Pencil Pushing

I recently did some small pencil sketches for a commission in San Francisco, but I will restrict my aesthetic comments in favor of the more urgent pencil issues.

Most of the sketches are in pencil, small, and on ordinary sketch paper, or on composition books - as skteches, they are a thinking process and not meant as finished works.

The elaborate ones all used several pencils, sketched in 2h, 3h or 4h, and finished with HB, F or 2Bs, or the Bic, which seems to be a sort of F style.

My primary pencils were:

1) The Bic Disposable 7mm with hexagonal sides. For this most useful of pencils, with a smooth and controllable lead, there is sadly a deterioration of the pencil holder here noticed by many artists of my acquaintance. The original black plastic holders are tighter fitting around the lead, and the mechanism failed less often, the lead not sliding back up into the holder.

Why not a proper mechanical pencil? They are expensive, and you lose them, most are unfortunately round, and I've had trouble finding the right lead anyway. The Bic is the workhorse I carry around- stress free, it comes with 3 rather than 2 leads, and it's mechanism with the thumb click, is superior in practice to other brands; although the lead tends to slip more than in the original design. The hexagonal sides allow your hand to note the position of the wear pattern on the lead- again, an important factor for controlling the line quality in a drawing.

2) A selection of Tombows. Performing without any notable flaw, the Tombows kick some serious pencil ass, laying down a remarkably even tone. But they are almost...too smooth- and they seem have a noticeably different color in the graphite- it reflects differently from lesser pencils, which is fine, unless you're mixing pencils, which I usually do. There might be a little too much wax in the mix for it to be my favorite feel.

3) A Utrecht Surprise- Utrecht's half labeled box O' pencils on the counter. A discount store advertiser, cheaper than their store brand art pencils, the simple fact of the matter is that this was my favorite pencil to use in these drawings. A little chalkier and darker than the Tombow, it's perfect for sketching, absolutely perfect. It comes in 2, nothing else. It's 50 cents. That's it. Like it or leave it. It's round and I still like it.

4) Old American Dixons- I had some Ticonderoga's "Extra-hard", good for the first light lines in the design. Solid pencil and really, really hard, with dense wood as well. I will miss these, and the cheerful yellow and green design.

5) De Staedlers, the go-to art pencils, they are like Mercedes: Great, it's great, fantastic, so well done. That much, huh? What else you got?

A noted truth: Paper is the on other side of pencils, and the selection of your paper should really determine your choice of pencil. On my cheap composition books, the Bic is a total pleasure. On good high linen content separate sheet acid free drawing paper, I would go for De Staedler normally, although I might just sink 5 bucks into this weird Utrecht off brand. For a quick sketch on decent drawing paper pads, perhaps Tombow. And all of this depends on the paper's "tooth," or the aggressiveness of the texture.