After getting the weird bendy extruded pencils*** (by empire? eagle?) several years in a row I vowed that when I had control over my pencil purchasing power to buy better pencils. I was also older and used pens as much as I possibly could. That is a whole other story*. Anyway, I think it was 8th grade when I discovered the various colored Eberhard Faber Americans. They came in red, blue, and green. After years of messing around with crappy bendy nasty writing pencils I suddenly had pencils that sharpened and wrote well. It was a miracle to not struggle with my pencil.As I entered my second year of high school I had been reading about ecology and recycling and though of myself as a budding tree hugger. That school year I purchased my first batch of Eberhard Faber ECOwriters and  the pulpy gray recycled paper that went along with them. The paper was a dull gray had green ruling and a little recycle logo in the bottom right corner. It was terrible paper for pencils, but was great for ballpoint pen. The ECOwriters were briefly available at my local drug store (I think back then it had changed from Welby’s to Rite-Aide) and I could pick up another 12-pack anytime I wanted them. When it wasn’t back to school time they were ridiculously expensive but I always splurged. **

I used the ECOwriters for a couple of years with much happiness. I bought one of my last packages in college and thought nothing more of them, until I ran out. I had squirreled away a few packages of them, but for the majority of college I used art pencils and roller ball pens or various art pens. It wasn’t until I was teaching that I had a need to get another pack of ECOwriters. I went to my local drug store, and found nothing. On a weekend I took a trip to the far away box office store, and found nothing. I went to box stores, nada. I looked for them on and off for a few months before I happened onto another package I can’t even remember where I found them, but I remember being confused, the pencils said “ECOwriter” but it was accompanied by the brand PaperMate.***

I got them home, tore into the package for instant sadness and disappointment. The core was gritty and not smooth. Sharpening them was a painful experience. Back then I sharpened with a knife 99% of the time and that was just an awful mess. My art sharpeners, even new sharpeners left a terrible mess on the pencils. It was as if the pencil that I had loved was crumbling before my eyes. I think I left these in my classroom for kids to steal rather than use them.

Enter eBay, the flea market for champions of 90s nostalgia. A seller on eBay has lots of these beauties, true vintage Eberhard Faber ECOwriters from the 90s! I was surprised to get a package from a friend containing a baker’s dozen true EF ECOwriters, in not only  the traditional yellow but also the color version. Best early birthday gift ever! I immediately sharpened one up and used it all day. It was rad. I’ll do a full review, remember it’s colored with nostalgia.

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On the Erasable podcast group awhile ago the question was posed, “When did you first notice that there were differences among pencils?” Since I’ve had far too much caffeine than is good for me* and I can’t sleep I’m going to answer this question with 2 answers.Back here I told you about my Grandparents traveling to far away place in the US and coming back with unusual things. One of these trips went south, where my Grandparents toured a pencil making facility, what one I don’t know, but in my head I’m sure it must’ve been Musgrave.** Mostly I believe this because they went to Tennessee. This was back in the earlier to mid-eighties. With 5 grandchildren my Grandmother took it upon herself to bring back a bag of pencils. Not just ANY pencils, but misprints. My grandmother’s thriftiness is well known, and for her misprints or not, these were a good deal.

In this bag there were pencils with erasers and without. There were marbled pencils, pencils with flat paint, and shiny paint. I suspect that she purchased a gross pf pencils. It is likely that she got them for very little money, on account of her thriftiness. In this mixed bag of pencils were a few with no paint or finish at all- round wooden pencil naked and showing off their gorgeous cedar glory. My cousin chose the marbled and the “cool” pencils. When it was my turn I picked  the naked pencils and one of the few marbled my cousin turned down. Eraserless and smelling strongly of cedar I remember these pencils being a sharp contrast to the pencils that I’d gotten for school that year- they smelled good, and unlike the crappy extruded pencils they didn’t bend, the marks were darker and smooth.

After this, not any pencil would do.

There were quite a few pencils left over in the bag and my Grandmother would put a few more into her pen and pencil cup every now and then. I remember once that she was babysitting my brothers and I and we had to sit at the kitchen table to do our homework. She passed us the pencil cup we carefully chose our pencils and started to do homework. I remember putting the pencil I was using back because it was too scratchy. Then picking another with the same issue, then another. Finally, my grandmother said, “Leslie, what is the problem!?! Pick a pencil, any pencil will do! Do your homework!”

Of course there was no lip to be had so I picked a slightly less inferior pencil and did my homework. I remembered to always bring my own pencil after that.

Story will continue tomorrow

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At the beginning of the summer I made 6 recycled sign vinyl journals. I’ve been making this style of books for years, it’s my most popular handmade journal. It’s friendly to people who don’t want a leather journal, super tough and fantastic for those notes you need ot keep around. I used a similar journal for long term notes for my last 2 jobs. The notebook lasted the duration of each position and longer. I still have them. Though I don’t need the information contained within them, they stand as testimony to the toughness of this vinyl and hemp combination. They are listed in my etsy shop.I have a stack of covers I’ve got to stitch up, but I’m going to have to be careful in my choice of paper that goes inside. Stitching up the covers with cardstock inside made my hands and wrist hurt in a new painful way.  It reminded me that I’m growing older and arthritis runs in my family. After I spent a day working on those books my hand hurt for weeks afterward. When I make these in the future it will be with lighter weight paper and in limited quantities. I’ve got a stack of covers to go through.

In other news I start up school again tomorrow and I’m looking forward to my classes. I’m particularly interested in my elective, Storytelling and Healing. I suspect it’s going to be interesting. That class lasts until 9:30pm, so it had better be interesting!

