Scribe

Sadly, I can't figure out where to put my beer.

Hey.

Hello.

Everything you need to make a well appointed workspace.

Apparently I did have a pen pal send me a lovely coaster that she made out of felt. It's really cute and it's from Japan. It's very cool. So I don't have a cup holder, but I do have a coaster.

Tonight I am drinking Boulevard. It's our local brewery. They're Backroads edition Hibiscus Ghosts, which is a very sour beer. Most people think it's disgusting, but I love it. And I literally like bought like three or four six packs in the summer so that I could make it last.

I really like. This one's really good. Everybody in my. Like it's. It's the one beer nobody else touches. So if I put it in the fridge, it will stay there until I drink it. But. And I am writing with my favorite new pencil, the Koh I Noor magic pencil.

Yes, it does.

Yes. And I have. I bought a box of a dozen and I have three left. Guess who gets them?

And I actually wondered. I actually wondered if they made the magic eraser colored like that to match the pencils, even though they don't erase very well.

Yay.

Cool.

I do not. I don't subscribe, as it were. Yeah, it's.

I don't have much to offer except that today, in honor of the erasable podcast. I was wearing my. My favorite bracelet, which is. Has three pencil charms on it. It came from Fossil, and for the podcast I had to take it off. Otherwise I jingle. It's really distracting. I had to do the same thing when we did the. The Pen Addict podcast in Atlanta. I don't know if anybody watched the video, but sitting next to me on the table is a pile of my bangle bracelets. I had to take them off because I made so much noise.

You really don't have to.

You know, I think I do. I'll have to pull it out of Instagram can dig it up for you. Oh, and I did include a link. Fossil still sells the charms, so if anybody is interested in them. I put the link in our notes. But they also have one they came out with this year that's instead of being. They're like colored enamel. So it's a red, a yellow, and a blue pencil. But they now have them also in white, gold, rose gold, and silver. So they're really pretty.

They really make really nice charms. If you know anybody who likes that kind of thing.

Tangled each.

It's tarnished.

So.

I do. I do. And actually, I was gonna ask. Johnny, have you posted any pictures of your tattoos? I would like to see them.

Okay.

Whoops.

That sounds kind of like the artist's china. Markers are used. A lot of people use them to write on glass, rubber, plastic, wood. I didn't know they actually now marketed them directly to the lumber industry.

That's so exciting.

I am not. I didn't realize I could become a member.

At some point, people are going to have to be able to start calling in with questions, right?

I'm going to photobomb that picture.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yay.

I did just look at the website and they are sold out. The Blackwing website. So unless your favorite retailer is still carrying them, the window of opportunity on these are closed.

And jet pens, either. Wow.

I have them.

That I do have a subscription to.

You guys are touching my inner Girl Scout. I feel like now I'm going to have to hunt down a pack of two 11's yeah, they're out there.

I might take you up on that.

Did we?

My husband says that had the first edition been after a grudge and not a Gibson, we would have had to buy several boxes. Yeah, he's a Grutch player, not a Gibson player.

Gretsch is the type of guitar it's. I mean, they do still have some of the same kind of coloring variation, but his Grutch is more of an orange. It's less red. So. But it's a guitar that Brian Setzer plays. So it's a big hollow body. Oh, yeah. Much larger guitar, but has beautiful sound.

The.

Yeah.

Sure. Yeah. I'm like, everything that I do, I dive in totally headfirst. And to clarify, my job requires that I actually put some of these tools to use. I work as a graphic designer. I do a lot of sketching, drawing, that kind of thing. And lately I've been taking some classes to sort of improve my overall skills, which led me to want to buy even more. And my favorite thing to buy has been colored pencils. But I've learned a lot about different types. So I'll start by saying that there's two types of colored pencils, what we think of as traditional colored pencils, which are just the either wax or oil based colored pencils. And then there's the water soluble or watercolor pencils, which when wetted with a brush, a paintbrush or a water brush will turn into watercolor. So there's those two categories. You have your traditional pencils and then the watercolor pencils. And so I'll talk first about regular colored pencils, which is probably what most people would probably want to start out with maybe. Although you know, if you don't apply water to them, watercolor pencils can work just like regular colored pencil.

