The ZehnKatzen Times: pencils

Showing posts with label pencils. Show all posts

06 August 2018

A Glance At "Pencilgraphing", a Vintage How-To-Draw Book From the Thirties

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It's evolved that one of the things I'm coming to greatly enjoy as age presents itself to me is the idea of antique and vintage art instuctionals. There have been people who want to make a living teaching the average you'n'me how to make drawing a hobby for at leastas long as there's was a Bill Alexander and even longer.

The art publication in the last missive was printed, as near as I can determine, in the mid 1960s. If that seems and antique, how about one from the Great Depression?

Pencilgraphing is the title of this slim, black hardback book I found at Powell's for a song on Saturday. It was published in 1936, by Pencilgraphing, Inc. of none other than little ol' Wenatchee, Washington, and the tagline is Makes sketching as easy as writing.

The title shows three pencils askew of each other and a chisel-shaped eraser similar to a Pink Pearl.

The title pages is handsomely laid out on the verso with an asymmetrical illustration from the author's own hand, presumably the calibre of the work one might eventually produce with diligent practice of the technique.

Like many artistic techniques, George Elgo's teaches you to reduce things you want to draw into the simple forms. In his specialized lingo, the basic shapes are measuring units. Every method maker wants thier own rubrics, and Elgo was apparently no exception.

The tools are simply enumerated: four erasers, three pencils, and a sheet of 00 sandpaper. The pencils are B, 3B, and 6B. Three of the four erasers are those wedge-shaped cap erasers that we all put on the ends of our pencils in grade school when we wore the standard erasers down, and the fourth is the larger, Pink Pearl-style erasers, which are important for their chisel-shaped ends. The drawing ground was simply specified as typing paper. So, the tools are at least accessible.

After a dead-serious couple of lessons introducing the aspiring Pencilgrapher to the basic thin strokes and how to make shading and modeling (massy) strokes, the catalyst is introduced in the use of the erasers.

The author introducing the proper use of the wedge-shaped cap eraser

The erasers are mostly used in this method as a stump or tortillion is used in graphite and pencil art - for blending graphite and modelling shade. Think of the way Bob Ross uses his palette knife to lay in the shading on the side of mountains and you'll have the basics of the idea. In the case of the large chisel eraser, this is used to 'cut' lines, produce highlights, and for blending out or removing large areas of shade as needed.

The author demonstrates use of the large chisel eraser

The sandpaper comes in when you want to do 'modeling': the 6B is scratched against it to leave graphite which can be picked up from it with the wedge-shaped eraser, which is then used to stroke graphite on the paper in the manner of a paint brush. The sandpaper also cleans off the eraser's surface and keeps the edges of the erasers keen as well as shaping the pencil point.

The combination of specialized, simplified strokes with the intentional use of the eraser as a drawing tool and the consolidation of all activity on the pencil brings everything into one functional concentrated place where you're using the pencil like a combination of pencil and blending tool and this is where the author evidently felt that sketching would be as simple as handwriting.

It has some merit. I can see some aspects of it that can be used in any drawing practice, and the dependence on the eraser as an all-purpose blending tool isn't wholly innovative but was a fresh approach to the aspiring artist coming from a layman's perspective.

25 May 2014

[art] The Legend Of The Blackwing 602

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Now, I'll start this out by saying that my jones for art supplies exists on a level second to nobody's. If I actually created as much art as I know I can with the supplies I have stocked up, I could fuel several musea for rather a few years. And I like what I like, like many aspiring self-made creators; it's hard to explain, but some things just work where other things … well, not so work. There are some tools and materials that, when I see them, my mind's all DADDY LIKE!!! and I have to use them somehow.

For writing I've always preferred pen (up until now the Pilot Precise V5 but I'm going in on my Cross Classic Century ballpoint in ways that bemuse me) because I like the tightness of the line and I love ink. The last time I used pencil for any extensive writing was during high school. And my compulsive diary-writing knows nothing but ink's unique benediction.

Still, even someone as preference-oriented as I continues to scratch my head at the religious intensity a certain pencil has inspired amongst literary, musical, and screenwriting titans. That talisman has a name: Blackwing 602.

