wood and considerably dark. If you have used some cheaper pencils with unwaxed cores, then you know how black an HB pencil can be. The core of the Forest Choice pencil achieves this darkness and somehow does so without adding the smear/smudge factor. What you get is a nice dark line that remains a lineif you touch it, rather than turning to a grey blob upon getting disturbed in any way. I used them to hand-write the larger part of a term paper, and I did not have the trouble I sometimes have with reading pencil writing from the keyboard. It stood out against the page like gel ink would. To be sure, the core feels more like a smooth B grade lead, almost a 2B. It is a rich.
The eraser, while extremely soft, is still a good match for the dark lead and takes the lines off the paper easily. The wear-down is minimal, and it does no damage at all to the paper so far as one can tell.
Sharpening is a breeze, of course, since the cedar has along and straight grain. And it exudes that subtle cedar fragrance as the shavings hit the saucer or the table.
The texture and smell of unfinished and sanded cedar is really something that online photos and words cannot really convey. You have to try them. Forest Choice pencils are a little more expensive by the dozen than your average pencil, but they are also made of a higher quality wood, with a darker core and with a softer eraser that actually works. You will more than get your money’s worth, with writing pleasure to boot. I sure did.
[Note: Reviews of Forest Choice’s colored pencils and carpenter’s pencils to follow in a few weeks, when I get around to ordering them. Review of PaperMate American Naturals next Friday! These photos copyright J.G. 2005.]
From Chemical and Engineering News, “The newsmagazine of the chemical world online.” Steve Ritter recalls:
I actually have a graphite bit under my watch that’s been there since 1991, when I was in the seventh grade. But that’s a story (and photo) for another post.
Personal anecdotes aside, there’s some great information in there about pencils and graphite, including some things that not everyone knows about our humble wooden warrior.
[Photo copyright Doug Martin.]
From a recent comment by our friend Neighbor Girl:
“There is a lot less fear in writing with a pencil. Mistakes are easier to correct and there are never ink-flow issues. I can let my guard down with pencils and my handwriting is much more relaxed. It’s similar to going on a date in a dress (pen) and going to the market with a friend in jeans (pencil). I’m not going to be fussy about my jeans, I’m just going to relax in them. Pencils are comfortable, they keep us real.”
[Photo copyright N.G., used with permission.]