But for most colored, like for colored pencils in general, they come in three grades. And it's not all that dissimilar from graphite pencils in that they're sort of kid grade pencils. Colored pencils, sort of a mid grade, which in colored pencils they sort of refer to as like a student grade. So usually they're talking about any age where they stop putting them in their mouth to when they can actually afford to buy good ones. So sort of that mid price range. And then there's the artist quality colored pencils, which part of why they're artist grade is because sometimes they contain pigments that are made up of things like cobalt and things like that that you would not want children to put in their mouth because it's not particularly safe and the state of California doesn't. But if you're just using like an indelible pencil. Yeah, exactly. It will live with you forever. But, and to go back to kid grade, the big thing with kid grade pencils is that they're non toxic. So like your, everybody's heard of Crayola colored pencils and no, I'm not plugging the firm. Okay, a little bit.

But, and they're good quality. But with kid grade colored pencils, partially because they're non toxic, the colors tend to not be quite as rich and colorful. They tend to be a little bit harder because obviously kids are going to push harder on a pencil and break the lead. So they make kids pencils a little bit harder so that they can't break the lead. But part of that means it's harder to get the color out. When you get up to student grade, the pencils are built more like they build them at the artist level but with less pigment and more binder just to make them cheaper. So really that's the sort of exchange there. And then artist grade pencils are full rich pigment quality binders. You know, they're more blendable, they're more, they're softer. The color is easier to apply. If I were, if I were going to potentially buy somebody, an adult coloring book and get them something to use to color with. I would probably go straight to the artist grade. While they are a little bit more expensive, we know with pencils you kind of get what you pay for sometimes.

And the other thing with colored pencils is there's a light fastness issue. So.

It means if you leave them out in the light, they have the potential to fade. And so the kid grade non toxic ones are probably, they have no light fastness rating. They're more concerned with making sure that it's not going to harm your children than whether or not it will survive, you know, to their adulthood. You know, when you hang it on the refrigerator and it fades over time. It just does. They don't have very good light fastness. And the manufacturers, that's not their main concern. Student grade, also not a big concern with light fastness. That's really for people who are learning to draw, learning to sketch, coloring, that kind of thing. So they make no promises about light fast quality. When you get to the artist grade, they at least say they're light fast. And a couple of the brands are going to be more specific about it. So I'm going to talk about. Now that I've sort of cleared that up, I'm going to talk about my three favorite brands, which I refer to as the Peas, Prismacolors, Polychromos and Pablo's Prismacolor. Probably most people have heard of Prismacolors. They're probably most ubiquitous. If you've been in an art supply store anywhere in the United States, they're gonna have a big display with all the little pencils and all the little cubbies and it's like Mecca to me. I see them and I'm like, oh, I'm sure there's colors I don't have yet. But they're also the. For an artist grade pencil, they're the most reasonably priced. They're usually about A$125 a pencil and you can find them on Amazon and places like that in sets for probably a little bit better price. But for the most part, like a

Yep, that sounds about right. And then but Prismacolors, they say they're light fast, but they, if anybody who's gone to look at their site for like the very detailed lightfastness rating, the same way that you guys look for FSC strip light, when you start getting into artist grade colored pencils, you want to know how light fast are these? Can I do a piece of artwork and hang it on the wall? And will it still be the same color that I drew it in a year's time or 10 years time? And Prismacolor does not guarantee their light fastness. But if you're using them for sketchbooks, coloring those types of things, it's not a big. I wouldn't say it's a big deal because those tend to be closed, they're not exposed to light, or if you scan them in or photograph them so that you have it sort of in its original form. Prismacolors are great because they blend really nicely. So you can take two different colors and sort of rub them together and get the color to sort of blend into. It almost looks painterly. It's very cool. Polychromos. Those are from Faber Castell. And the difference between the Prismacolors and the polychromos. Prismacolors are wax based, and polychromos are oil based. They use like a soybean oil as their binder, so they. They blend a little bit differently. Most people say you can use them interchangeably and it's not a big deal. You can.