The shape is the thing that originally gets your attention. The ferrule uniting the eraser with the wood case is unlike anything you've ever seen before. This is no Ticonderoga, you know this going in.

Above: The Palomino Blackwing.
Below: The Palomino Blackwing 602, a horse of a different color.

The ferrule flares and turns into something of a rectangle to support a uniquely-shaped (for the end of a pencil, anyway) eraser.

About two weeks ago now, when we stopped by Muse to watch Meredith Dittmar work her mojo, I noticed a new display stocked with small, elastic-band notebooks and these interesting pencils. The ad copy on the side boasted devotion from unnamed screenwriters and Pulitzer winners, opting for the appeal to unknown authority and a flavor not unlike the campaign that got the Moleskine into the mass-market consciousness about a decade or so ago.

Claiming credentials like those certainly piqued my interest. One shouldn't throw such support around in vain, so I looked into them, and the names of the people who would use them was simply stunning and as iconic as promised; Stephen Sondheim, Quincy Jones, and Vladimir Nabokov would apparently use nothing else, and John Steinbeck was quoted as exulting I have found a new kind of pencil -- the best I have ever had! upon discovering it.

The general trajectory of its history has it born in the 1930s, produced by Eberhard Faber and then by its successor Faber-Castell until 1998. In 1994, the custom machine that created the unique ferrule was discovered to be broken, and in the merciless bottom-line accounting of the time it was presumably deemed that there was no percentage in repairing it. The backstock of necessary parts lasted another four years until the pencil was discontinued entirely; despite appeals from the creative elite which doted on it, proving that prestige doesn't always win the day.

Bona-fides established, I was intrigued enough to purchase two of them … the original Palomino Blackwing redux, and the Palomino Blackwing 602. They are available by the each not only at Muse but also at I've Been Framed in not only the original and 602 versions but a third version called Blackwing Pearl.

There's an interesting sensation in picking up a wood-cased pencil after years of using anything but. I felt as back in grade school … I never knew what the year would bring but there's something about about-to-be-used school supplies that suggests possibility. Smell, sensation, feel (and taste, if you're so inclined) … there's a gestalt going on there that's powerful good.

But I was going for the practical, not the poetic. I sharpened the two pencils and got down to my favorite thing to do in the library; writing in my diary. Here's the results:

Page one.

Page 2

That was quite an experience, actually. I prefer mechanical pencils, markers, and pens precisely because you don't have to spend time sharpening them. I like the tightness of line that never lets up. So writing with a pencil you have to sharpen induces a different set of perceptions: awareness of the dulling of the tip, awareness of having to sharpen, the tactile sensation of the graphite transferring to the paper, the visual sensations of the not-always-crisp line.

As far as the quality of the graphite, they are of a decent quality; I found the writing to be smooth and really quite silk. In particular, the redux Blackwing has a very soft lead; it doesn't stand up for long under pressure, at least my pressure, and I switched over to the 602 much sooner than I anticipated. The 602, on the other hand, was a much better writer than the basic Blackwing, with a firmer lead that still marked nice and darkly. It also required a finesse I didn't use much. The iconic tagline Half The Pressure, Twice The Speed, sounds a nonsensical as it scans memorably, but once I got on the pencil's wavelength, I found a bit of truth in that; it did require less pressure to make a satisfying mark, and I was able to write a bit quicker.

The detachable, replacable
erasable.

The eraser, I found, is replaceable. Funny, no? The eraser itself, a rectangular object reminiscent of a bit of Chiclet gum, is held by a small metal clip which one inserts into that unusual ferrule. They sell extra replacement erasers; the reason I find it funny, I suppose, is because you're going to be using up that pencil. But then maybe the creators who are fans tend to use erasers faster than they use the pencil up. Seeing as one of the famous Blackwing fans was animator Chuck Jones, there's a case for that.

The Blackwing 602 was a more exultant writing experience than I thought it would be. It hasn't dissuaded me completely from my habituation to pen and ink, but it's a pencil I'd keep around for note-taking and art. The quality is high, and it's manifest. And, as a funky bit of 20th Century creative America it's, at the least, most delightful.

