When you can’t find the right words…
Don’t blame the paper, it’s blank. Don’t blame the pencil, it’s just doing its job at minimum wage. But the eraser, uninvited and bourgeois, you could do without.
Have something to say about this post? Contact me.Notebooks, great and small.
Can a notebook be great? Of course it can. Girls will know of all those journals we bought when we were younger, just cause we liked ‘em, not that we were going to fill them up with something awesome. I rarely ever did, but when I did, it was amazing. And I do think the notebook has a lot to do with it.
The notebook of Hemingway …
Moleskine claims Hemingway used their notebook … he didn’t. I could get into the history and the source of their claims but it would be a bore. Moleskin as a company didn’t exist until much later. And the greats – Oscar Wilde, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, Henri Matisse and others – used nameless notebooks made by Parisian manufacturers. Rumor has it .. the construction wasn’t all that great and they were cheap and easy to carry around.
Moleskine is sort of like that except it’s not cheap. I really like the thinness. The cardboard cover leaves much to be desired, but the rounded edges and many sizes and types makes up for it. Moleskine as a brand is not the ideal, but the size and shape is. If anyone knows where I can find similar thin notebooks for cheaper, let me know. I don’t think Moleskine has any significant paper quality over the average drawing pad.
Most notebooks these days are way too big, and unless you spend your whole day at a desk, they are pointless. Inspiration strikes at random. My notebook is next to me most of my day. This means when I want to draw I can. When I hear a song lyric that makes me think, I can write it down. When I need to record something, I can. While most of these things can be done via smartphone now, I still think drawing is important enough to me that I should strive to have my notebook on me 100% of the day.
So, key points:
1. make it thin.
You’ll use them up faster but you’ll end up with a lovely collection this way. If you lose it, you only lose a bit of your thoughts and scribbles, yay!
2. small enough to be carried everywhere.
Pocket size is awesome. Also make sure it’s not too heavy, so a thick cover is a no-no.
3. Don’t stress over paper quality.
Make sure it doesn’t fall apart but the notebook is not a final product, so the materials don’t need to be top notch. If they’re top notch, you’re less likely to take it everywhere.
Lastly, have a pencil on you. If you prefer pens, I really like Space Pens. I got a Space Pen as a gift and it’s one of my favorite pens, but it’s so expensive I’m scared to carry it around everywhere. It’s on a necklace, but sometimes it comes loose. So, cheapness comes in handy. Don’t let the cumbersomeness of losing things get in the way of your notebook’s constant presence. If you lose it, let it go.
Rules are meant to be broken and things are meant to be lost.
Have something to say about this post? Contact me.New drawing from class.
It’s the knot part of a bow. For this part of the class we are only allowed to use line to represent our drawings. The class is wonderful and quirky. I love how every class period ends with Phil Collins’ In the air tonight. Also got some interesting professor input – I need to give up being competitive when it comes to drawing.
This is the first 101 class where I really feel like my brain is sponge and everything being presented is crucial. I’ve learned a ton so far.
Ps. Sorry for the crappy phone picture.
Have something to say about this post? Contact me.Attention Writers, Artists, and Doodlers: Pencil Hardness + things you should know before you put another pencil to paper
Pencils matter.
A bit. My drawing teacher said he traveled all of America searching for the perfect pencil and never found it because pencils aren’t that important. But considering people who draw as a hobby without any sort of basic direction generally draw with HB pencils, there is such thing as a better pencil. (HB Pencils are what we call #2 pencils in school, the same type of graphite is in most mechanical pencils.)
First problem is that HB and other “#H” pencils are gray, not black. This makes most drawings look drab, and filling in negative space never looks consistent. You also end up tearing paper if you try to really fill it in. H stands for hardness, B for blackness. However the scale both includes tone and hardness, so the blackest pencils are also the softest, and the hardest pencils are also the lightest. This is because softer/blacker pencils have a higher percentage of clay in the graphite mixture.
You will see that B-pencils are geared towards artists, and H-Pencils are geared towards engineers – because engineers prefer precision and control, and artists would sacrifice that for depth of color and a higher variety of line darkness and thickness. Softer pencils have more “bounce”. Pushing down harder makes a significant difference in the end result. Hard pencils are generally pretty consistent.
Ditch the fancy stuff.
I only have a few brands and I do have some of the renowned Koh-i-Noor pencils and they are lovely but I’m just as in love with the 6B pencil I got from Micheal’s for $1.60. Ultimately – just make sure you find a hardness that feels right and gives you range.
This is important for artists and writers. After all, many authors used pencils instead of pens.
- Nabokov famously wrote every book in pencil, several times over.
- Steinbeck used about 60 pencils a day. East of Eden is estimated to have required more than 300 pencils to write.
- Vincent Van Gogh insisted on the blackest of pencils and preferred pencils made by Faber.
Recent Pencil Crushes:
Woodless graphite pencils, Zebra “Fat Lead” 2b Mechanical pencil, Any type of graphite that fits in my 2mm mechanical pencils + Graphcube
Moral of the blogpost? A good pencil is like a dog, always loyal and a constant presence. The biggest problem with pencils is that they lay unused. It’s hard not to draw when you have something that belongs in your hand.
Coming Soon: the perfect sketchbook
Have something to say about this post? Contact me.This kind of sucks but I like it
On newsprint (bleh) with 4b and 6b pencils. There’s an art joke here about artichokes, but I’m too tired. Twelve hour school days do that to you.
Have something to say about this post? Contact me.Breathe in. Breathe out. Draw.
The second one is a dog fetus. Clearly.
Elephantfly
This is something old, I forgot to post it when I made it.
