Monday, March 9, 2009

Recent addition to my 5.6 mm Sketching Clutch Pencil collection

With a 40% off Sunday coupon, managed to pick up this nifty Art Alternatives Clutch Pencil tin set for under 5 bucks at the local Michael's. A pretty good value for a solid leadholder with a built-in sharpener, three 2B graphite leads, and kneaded eraser packaged in a convenient storage tin.
Updated shot of my current collection of large clutch sketching pencils and selection of drawing leads 6-packs: 4B and 6B graphite leads, light sepia chalks, sanguine crayons, and Nero leads. The latter two varieties are formulated with oily-waxes that provide smudge resistance and smooth lay down resulting in a cleaner sketching experience and eliminating the need for fixatives.
In this size range, most of my large leadholders and drawing leads were manufactured by Cretacolor from Austria. The last two additions, the Creative Mark and Art Alternatives models, were both manufactured in China and packaged with spare leads as value added sketching sets.

Bit of an indulgence and becoming rather hard to find these days at retail stores, the 5.6 mm clutch sketching pencil's main advantages are maintaining a constant weight and length for precise control and keeping fingers clean while quickly shading and sketching with fairly break-resistant soft drawing leads.

1 comments:

Gentian said...

I saw those at Michael's recently too. They seemed pretty neat :)