For further delectation, here's an article from The Hollywood Reporter that delves deeper into the legend: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/blackwing-602-why-is-hollywood-600265, and there's a whole website devoted to the pencil … The Blackwing Pages … here: http://blackwingpages.com/

If you can't get to Muse or IBF to buy some (what a shame that would be) you can, as just about everything short of the human soul these days, buy them online. $20 the box.

24 October 2012

[art] Sensazioni!: Photorealistic Pencil Portraiture by Diego Fazio

2873.(h/t Cort Webber at this Facebook post) I dare anyone to not believe this photo:

… is anything other than a photo. Looks pretty realistic. And here, I'm giving it a way a bit; this portrait, called Sensaztioni, by Italian artist Diego Fazio.

It takes some close looking. But you can get a better view if you follow this link, and views in progress here and here and here, too. Being a huge fan of the pencil to begin with this was greatly inspiring, but I did draw something myself last night at Denny's … but it was a crabby sketch of the USS Enterprise.

Well, one thing I have discovered is that I've let my drawing muscles lay fallow for far, far too long. Also I was tired then. And vexed generally; my entire life right now is kind of at sixes and sevens. But this is quite a light.

While there's no video of the work-in-progress, here's about 20 seconds (far too little!) of the drawing with the light playing about it. As the POV moves right, you can see the light reflecting on the layered graphite, a telltale visual signature that can't be mistaken.

Splendid, absolutely splendid.

10 October 2012

[art] A Hard Pencil Is Good To Find

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I love 9H pencils.

You all know what that means, don't you?

Probably not. Poor, poor people.

These are very, very hard pencils. You can drive them as nails.

Well, in balsa wood anyway.

9H pencils are the hardest you're likely to find anywhere. You can barely make a mark with them, pressing hard. Why would I want 9H pencils?

Because you can barely make a mark with them, which means they're actually very nifty for roughing in things with a very light mark which won't smear, because I'm clumsy (or awesome that way).

Actually, you can find 9H pencils … what you can't find are 9H woodless pencils, as I adore woodless pencils. For some reason pencil makers don't see any market for any woodless pencil with an H in it (unless that's HB). And that leads me, kind of awkwardly, into pencil grades, which everyone thinks are pretty much #2, which is another system altogether.

Ever wonder, if there's a #2 pencil, where's the #1?

Around the world, graphite pencils are graded from softest to hardest, along a continuum. Artists know the H-F-B system well; H is for hard, B is for black (soft lead is easy to make into a mass tone of black) and HB is right in the middle. There's another grade, 'F', which is softer than H but harder than HB, and was chiefly included so that people would go to the art supply store and go 'what's the F stand for', and the art supply store person will shrug and say 'I don't know either'.

Maybe F stands for a secret art supply industry word meaning 'get people into the stores'.

Maybe it stands for fnord. They'll never say.

But this is the scale on the H-F-B continuum:

9H … H - F - HB - B … 9B

Hard Medium Soft

Now, this system originated somewhere in England, unless it didn't.

The system schoolkids in America are most familiar with seems to contain only one grade - #2 - but it only seems that way, as President Morgan Freeman said to Cub Reporter Téa Leoni in Deep Impact. What I can seriously say is that it was developed by Conté, the man who invented the pencil, and introduced and modified to American needs by John Thoreau, who was famous for causing Henry David Thoreau's mom to become pregnant with him (what lineage, yeah?). It was Conté who figured out that varying the proportion of clay with graphite would cause differing hardnesses of the 'lead' - the more the clay, the harder the lead. And if you ever wondered where #2 falls on the pencil hardness scale, here's where (arranged as above):

#4 - #3 - #2 - #1

Hard Medium Soft

2H - H - HB - B

There are fewer grades and American pencils tend to be harder. This of course totally captures the American character: we are a simple folk and a hard one. Since there's less of a chance of inserting some arbitrarily-chosen inscrutable symbol or number (like that glyph George Harrison included on all his albums) we here in the States make it confusing by only making #2 commonly available, leaving us to wonder where all the other numbers ran off to.

In the meantime, the search for a 9H (or any H, for that matter) woodless pencil continues. We doubt much success along these lines.

And so it goes.