I find that the polychromos are a little smudgier. Like the heat from my hands tend to kind of make the pigment spread a little bit more than they do with Prismacolors. I really got to lean into it to get Prismacolors to sort of smear. So I have, like a little bit bigger window when you're drawing. I think with Prismacolors now people have issues. With Prismacolors, quality control is not as good as it used to be. Their pencils used to be made in the US Then they were made in Mexico. Now they're made in China.

Absolutely. The cores aren't always centered, which is why my feeling with Prismacolors is always buy them open stock from your local art supply store because you can pick each pencil up and look and see if the cores are centered. The other thing is, if you drop a Prismacolor, the lead inside usually completely shatters.

There's instructions on the Internet where you can actually, like, put them on a baking sheet and stick them in the oven and they'll kind of bind back together. I haven't at a dollar a piece. If I shatter one, I'll sharpen it until I can get it to work for a little while, and then I'm like I can go buy another one for a dollar. It's not gonna kill me. Somebody put one in a microwave and it has foil lettering on the side. So you know, that didn't turn out well. But a lot of people love the Faber Castell polychromos and I think if you're in Europe, they're a lot easier to come by. Derwent makes a similar, a couple similar pencils as well. They do their artists Derwent artist grade pencils. And then that I think are pretty competitive with polychromos. And then Derwent also makes their color soft, which are supposed to be direct competitors to the Prismacolors because Prismacolors are so soft. That's like the big. That's why people love them.

Harry on the group just mentioned that the polychromos are pricey. They're about A$75 a pencil, so it's definitely a bump in price. But then get into the Caran d' Ache Pablos and just the fact that I said Caran d', Ache, you know, they're going to be more expensive.

Oh wait, I haven't even gotten to the best ones yet. But about that polychromos, they do actually have light fastness ratings on the pencils themselves. So on the side of the pencil in the foil stamping they're. There will be stars to indicate the light fastness. And so if they have three stars, they're light fast to 100 years. Two stars is pretty good. Lightfastness probably. As long as you want to have your drawing on the wall, one is probably okay for your kids art kind of thing. No stars. Obviously it's not very light fast, but at least you know, does the lightness

It has a bit to do with the color, but it also I think has to do. Yeah, mostly with the pigments that are used for the color. Some colors are more light fast than others. You know, if you've ever erase. A pale blue is way easier to erase than like a dark red.

So I mentioned the Caran d' Ache Pablo is also beautiful. Also claimed to be lightfast, but I was having trouble finding real ratings for their lightfastness. So I kind of moved from Premier's to polychromos. But I haven't braved going to Pablo's. Although I know people who have Them say they're worth every penny, but I couldn't find specific lightfastness ratings, so I kind of haven't quite ventured into that. And part of it is also Caran d' Ache has a higher grade pencil than the Pablo's called Luminance. And it's, they're, they're beautiful pencils too. Absolutely stunning. The Luminance are all light fast. They're only about 75 or 80 colors available in the Luminance line. They are all light fast. They're supposed to be absolutely magnificent to use, but at 3.75 to $5 a pencil, I haven't quite braved them yet.

Yes. To get the full, to get the full set. And one of the things is all of these companies offer, like if you want every single pencil in their color line, you can get them in those big beautiful wooden boxes that open up and have the shelves in them and everything. And I want to say the Luminance ones for all 76 or 80 colors is like $400. And that's like the discounted price from Dick Blick. Yeah, that's like the discount price. But yeah, absolutely. I mean people who've bought them are like, they're, they're worth it. And that's like I have one of the Caran d' Ache, one of their Swisswood pencils. And I get it, like they make some really nice pencils.

