Trying out a Miquelrius notebook.
3 hours ago
Sketchblog: Sci-Fi sketches and art supplies reviews
Continuing with the next item generously supplied by Matthias from Bleistiff, we'll take a look at the Stabilo GREENcolors pencils. These pencils are manufactured in the European Union and proclaim their FSC certification on their barrels and packaging box (meaning their wood slats comes from properly managed sustainable forests). I have yet to see them at retail or any online shops based in the USA. These colored pencils stand out with their Stabilo trademarked white stripes and feature smooth color lay down. Their texture is on the soft side, so they can create intense color areas quite quickly. Found them to work well in combination with watercolor pencils. If they become more readily available stateside, they would make a fine gift choice for kids and students.| Reactions: |
This Swiss graphite pencil and Swedish mechanical pencil were included in the last sample pack from Matthias. Dave already posted a pretty thorough photo coverage and detailed description of the Bic Rondo Select 0.5 mm mechanical pencil a couple of years ago.
Thus I will simply focus on how this Ballograf writing product handled some light sketching duty. I did not like the HB leads included with it (the lead felt like it receded a bit under my normal drawing pressure and broke a few times), so I loaded it with a 4B Uni-ball Nano Dia lead that felt sturdier while smoothly producing darker marks. Its rubberized black barrel was quite comfortable and seemed to be fused to the the conical fixed sleeve, for I was unable to disassemble it to take a closer look of the clutching mechanism. The Rondo would make an elegant worthy addition to any mechanical pencil collection if you can still find it. After a quick online search for it that yielded few entries, I suspect it might have been discontinued.
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Thanks Matthias for sending me this tin with 12 Derwent Academy sketching pencils. This set is clearly marked as "Made in the UK" on both sides of the tin, but that information is not included on the pencils' imprint which is limited to a single line indicating "Derwent - Academy Sketching - and the graphite grade" (Range from 5H to 6B). Personally I would prefer to see the country of origin clearly shown on the pencil barrels themselves as was customary with vintage pencils, but I guess nowadays it might not be as practical with pencil manufacture often being more of a global affair. While making the reference chart above, I noticed that there wasn't much difference between adjacent grade swatches. Yet the light to dark trend can be clearly appreciated when the 12 sample swatches are drawn together on a single sheet of paper. I started sharpening them with the Classroom Friendly crank sharpener that yields a fairly long point. This worked well for the harder H pencils, but resulted in weak tips that crumbled easily with the softer B pencils. For the softer pencils is best to use something like a KUM wedge sharpener that produce a shorter taper with a sturdier point. This tin set of 12 sketching pencils would make a fine introduction for students and hobbyists not yet ready to invest on an artist grade graphite set.
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