I fixed up one of the many bikes I have in our garage that does not have a motor and was not in riding condition. I’m happy to report that the junky TREK 800 I bought for dirt money last year is now in riding condition and is in fact in better condition than I expected. Granted it isn’t as nice as the other old TREK we have but I won’t mind riding it to the train and leaving it parked. I also tested out the compact bike light I picked up via amazon a few months back. It’s light is even visible during the day. That’s a lot of lumens.I hope to get back to writing more than just reviews for the blog. Right now I’m in the midst of harvesting the great things from my garden, this will only continue as I get more and more tomatoes, cucumbers, pears, and other yumminess. I meant to give regular garden updates but never got around to it. So here is a gratuitous shot of some of my yummy seckle pears. So tiny, so cute, so sweet, so tasty.

I’ve been trying really hard to not turn this blog into a straight up review blog. I need to share a few of my opinions on other “things.” Right? Yeah. Sadly, I’ve been less inspired to write than I have been in the past. Maybe it’s the 20 page papers I’ve been writing in grad school or the loss of our dog, but writing isn’t somethign I’m doing. I’m thinking about posts and ideas, even writing them in my Field Notes as I consider them, but they aren’t making the leap from the analog to digital world. I’ve always gone with the roll of my moods with this blog. I’m working on a few good posts about some ideas I’ve got, I’ve got  pencil reviews queued up for months and I’m adding a few paper reviews as well as other assorted stuff.

Now that I’ve transitioned from Typepad my other stuff blog is no longer around, so I might need to figure out a new location for that info. Or maybe I’ll roll my garden and dog stuff into this blog. Speaking of which, we decided to adopt another dog. Wickett our previous dog missed Ruby a  lot, so we decided to get him a buddy. We found a lovely mixed Chuhuahua Italian Grayhound mutt who has a wonderful personality and is gentle, lively, and smart. Within 5 minutes of meeting us he was sitting in our laps.

As for my garden? I got started late, but it is starting to finally come together and look great.

I’ve been drawing on the train and as I wait for the train. I pic something that I want to focus on, hats, noses, eyes, puffy jackets, or interesting shoes. (I actually picked the car I was going to ride on today based on the number of neat hats people were wearing vs those who weren’t wearing hats on the other cars. Seriously.

Generally I don’t get any attention for my activities. I'm discreet (usually) about who I’m drawing, I try to pick people who are engrossed in their phone, book, or newspaper. I try not to stare but to look for a few moments gather some info, then look at my page, then look again gather info, and draw. Eventually I stop looking and keep working on the drawing. My goal is to get as much info on the page in a minute or two.

Most people don’t notice me. I usually wear headphones and blend in with everyone else. Over the last 2 weeks I’ve gotten more attention for my sketching habit than usual. Last week a fellow grad student (from UMass Lowell) saw me sketching as we waited for our trains. He watched me over my shoulder and we had a pleasant conversation. Another person was a little pushy and rude, wanting me to draw him and then give him the drawing. While I could tear the page out of my notebook/journal it would mess up the binding and I was a little put off that he expected that I’d want/be excited to draw him and then give him the drawing for free. Hell, he could have offered to buy me a coffee.

Today a woman, about my age, saw me drawing and came up to me and asked if she could take a picture of my sketchbook. She explained that she takes a picture of one interesting thing a day that she sees on the T. I let her take the picture and we talked about her project. She does it just for her. the images collect on her computer. She doesn’t share them. But she says she always finds at least one interesting thing on the train every ride. Truly a neat project. (we could talk about the importance of keeping a journal of some sort even if you never share a page with another person, but I think that’s a WHOLE other blog post. {and yes I consider what she does a “photo” journal.})

So far I’ve only ever had positive interactions with people about my drawings. I await a day when someone tells me to stop, while I hope that never happens I know it could.

All images are from my 3.5×5.5 in BanditApple Carnet notebook/sketchbook. It is housed in a flauxdori or Midori traveler's Style Notebook cover. I've written about it before (did a video too, but I'm too lazy/tired to link it up.) Anyway, no affiliation, but I thought it would be useful to give you the size of the page. Also the pens I used on these pages were a Parker Flow refill and a Pilot Metropolitan Fountain pen with pilot ink. I've got reviews in the works for both the inks and the pen. Lots of reviews coming  up.

One of the things I've been pondering is the following question:

"Do mandala's have to be circular?"

I keep arriving at no as an answer.

Last night on the train I did my usual relaxing automatic drawing. I started the hatching, realizing I was making 7 marks over and over again. I went with it and slapped a 7 on the head of the skull. I suspect most of you won't like the video, but the Pixies are a favorite band of mine and I must've listened to this song a million times when I was in high school.

When I got home I couldn't focus on the hatching in the background. Too distracted, too amped up by class and the presentation we had and the papers I have due.

I couldn't let it go.
This morning when I got up I was able to focus on the hatching and feel relaxed while doing it. Mindful. feeling the pen on the paper, counting to 7 over and over again. Though the Zebra Sarasa is smooth and glides across the paper I could hear it.

scritch scritch scritch

scritch scritch

scritch scritch

The sound of pen on paper is something I enjoy. I don't need music to listen to when I can hear the pen on paper.
I was able to feel the bumps of the paper through the pen as it telegraphed them to my fingers. The rubbery grip of the pen keeping the pen from slipping out of my fingers.

Slowly and carefully I filled in the 5×7 rectangle on my page.

Oh, yeah, what does this have to do with mandalas? I think that a mandala can be square. WHAT WHAT WHAT. A little research shows me that many cultures used square and rectangular shaped for their mandalas. We (Western peoples) know more about the circular mandalas from Jungian psycology and Western practicioners of the art. The circle is mor often used.