Absolutely. And again, it all goes back to sort of what are you going to be using them for? Or what do you. What kind of things? Because again with one of the things is like artist grade pencils. Almost all of them are available somewhere individually, like open stock. So you don't have to buy a box of 12 or a box of 24 or all 162 colors. If you want to just get five or six just to try them out and make, you know, a 10 or $20 investment just to experiment. You totally can. So. But yeah, and part of that is also if you decide that you really like them and you use up the lime green pencil, you can just go buy one lime green pencil. You don't have to buy a whole set just for Example, just for example, I'm just picking a color out of the air. But there are a lot of other brands of pencils. These are probably the most commonly available in the United States that are artist grade. Like Dick Blick has their own house brand that is supposed to be fairly competitive to the prism colors, but are a little bit cheaper. I use them. They're okay. They're not my favorite, but I mean if for just coloring and that kind of thing, I think they'd be excellent. If you're doing a lot of sketching and drawing and you really want to sort of blend the colors, they may not be the best option. But they're. They're probably 75 cents a pencil, maybe even 50 cents, much cheaper. But there's like. I've experimented with a bunch of other brands like Brunziel Design pencils that come out of Holland, I think, which are pretty good. Very comparable to Prismacolors. But there's like, like pencils, there's so many brands and everybody does them a little bit differently. Really what you're looking for with colored pencils is like, do they stay safe and non toxic? Great. If you're using them with your kids, go for those. If you're looking for something with richer, deeper color, you do have to pay a little bit more money for them. But look for the ones that say artists. You know, the ones that say things like Student Academy, Scholar, any names like that that sound academic. Those are probably their student grades and maybe not their high end. And most brands kind of hit all three markets. So anyway, so that's regular colored pencils. I can talk about watercolor pencils too if you want.

You can like, like premieres are super. The Prismacolor premieres are pretty soft and they do actually sell a pencil sharpener that goes with it. And I'm pretty sure that in it is a cum blade anyway. But I find that it works really well. And as long as that blade hasn't dulled, I'm gonna keep using that one. But a lot of people have mixed feelings about putting colored pencils in like automatic pencil sharpeners or even like, like this, the crank sharpeners, that usually a hand sharpener is the best option. Just because you have a little bit more control, you can not sharpen it quite as sharp. There Are some like Prismacolor makes a lot called very thins that are much harder lead specifically for like fine detail adding, you know, they don't dull as quickly as the Prismacolors which get very soft and mushy really quickly. It's, it's. They're almost crayons. But they're so fun to use because they, the color really comes, comes off the pencil easily.

Well, and you'll chew up the pencil, you'll come out and an inch and a half left of your pencil and be like, oops, there goes a dollar.

Okay. Watercolor pencils again come in the same three grades. You can get kid grade, student grade and professional or artist grade. They Caran d' Ache's like high end are called super colors Supra like the car Supracolor and Faber castells are called Albrecht Durers. And they're the only ones that really sort of changed their name. So if you were looking for them online and the prices for watercolor pencils are just a little bit higher than for regular pencil colored pencils in the artist grade, they're about $0.50 more per pencil until you get into Caran d' Ache's high end which are again 355 bucks a pop. They're called museum Aquarelles. They're black, black wood with like dip painted ends. They're so pretty. I don't have any of those. I do go and like them though.

I don't know where the Swiss get all their money that they can afford these supplies. So. But yeah, so like at the kid grade they general makes a Kimberly watercolor pencil that are non toxic, safe for kids. Prang Sargent Reeves. It's like all the brands that you see at, you know, Michael's or at, you know, places like that that would carry sort of kids art supplies. Most art supply stores will carry them to like your, you know, your professional grade. Art supply stores will usually have a section that will have their kids grade materials. It's student grades. Statler makes a triangular that same like the Statler triangular pen like style that are watercolor based which are fun if you don't want them to roll off the table.

And Prismacolor, this is the one place where like I'm not the biggest fan of Prismacolor watercolor pencils because as much as a natural finish on a graphite Pencil is beautiful. On a colored pencil, it's a pain in the butt because if all your pencils are natural finish, you can't tell which one's the blue one.

Yeah. Really. So it's the one reason I think people are not as. That's not as popular is they're really hard to use because it's so hard to pick the right color. All the other brands at least dip the entire end of the pencil in a color. And in the case of the Caran d' Ache super color and the Faber Castell Albrecht Duress, the whole pencil is lacquered in a matching color, which make them easy to use.

Probably. I think one of the. At one point I put up a video of the. Of like all these different products being made, and one of them were colored pencils. And I think they actually went to Caran d'. Ache. I think that's who showed them, like some of the pencil process. Making process, because I kept trying to read the labels and see them because they were doing a lot of, I think, like unbranded pencils. So you, you know, or like white labeled. But at one point I saw like, the packaging. I'm like, I'm pretty sure those are super colors. But I'll try to find the video and. And put the link up.

