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The History of the Bullet Pencil

Bullet pencils, as the name suggests, are pencils whose casings are made from spent rifle cartridges. They originated on battlefields in the early nineteenth century, and were sold as souvenirs. .303 British rifle casings were the most commonly…
Pencil Artist Pauline Jaine Palita

Pencil Artist of the Week: Pauline Jaine Palita

This week’s featured pencil artist is Pauline Jaine Palita, a pencil artist from the Phillippines who creates “wibbly wobbly artworks” using a combination of graphite pencils, color pencils and paints.  Pauline uses Faber-Castell color…

10 Pencils That Disappeared and Why We Wish They Hadn’t

We’re no strangers to out-of-print pencils.  Many pencils have come and gone over the years – many pencils disappear for good reason.  There are, however, many great pencil models that went out-of-print before their time. (For more information…
Pencil Artist Sara Elena Meloni

Pencil Artist of the Week: Sara Elena Meloni

This week’s featured artist is Sara Elena Meloni, a pencil artist from Italy who creates realistic pencil drawings using a variety of graphite sources. In fact, according to Sarah, she uses “too much graphite,” but I think she uses just…
Bonded Lead

Obscure Pencil Terms and What They Mean

If you’ve spent time lurking through the Pencil Internet, you’ve probably come across some terms that have made you scratch your head. Like most enthusiast scenes, the pencil world is full of obscure pencil terms and jargon that can intimidate…
Pencil Artist David Belli

Pencil Artist of the Week: Davide Belli

This week’s featured artist is Davide Belli, a pencil artist, illustrator and student of comic art living in Milan, Italy. Saturday was Free Comic Book Day in the United States, so I’ve been in a comic book kind of mood lately, and Davide’s…
Nick Sickelton

Interview with Illustrator, Letterer and Art Director Nick Sickelton

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Last month, we launched our 20 Year Celebration commemorating the 20th anniversary of the founding of Pencils.com. To celebrate, we worked with former Pencil Artist of the Week Nick Sickelton to create a timeline chronicling the history of…
Pencil Artist Anna Eglantine

Pencil Artist of the Week: Anna Eglantine

This week's featured pencil artist is Anna Eglantine, a freelance artist and illustrator based in Lyon, France. Anna creates extremely detailed drawings using a variety of tools, including pencils and pens: "I like to create detailed and contrast…
Pencil Artist Twenty2High

Pencil Artist of the Week: Christy (Twenty2High)

This week’s featured pencil artist is Christy (Twenty2High), an aspiring animator from Canada who creates gorgeous pencil and ink drawings. Christy’s drawings may appear simple at first glance, but further inspection reveals drawings that…
Colonial Pencil History

American Pencil History at Sutter’s Fort

I live extremely close to Sutter’s Fort in Sacramento, California so, a few weeks back, my wife and I decided to take a walk over to the fort and brush up on our history. As we walked through it’s mud brick walls, we learned about role the…