Incense Cedar 048

I was browsing links shared by others on Mastodon early this morning and I happened upon this video from WSJ that interviews the re-creators of the Blackwing pencil that was revitalized, apparently after the old equipment failed and the brand was shuttered. Give it a watch:

But then I realized that around 2012 or so Martin McClellan, a good friend and colleague of mine, showed up to work one day and we started talking about Blackwing, and I promptly went online and purchased several boxes, along with a sharpener and some other doo-dads. Good times.

I still have some of the remainders of the collection of pencils I purchased back then and I do love me some art supplies, so they’re integrated into all of the coffee mugs that I use for writing instruments. This is not very interesting, but then this morning, as I said, I happened upon this video and it’s all coming back to me.

The desire of a quality writing instrument. I have many. Mechanical pencil (leadholder) by Staedtler, fine line marker by Rotring, etc., etc. I’m an art fiend.

Then I discover that Blackwing has been releasing custom pencils and my collector meter goes off the charts, as it does. I don’t need these, but they are beautiful. Take a peek:
https://blackwing602.com/pages/what-is-volumes

Bauhaus, Golden Ratio, Bruce Lee, Basquiat, Paul McCartney, vinyl records, library pencils… at this point it is cemented into my brain that Blackwing are pencil and culture nerds. They are incensed.

Lovely stuff.

I’m going to go dig around my office for some good pencils and get to sketching this morning.