Yes. Yeah, it was one of those days when you went down the YouTube rabbit hole.

Yeah, well, it's fascinating. I mean, to anybody. Even if pencils aren't your passion, seeing how they're made is so interesting because it's something not many people stop to think about. Hey, how are pencils made?

kind of videos, but yeah, so watercolor pencils are really fun. You can use them with just like a water brush so you can color with them for a while and then add the water brush and it'll just help the color all merge and smear and look like watercolor. So you look like you have a lot of control with watercolor, which is something that a lot of people don't experiment with watercolor because it's the medium kind of. It does its own thing a lot of times. So being able to just color something in and then add the water to it and it turns into watercolor is kind of magical. It's kind of really cool. So I have. Oh, go ahead, go on. Sorry. I was gonna say I have one other category of types of colored pencils which I refer to as the weirdos, which I can talk about, which are kind of not related directly to colored pencils in general. They're kind of color based pencils that sort of do other things, if you guys are curious.

So one of the first ones I mentioned was the Koh I Noor magic pencils, which are multicolored lead or cores. They basically have red, yellow and blue chips that are mixed in to make colors.

I have no idea how they make them and I'm fascinated to find out. And I did get one from another shop, think from. Is it called Stubby Pencil? Studio sent me one at one point that was seven colors. So it was like the full rainbow.

And it's so fun to use. It's so pretty. And I've had a lot of fun drawing with it because I've sort of figured out as I'm drawing, I can kind of turn the pencil and get different values. So yellow for the lighter, the, you know, orangey to get a little darker. So they're really fun. And I have been completely smooth with all things magic pencil. I have so many now. I still have reviews to do. They did a series called Tritones, which each one has three color variations in it. It's like yellow, orange, red. And so as you use it, you can get different tones of red and orange just by turning the pencil or just by rubbing. It'll kind of come out differently, but it's like a box of like 12 or 13 colors. And you know, there's a blue one that has three different shades of blue, a purple one with three different shades of purple. Absolutely love them. So I have a set of like, they're regular tritone pencils. And then I have the kind that are the big triangular ones and the big triangular ones in my kitchen. Because while my husband and I don't actually use like adult comic books, we'll just doodle at the kitchen table. And having this jar of colored pencils just makes us happy. So they never left the kitchen table. I've been meaning to do a review of them and I'm like, well, but I have to take them off the kitchen table. They're in a jar on the table.

Okay, my favorite weirdo pencils are called Derwent Inktense. Inktense. I know, it's totally, it's totally like some marketing guy was like, I have the name for these. They're gonna be called Inktense. But despite the goofball name, they also have graph tints. And I'll talk about those in a second. But the Inktense pencils, they look like regular colored pencils. Like, and they, you know, like water soluble colored pencil. Except when you get these wet, the material that they use for them is an ink base, not a pigment base. So once they're wetted and dry, they're permanent. They don't go anywhere.

Yeah, it's a very much like a delible pencils. But the Derwent is the only company I know that has actually done this in a bunch of different colors. So they don't have a full range. There's maybe, I'd guess there's maybe 24 colors that you can get. But they're great if you're doing like multimedia art because you can lay down color, apply a brush to them and then let it dry. And then you can draw over it with other colored pencils, with watercolor pencils. And the color that you have down originally is not going to move. So if you add more water, it's not going to change. With watercolor pencils, regular watercolor pencils, if you add more water, the color will liquefy again and get all. It'll continue to smear and smudge. So it's really good. The ink tents are great for a layering in artwork, for, you know, multimedia artwork, that kind of thing. They're so much fun. But in the graph tint is the same. Derwent's graph tint is the same idea except it's a graphite base with this sort of ink pigment kind of stuff mixed in. So the colors are a little bit more muted, a little more tonal because of the graphite. So it's, it makes just beautiful colors. They're really rich, like Burgundies and navy blues. Really deep colors, because when you apply water to them, again, they'll liquefy, but they'll be permanent when they dry. So.

Super, super cool.

