I want to agree. But we all must recognize that Mr. Rees is pushing his pencil sharpening business agenda.
While I frequently use the properly hand crafted alternatives, discussed here in some detail, the common choice for myself and many of my artist friends is the disposable Bic #.7 mm, at least when drawing in the underpainting.
For lines less than 1 cm thick I prefer a Palomino Blackwing hand-sharpened using a diamond saw. There's a guy in Palo Alto who will do the job custom for you for ten dollars per pencil based on your height, handedness, and customary elbow angle, but he's cranky and a little slow sometimes.
Aren't. I meant aren't. We don't know if Rees' pencils are sharpened in sweatshops, I'm just asking how we know they aren't. I don't mean to presuppose or accuse him of anything, like exploiting cheap labor abroad to produce ersatz hand-sharpened pencils for a population so artistically destitute, so denuded of the natural solace of artistic expression, that it reflexively grabs for an apparently hand-sharpened pencil the way a baby reaches for its mother's teat.
I investigated, and found the factory in China where he outsources his sharpening. I found many workers suffering from lead poisoning, and scores of children fired after they had put out an eye with a sharpened pencil.
6 Comments:
I want to agree. But we all must recognize that Mr. Rees is pushing his pencil sharpening business agenda.
While I frequently use the properly hand crafted alternatives, discussed here in some detail, the common choice for myself and many of my artist friends is the disposable Bic #.7 mm, at least when drawing in the underpainting.
I use a Sumo-Grim 7mm which I keep in my coat pocket. But I still really like the chapter.
How do we know Rees' pencils are sharpened in a sweatshop in Jakarta?
Faber fatty ftw.
For lines less than 1 cm thick I prefer a Palomino Blackwing hand-sharpened using a diamond saw. There's a guy in Palo Alto who will do the job custom for you for ten dollars per pencil based on your height, handedness, and customary elbow angle, but he's cranky and a little slow sometimes.
Aren't. I meant aren't. We don't know if Rees' pencils are sharpened in sweatshops, I'm just asking how we know they aren't. I don't mean to presuppose or accuse him of anything, like exploiting cheap labor abroad to produce ersatz hand-sharpened pencils for a population so artistically destitute, so denuded of the natural solace of artistic expression, that it reflexively grabs for an apparently hand-sharpened pencil the way a baby reaches for its mother's teat.
It would be wrong to presuppose that, so I won't.
I investigated, and found the factory in China where he outsources his sharpening. I found many workers suffering from lead poisoning, and scores of children fired after they had put out an eye with a sharpened pencil.
I am going to write a letter to my congressman, on my Macbook Air.
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