Woodless Graphite Pencils
Random update concerning the site itself: As you may have noticed from my inconsistent updates over the last couple of weeks, I’m having difficulty maintaining a Monday through Friday update schedule while juggling everything else. I was thinking about this, and I realized it’ll only get worse once I throw school into the mix as well. Part of this is my own lack or organization and regimented schedule, part is my thoroughly crazy life. So while I try to get better at making more time for writing, I’m going to knock updates back to Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays only (an idea blatantly stolen from one of my favorite webcomics, XKCD). My goal is to be back to updating five days a week by January.
But now on to the fun stuff. Today I want to spread joy. Joy in the form of a pencil.
Oh, but not just any pencil. I’m talking specifically about a woodless graphite pencil. I bought a couple on impulse about a year ago while I was shopping for other art supplies, and for finished graphite drawings, they’re pretty much the only pencil I used now. I may occasionally use a harder lead for layouts, but in most instances the woodless is all I use.
To be even more specific, I like a 9B. A 9B gives you a full range of darknesses, because a woodless graphite pencil can be sharpened to a much finer point than a traditional wood pencil. This very fine point combined with a careful touch allows you to get lines as light as a 6H. And this coming from a particularly heavy-handed drawer!
The pencils I bought were Faber-Castell. I’ll admit, the purchase was partially influenced by a fierce brand loyalty I have to Faber-Castell. Their extra soft compressed charcoal turns me into a drooling happy puddle. And their drawing pencils are the smoothest leads I’ve found yet. But enough about unrelated Faber-Castell products (until they’re paying me to give endorsements).
So brand loyalty pushed me to buy my original woodless graphite pencils, but two things over the other perks drove me to buy my subsequent pencils; a sealed surface and the 9B softness. Unlike a lot of graphite sticks, these pencils are sealed on the surface except for the point. The seal is super thin, but it does the trick – no graphite hands. I tend to both relish and curse the messiness that often comes with drawing. On the one hand I wear the smudges that end up all over my face like badges of honor. On the other hand, no one likes a smudgied drawing.
The 9B softness is nice because then you really do have the total range of graphite. You don’t have the lead’s abilities holding you back. Doing some poking around, Faber-Castell is one of two brands of woodless graphite pencils I’ve found that go to 9B. Cretacolor, a brand I’m not familiar with, has 9B woodless graphite pencils for $1.21 a piece, as opposed to Faber-Castell’s $8.25 for 2. I actually only discovered this recently, so seeing as my penny pinching urges far out-weigh my brand loyalty urges, I’ll have to pick up a Cretacolor and post a follow up compare and contrast.
Other brands of woodless graphite pencils include General’s for $1.86 a pencil, Caran d’Ache for $2.99 a pencil, and Prismacolor for $1.59 a pencil.