Yeah, they are kind of magic. But with both the inktense and the graph tent, I go and buy, like, two or three at a time. Like, pick your favorite colors. I like blue and purple and orange, and you could get a couple, play with them for a while, and the next time you're passing the art supply store, you buy two or three more, and you sort of slowly build your collection. So

And sometimes it's fun to just start with the colors you really like, because, you know, when you buy those boxes and they have all those, like, you know, a whole section of, like, brown and beige, and you're like, I wanted to color with the rainbow. I don't want the natural colors or vice versa. You know, you just want. Just buy the. Go get all of the. The colors that you like. Start with those. And then when you're like, you know, I really needed a yellow, you know, hop out and get a couple of the yellows and oranges and add those to your collection. Sort of build it slowly. Okay, I have two more. One more which is the. The Stabilo all pencil, which is. It only comes in about three or four colors. You can get black, you can get white. They have, like, green, red, maybe a couple other colors. And they do one that's the graphite base. But these are similar to, like, the china markers and the lumber crayons you were talking about, that they're kind of waxy, and you can kind of write on anything with them. But they're also water soluble. So a lot of artists will use them sort of as a base layer in artwork to sort of sketch out the line work. And then because they're water soluble, they can either blend them into their artwork or they'll create this really cool sort of gray wash effect, which is kind of cool, or red wash or whatever color you pick. But a lot of people use the. Either black or the graphite one, because you can draw over acrylic paint. You can draw over. You can draw on glass. I mean, they're just kind of fun, but they're just funky and weird and it's. You know, talking about colored pencils sort of leads into all the different ways people use them. And it's like, for me, the first time I really noticed, like either china markers or like a Stabilo all is at like thrift stores when you buy like secondhand coffee mugs. And they always write the number on the bottom like this one's 49 cents. They usually use a china marker to do that.

Yeah, yeah. Which is why they never come off, because china markers are super waxy. If they used a Stabilo, you could just wash it off. Be so much easier.

Yeah, that's a china marker. I've heard them called grease pencils. They're not as greasy as they used to be. They're more of a waxy quality. I think probably 50 years ago they were more greasy and would kind of, if sat for a while, they would kind of leave a grease ring. The newer ones are more wax based and I think are less likely to do that.

So. Wow.

Oh, God. I've been collecting colored pencils since I was in college because I went to art school and then. And that's part of going to art school. I mean, because honestly, like, I get excited because I still have Prismacolors that are Eagle brand. And you know, when, you know, Prismacolor's been passed around to a lot of different manufacturers over the years, so, like having them for decades. But I use them for sketching. I use them for note taking, for point of reference, like the way that other people would use a highlighter. I tend to grab a colored pencil to do that sort of same work. But. And I. And I have been doing sort of my own, keeping my own sketchbook. And so colored pencils are a big part of that. I have one of those Kipling hundred pen cases that I just have full of colored pencils that I take with me kind of everywhere. It's so sad because I have an entire collection of colored pencils at work and I have the ones that you saw in the photograph, which are at home.

Mm, yeah. Like you'll see like those types of things like the really, really skinny ones.

The little tiny like little mini packs and stuff like that they sell at places like I've seen them at like Barnes and Noble and stuff that they'll put into like a CD case if people, if, if people are old enough to remember CD cases and those are probably more of a kid grade non toxic. They're usually, I mean if they sell them like that, they're either kid grade or you know, because they're kind of hard to hold. They're cool and they're cute and they're absolutely adorable. But more than about a minute with them and I'd be like, okay, somebody give me a pencil that's a real pencil diameter.

I really like the one that's the Prismacolor and I'm trying to figure out where I put it so I can actually read. It's shaped, it's the sort of bullet shaped one. That's the sound of my Kipling 100 case being opened. Yeah, it's like the bullet shaped, it's a portable one and I'm pretty sure this is a cumin here. Let me see. Yep. So it's just it. And it may have been modified specifically to create a blunter point. But with most colored pencils if you sharpen them too sharp, the ends will tend to break off and you have to sharpen it again. So especially the softer artist grade, the student and kid grade are less, less prone to breakage.

But yeah, I wouldn't, I would use, definitely use hand sharpeners. I wouldn't use electric sharpeners or big chompy ones.

Yep.

And actually Jack just mentioned the very thins are good for writing and they are a lot of like architects will use like very thins for sketches and sort of the, the base layer before they ink something for like back when they, they were still like drawing their, their, their layouts and stuff. But yeah, the very thins are much harder. And those. Those could probably be sharpened in an electric sharpener or something like that. And Dan From Keras customs, Mr. Design concussion did mention the col erase, which are also pretty good for writing and note taking, that kind of thing. Col erase are also from Prismacolor. And while they claim they are col erase, you know, your. Your mileage may vary, but I can't get them to the face worth a darn.

No, they really. No, they're. Colored pencils are not good for erasing. A lot of people will use the. What they refer to as either non repro blue, if you're looking for one that's really light to sort of put down as a base layer before you do something else. They Non repro means it's. It won't photograph. So if you were to put non repro blue sketch on a regular photocopier, it will come out blank. So a lot of people use that to put a base layer down. Like cartoonists and illustrators will use that before they ink a drawing. And those are a little bit easier to erase.

Somebody asked again about the best eraser for colored pencils, and my suggestion is gesso, which is a type of acrylic medium that you can put down on paper or canvas or board or whatever before you are to do a drawing or anything. And most gessoed surfaces erase a lot better. You can even erase Prismacolor pretty good. And gesso also sort of doubles as whiteout. If you really want to get rid of something, you can just paint it in with gesso.

You mean like red blue pencils? I feel like that's a whole separate episode.

I haven't. I haven't invested in. Oh, I have the. I don't have the color versions that she did. I do have the profetos, which, when you can get them to sharpen, have a wonderful, smooth, creamy red pigment on one end and then a graphite on the other, which is so much fun. But I literally sharpened one down to end up because I don't know if they shattered in transportation or. You know, I. I've seen what my postman does with my packages.

Yeah, it really is. I do have the caran d' ache red blue pencil and I've been meaning to do a review of it. Oh, that one's yummy. I forget what it's called and I, I have no idea. My husband came in the studio before I started the podcast and he's like, oh, it's the well appointed Mess. And I'm like, shut up and go away. My desk is absolutely covered with stuff I have to review. So somewhere in here is that red blue pencil. I just don't know where.

Yes. I'm so embarrassed about it. I'm gonna have a before before, after and like have the studio like perfect and you know, do one of those photo shoots where everyone's like, that's no one's real office. Yes, it is mine. Three minutes.

I know with Prismacolor it's supposed to still be true. I have not actually tested the theory, although I do. I have a couple col erase that I use regularly. I don't have like a full set of col erase. I use like, I have a non repro blue. I have a pale peach color and I think I have like a navy blue or something. I just use a few of them which are good for, for sketching and stuff. And I. They blend in really nicely with the other colors. But I haven't done like a side by side comparison. But I'm pretty sure if they claim that it's true. It probably is. They're. They're probably, probably fairly close. Should you. But again, the Prismacolor premiere, There's probably almost 200 colors in the line. With the very thins, there's maybe 36. The Col Eraser, maybe they're down to like 24 colors. Like in my art supply shop at work, they have like four color race. They literally keep like black, non repro blue, and a red one. Like that's it. So there's not very many.

It's actually an art supply store.

money if I'm buying supplies for work? No, I just give them my employee ID number. Yeah, it's very cool. And they do. They actually have. They have, like, the Prismacolor display with all the pencils. And it's really hard not to go in and be like, oh, I could use one more. I could use one more. And a friend of mine.

A friend of mine just took over as the manager, and she's been very excited about adding new products. So, like, she actually has, like, a new product display table out now. And one of the things they brought in was the, like, term 1917 pencil holder that you can, like, adhere to the back of a notebook. And I was like, oh, she's getting

Does it work?

I had one at some point, and somehow Amanda either gave away the notebook or managed to lose it instantly. So I've never really gotten to, like, put it to good use.

Cool. Well, I'll have to give them another go.

Sure.

If there is one, they're not going to bleed through your paper. Chances are it's pretty. I mean, they're probably not light fast, but they're. They're not. They probably won't fade as quickly as a lot of the highlighter if they're exposed to light. I find them a lot. I have a ton of highlighter pencils. If I do use a highlighter, I tend to go towards the pencils. Although I did have a thing about highlighters in general. Let's not get into it. Whole nother episode, whole nother problem. But, you know, I mean, they're just. You can leave them uncapped because they're not going to dry out. Um, so a lot of people, you know, I think highlighter pencils really got started for people who are highlighting in their Bibles, because a lot of the highlighters originally, especially on older, you know, books, had a tendency to maybe degrade the paper where a pencil is not going to do that.

so it could probably bleed through, like, five or six pages. You know.

Where'd it go? It was reaching behind me. Oh gosh. I have so many, I have so many pencils.

So many pencils.

The only thing I can think is there's something about the material, the type of paper that they use for blueprints that it's a, it's a light sensitive paper. Think about like the, like the old fax paper that came on the rolls that was like if you left it out in the light too long it would start fade like the paper would start to turn black.

Yeah, thermal paper. And I think that's the concept behind blueprint paper. My husband actually use it because in printing for old school samples, what your plate is going to look like? They call them blue light lines and it uses the same type of paper. So I'm wondering if there's something in the core of that pencil that either adheres to or changes the chemistry in that paper. That's the only thing I can think. But I'm taking a stab in the dark here.

That's really cool. We'll have to look into that. I'm, I definitely now, now I have something to hunt for. You gotta find out the answer to that. But I, but again they're probably, they probably don't make them. Do they make them in very small quantities? Because not many blueprints are made using blueprint paper anymore. They are, I think, you know, basically they just have large scale plotters and you know, inkjet printers that because it's all done digitally when they used to have to actually make copies of giant sheets of paper, they would use the blueprint machines.

I'll have to ask Bob about the, about how the blue lines work. Because I don't even think he does blue lines anymore. He does digital proofs even for letterpress. So go figure. Wow.

I wasn't a pencil of knowledge. Darn it.

So does any. Is. Is anybody who's been listening now going to go out and invest in some colored pencils?

They're a good place to start. They are a little. I mean, you gotta handle them with care. One thing I discovered with Prismacolors is if you are gonna carry them around with you to rubber band them together because twigs that are bound together don't break. You drop your bag, they're less likely break or shatter the cores.

So that's.

I bought them.

Student grade? Yeah, I sold them on the Pentict Group, literally after sampling them.

They're beautiful. They're beautiful and I really wanted to love them, but. But again, having already invested in a lot of others, I kind of bought them because I knew that they weren't very expensive. Again, a box of their 12 or 24 colors, it's about probably under a dollar a pencil. So I just took a chance. I bought both the watercolor and their regular colored pencils and just me.

But again, for what I use them for, they weren't appropriate. I think if you were doing just coloring, doodling, just kind of goofing around, they're probably. They would be a great place to start. And if you want to support products that are made more slightly more domestically, you know, from a smaller company, that would be a good place to start. But yeah, my feeling is that if you're just getting started, try either Prism, Try Prismacolors, try maybe Derwin Artist. If you can't find those, a lot of times some of the Statler colored pencils are available in like, like a big box office supply store. They'll have a small set that are a little bit better than like getting Crayolas. But to be honest, Crayola pencils are not that bad. They're pretty good. They come in a huge variety too. They have the kind that are like the plastic with just the core of color in them as well, as regular pencils. Sorry, I plugged the firm again.

Does she use them with water or does she just color with them?

Yeah, that's the sad truth about she's probably getting old enough she's not going to eat her pencils.

Yeah, that's the reason why pencils like. Where did the erasers go?

well, you know, they don't work on colored pencils anyway, so he can eat those.

Oh, I would like that very much.

They can find my blog@wellappointeddesk.com you can find me both on Instagram and Twitter as well. APPT Desk. And if you are in, I do am a member of the erasable group on Facebook, but I'm not super Facebook savvy, so try not to message me there or I will never get it. And if you do actually have a question directly for me, you can always email me. And to Andy's joke earlier, my email address is chairellappointeddesk.com

Thank you. That was my old boss's suggestion. When I got the URL, I was trying to think of what my email address should be and she's like, well, you're the chair at the desk, obviously. And I'm like, oh, that's so good. Done.

So exciting. I'm totally going to tune in.

Com. If I could just count the time